Comments on: LA Times Columnist Calls Out Yelp for ‘Suppressing’ Reviews

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By: maxwell_street

maxwell_street — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 15:48:46 +0000

Whether or not Yelp is manipulating reviews (and a recent court decision says they can, legally), the problem still remains that so many reviews are fake. It doesn’t matter if they’re positive or negative.

I own a food truck, and we started using a private feedback system (OwnerListens), so we get most of the customer comments to us, and we can respond to them before people go online. It helps our customer service and Yelp reviews.

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By: B. Hoffmann

B. Hoffmann — Fri, 16 Aug 2013 20:04:16 +0000

What many fail to realize about Yelp is how it uses it’s review filter to control the flow of business to those that pay for advertising as well.

This is how Yelp manipulates their paid advertisers in the service industry with it’s corrupt review filter:

We own a plumbing company and Yelp is somewhat new to our area, it started ranking high on the local SERPS maybe two years ago and subsequently people started to participate. One of my customers added me to the site and wrote a 5 star review and soon after I began to see more and more calls coming from Yelp. Before long a sales rep was calling and after a couple months of constant pestering I finally agreed to a 6 month contract. I slowly began to pick up a few reviews here and there but I noticed that they would filter literally half of my reviews, all of them 5 star. At this time I had no negative reviews but I started to realize the reason they were filtering these positive reviews; they were essentially keep me from pulling too far away from the rest of the pack (my competitors on Yelp who hadn’t signed an advertising contract yet.) The reason for this is simple; they need a certain percentage of calls going to those new potential paid advertisers and if one business is gobbling up the lion’s share of the calls for that particular category then the others will see minimal results from the site and are less likely to buy advertising. It’s one layer of control that Yelp can use to manipulate where the calls go.

Here is another layer of control that Yelp uses against it’s customers:

About 6 months ago a couple things changed, there were two other companies with paid advertising and suddenly I got a bad review. The review was legitimate, meaning it was a real person but it was his first and only review on the site and it stuck without getting filtered. What this gives Yelp is another layer of control because they can move his 1 star review to the top of the page if I’m getting too many hits or move it to the bottom if I’m getting so few that I’m prepared to pull my advertising dollars.

Yelp sets up not only their review filter but also the order of the reviews to control how many calls a business can get. One businesses reputation is partiality sacrificed to raise their advertising profits. The way it’s dishonest is that it’s not a true representation of a businesses reputation. As it stands now I have 6 positive reviews, 2 negative reviews and 6 positive reviews in the filter. They claim it’s all automated and I really wouldn’t be surprised if they did have a computer program running this with just a couple people overseeing it. There is no one you can talk to about it at Yelp.

By: Roberta

Roberta — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 18:46:17 +0000

I am a criminal defense attorney. Recently I had a client, who I repsented two years ago, call me about a new matter. And when I told him that I would charge him for the new work, he flipped out and posted a negative review on Yelp. Well several current and past clients (5) posted positive reviews. Yelp is now filtering all five of the positive reviews, while leaving the one bad review. In addition, it took down my account. I don’t advertise with Yelp, and I have no plans to do so. I am calling for a boycott.
Before you roll your eyes: Yelp posted a net loss of 4.8 million dollars last quarter, and last year posted a 9.8 million dollar lost. It also has fierce competition from Facebook and Google. It is actively looking for investors. Let’s educate Yelp’s potential investors about the unsustainability of It’s business model. Yelp’s marketing plan relies heavily on extortion. You don’t like the bad review: advertise with us; you want to see the good reviews: advertise with us.
Small business owners have had it. Many are calling for a boycott of Yelp. What investor would want to invest in a company whose client base has the ability, williness, and incentive to direct users away from from Yelp’s web site? It’s time we had a talk with those investors.

By: S B

S B — Fri, 17 May 2013 00:26:03 +0000

A Tale of Two Clients

Client 1 – First Yelp Review EVER – Lengthy 5 star review about her (several year) experience of our handling her matter.
Review was “filtered” within a couple of days.

Client 2 – First Yelp Review EVER – Lengthy 1 star review about her experience at our firm.
Review was NOT filtered and remained up for WEEKS.
We cleared up the misunderstanding with the client.
Client 2 changed that review from 1 star to 5 stars and wrote very nice things about us
Review was “filtered” within a couple of days.

So
a first time 5 star review is filtered.
a first time 1 star review is NOT filtered until weeks later when it was changed to a 5 star review…

By: CJ Quinn

CJ Quinn — Mon, 06 May 2013 01:22:10 +0000

Yelp is the most unethical business I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing.

I own a woman’s fitness studio. We have over 25 reviews from our clients.
We have two negative reviews from people who are NOT CLEINTS which are our only unfiltered reviews.

We have 23 5 and 4 star ratings from our real clients which filtered.

Boycott Yelp!
I am in.

By: Sharon Moak

Sharon Moak — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:55:27 +0000

I am a business owner and victim of Yelp’s extortion. Instead of complaining I am gathering evidence of their illegal practices.

I have collected data for 690 businesses. Half were contacted by a Yelp salesperson and refused to pay for advertisement, the other half pay for ads. I calculate the effect of Yelp’s filter by adding in the filtered reviews to the unfiltered reviews. If advertising did not affect overall ratings, wouldn’t the results between the two groups be statistically similar?

This is where I’ve got ’em.

Advertisers’ ratings remain largely unchanged, with an average of 0.1 star increase. Businesses who refused to advertise LOSE 0.8 STARS WITH THE FILTER.

My own businesses falls in line with these findings. Before I was harassed by Yelp extortioners my business had a 4-star rating. Now Yelp shows 3. If I add in the filtered reviews I have 3.8.

There are only 2 restaurants that pay for ads in my area. One has an increase of 0.1, the other is unchanged.

This \ALGORITHM\ is nothing more than a tool to manipulate the overall ratings of businesses to force them into purchasing ads. I WON’T DO IT. I will continue collecting enough data until I have proof that will stand up in court for the next class-action lawsuit.