The creators of Rap Genius awoke on Christmas morning to find a particularly large lump of coal in their stockings, courtesy of Google.
The search engine removed the lyrics site from its search ranks as punishment for attempting to game its algorithm through a strategy known as "growth hacking." As of Friday morning, Rap Genius still did not show up in a regular Google search (screenshot below), although its Twitter account and numerous stories detailing Google's actions did.

This situation shines a light on the murky world of search engine optimization, colloquially known as "SEO" or "growth hacking," and the value of search terms like "Justin Bieber." However, more importantly, it exposes the power Google has to make or break websites that rely on search traffic.
The controversy started after web entrepreneur John Marbach published a blog post that included an email from Rap Genius cofounder Mahbod Moghadam with instructions to place links to Bieber lyrics from Rap Genius in an upcoming post, regardless of the content of his work. Hyperlinks are crucial to Google's search algorithm and a cornerstone of basic SEO.
As Marbach explains, Bieber is a popular person to search on the Internet, especially with a new album (and thus new song lyrics). A post that includes some of the Rap Genius links will appear to Google's search algorithm as a great page to direct Beliebers, boosting the post's traffic and Rap Genius pages in Google's rankings.
The blog post was widely disseminated and stirred up criticism about whether Rap Genius's strategy had violated Google's webmaster guidelines, which prohibit the inclusion of hyperlinks for the sole purpose of improving search engine rankings. Google took notice and the site and removed it from its search. Rap Genius still shows up on Bing and www.rapgenius.com still loads. It just doesn't show up on Google.
Rap Genius posted a response on its blog, admitting wrongdoing and explaining its strategy. The site also pointed out that practice has become somewhat common for lyrics sites.
"We effed up, other lyrics sites are almost definitely doing worse stuff, and we’ll stop. We’d love for Google to take a closer look at the whole lyrics search landscape and see whether it can make changes that would improve lyric search results."
However the damage was done. Google removed the site from its search results. That sent Rap Genius traffic plummeting, as Digg's David Weiner shows:
So this is what happens when Google knocks you down a peg or two https://t.co/xGfYbrbvkd (h/t someone on Hacker News) pic.twitter.com/dSvdkGWMZm
— David Weiner (@daweiner) December 26, 2013
That is the kind of power Google wields. But with great power comes great responsibility, and even greater government scrutiny. Google has been the subject of a Federal probe about how its search rankings work and whether the company has unfairly favored some sites over others. Rap Genius is currently a free site with no advertisements, although it received a detailed post by online marketing agency Nenad SEO that highlights how some big spenders employ bloggers to embed high-value links into posts.
Marbach later tweeted that he did not intend to target Rap Genius, but rather looked to expose a practice that has become common among websites seeking to Google search traffic:
fyi - i had no intention to seriously harm @RapGenius in my post yesterday. hopefully it will bring light to the shady crap happening in SEO
— John Marbach (@jmarbach) December 24, 2013
Rap Genius did not immediately respond to our request for comment but has reportedly been in talks with Google to return to its search ranks, which should render this situation a historical footnote. However, other sites that pursue growth hacking strategies have been duly warned: Google giveth, and Google can taketh away.
Image: Briach Ach/Getty Images