Rap Genius gets back to Google's page one after sincere apology

Google is not a force to be messed with in the wide world of the web, and lyric site Rap Genius must be considering itself lucky that its punishment for violation of the search giant's regulations was a short one. Google allowed the site to return to page one search results over the weekend.

John Marbach, a writer for SearchEngineLand.com, called out Rap Genius for reaching out to amateur bloggers to carry out a "link scheme" in order to build its hits. The site would advertise to bloggers that if they included links to rapgenius.com that included Justin Bieber lyrics, Rap Genius would in turn tweet a link to that blogger's site. The blogger would inevitably see a rise in visits thanks to the tweet, and Bieber's popularity would lead those viewers to follow the links to Rap Genius.

The problem was Google forbids such schemes, and used Rap Genius as a poster boy when it found out. The search engine moved the lyrics site to at least page two for all searches, a move that demonstrated its crippling impact within a day of taking effect. Rap Genius received 1.5 million hits on Christmas day, before dropping to 300,000...an 80 percent drop off. Rap Genius and its success had recently drawn a $15 million investment from venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, which wouldn't have paid off with second-page results, apparently.

Rap Genius and its founders were forthright in its apologies however, admitting that they "effed up" and promising to end the questionable behavior, which apparently struck a chord with Google. The search engine didn't release a statement on the restoration of Rap Genius's page-one status, but sure enough, it's back at the top of the page.