A Fast Company story on October 3rd profiling Giphy, the popular GIF search engine, ended off with the cofounder and CEO of Giphy, Alex Chung saying "Yeah, we own happy birthday now [on Google]." Then on October 4th, Giphy got hit and they are now on page two for the search term, [happy birthday].
Here is that snippet at the end of the article:
“Forget that,” Leibsohn replies. “You search ‘Happy birthday,’ we’re No. 1.” (This is true!)“Yeah, we own happy birthday now,” Chung says.
If you can’t make money from owning happy birthday, well, there are 1,716 GIFs tagged “face palm” to send Chung and Leibsohn.
Do you think Google smacked them because of the article?
Here is Glenn Gabe showing how they got hit in search the day after the story:
The kiss of death: When Giphy brags in an article about "owning keywords", including #1 for "happy birthday". Then it gets hammered on 10/4. pic.twitter.com/r1cnw33sd3
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 9, 2017
Is it because of their Google bragging?
The most ironic part is the article was published on 10/4, the exact day Google hammered them. Wow, NEVER brag about rankings. Ever. https://t.co/wfyjP9hYo5
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) October 9, 2017
Maybe but I doubt it.
What do you think? If you have good rankings in Google, don't brag about it or buy out billboards?
Forum discussion at Twitter.
