Yelp has been repeatedly accused of manipulating reviews to pressure businesses to advertise with them. Based on the information we share in this post and much more we have seen, we no longer recommend Yelp to business owners.
The East Bay Express article Yelp and the Business of Extortion cites twelve separate instances where business owners confirmed these accusations plus a former contract employee’s statement plus Yelp’s own admission that they pay employees to write business reviews.
Based on the thorough reporting in this story, all the previous similar complaints over the years, and the reviews of Yelp we have read (some of which are excerpted below) it is our opinion that Yelp has lost credibility and using them presents more danger than benefit to business owners. Businesses already listed there may wish to be cautious about their activities.
We base our recommendations on much research and include these excerpts among hundreds we found that seem particularly credible:
Reviews of Yelp: This one by Nick R: This site has dubious integrity. I’ve spoken to many business owners who refused an advertising package with Yelp, then Yelp suddenly removed all of their positive reviews, claiming they were “fraudulent.” There is no doubt a lot of manipulation in reviews done by the Yelp staff based on those who do, or do not, advertise on this site.
And half the reviews here can be summed up as “omg, I came here for the first time in a group of 20 and had bad service, i’ll never go back.” Which is beyond useless, when you come big group and only try an establishment once, your chances of everything going smoothly approach nil.
Excerpt of Yelp Review by member Penguin: “First and foremost, I personally know of 4 friends who have Yelped a business we have gone to in Oregon. With me, there were 5 reviews. However, if you go to this business, you will find only 1 review. The other 4 are not seen by the general public. They say this is a random program by their computer. I say it’s bullshit. If it were my business missing 75% of reviews, even if some were mixed, I would be upset. Show them all and let them get flagged if we suspect foul play!”
Review of Yelp written by Gary N: Here’s what you need to know about Yelp, whom you probably trust:
Yelp’s insistence that “everyone’s opinion counts equally” is a lie. The fact is they randomly censor and withhold reviews without offering any justification to the reviewer. They answer to no one in these matters.
They also have a policy, and pay a force of representitives to visit businesses that are reviewed on Yelp, that borders on extortion. For years, yelpers who wanted to review a business, or check out a business’ reviews were taken to that business page, where they could do just that. Suddenly, banners appeared on highly rated reviews (5 stars) that advised “you may want to check out “X”, usually a much lower rated competitor.
Then they send their paid squad out to inform that business that this unpleasant leaching of your hard earned reputation by a sub-quality competitor WHICH THEY HAD PLACED THERE can go away if you were willing to pay them a great deal of money each month. Turns out the leachers had already paid them to do just that. If I agreed to pay more money than they did, Yelp would remove their ad from our result page, and I could even pick a competitor whose response page I could leach on.
Can you imagine? I kicked them out.
This is an abhorrent business practice. It may well be technically legal, due to the sorry state of business practice oversite, but it is not morally justified by a company that promotes itself as a democratic egalitarian voice of the people.
The idea of Yelp is glorious, and democratic, and so appealing. But like American democracy, it has become a system that players like Yelp mine for their own profit. I know Yelp had to look for revenue sources, it was never a charity/public service concern. But buying better exposure by paying money to yelp to piggyback off businesses that have worked hard and long to EARN their 5 star reviews is wrong on the face of it, and can’t be justified.
Yelp has revealed itself as a hypocrite and greedy, morally challenged company.
Is it still a useful service? Probably yes. Despite Yelp’s despicable attempt to strong arm hard working and sucessful businesses to protect the value of good ratings, the basic idea is sound and useful.
My greatest hope is that a new start-up recognizes the opening Yelp’s misstep announces, and steps in to realize again the original, wonderful concept that was Yelp.
Read the reviews, I still do. But don’t be fooled. Yelp’s ego and profit motive is between you and the truth.
Yelp review written by Barry H. in San Diego: The initial concept was good but the site is being abused by businesses trying to hurt their competitors by writing patently untrue reviews using fake accounts. In response, Yelp seems to have gone overboard in singling out reviews they feel are in violation of terms of service.
I am a member of a 90 business networking group. I’ve done business with about 15 of them and have reviewed 8 of the ones I actually use. Yelp threatened to ban me from the site unless I removed those reviews because of a POTENTIAL conflict of interest. TAKE HEED all you Yelpers out there lest you review a friend you have done business with and get banned from the site.
I am a physician-no secret here. Now Yelp has removed any and all reviews I wrote on physicians. POTENTIAL conflict of interest again!! Trouble is that one of those physicians operated on my daughter and we arent even on the staff at the same hospitals so I have no conflic greater than any of you out there.
I understand what they are trying to do but their draconian tactics are rapidly making the site useless for me. I am only able to write this as an update to a review I wrote last year because INTERESTINGLY ENOUGH you can no longer simply review Yelp itself. Try to and see. You can review yelp events or yelpers but not the organization . Coincidence? I think not. Big Brother is watching you!!!!
This site has dubious integrity. I’ve spoken to many business owners who refused an advertising package with Yelp, then Yelp suddenly removed all of their positive reviews, claiming they were “fraudulent.” There is no doubt a lot of manipulation in reviews done by the Yelp staff based on those who do, or do not, advertise on this site.
And half the reviews here can be summed up as “omg, I came here for the first time in a group of 20 and had bad service, i’ll never go back.” Which is beyond useless, when you come big group and only try an establishment once, your chances of everything going smoothly approach nil.
YELP NEWS:
* Wired: Yelp Class Action Lawsuit (Feb 24, 2010)
* East Bay Express: Yelp and the Business of Extortion (Feb 18, 2009)
* New York Times: Google Said to Be Near a Yelp Deal (Dec 19, 2009)
* Seattle PI: Google May Buy Yelp; Because of Microsoft? (Dec 18, 2009)
* TechCrunch: Google in Discussions to Buy Yelp for Half a Billion Dollars or More (Dec 17, 2009)
* Scobleizer: Google Eating Yelp? (Dec 17, 2009)
* NY Times: Review Site Draws Grumbles From Merchants and Users (Mar 2, 2009)
* Yelp CEO Response to San Francisco Chronicle Letter (Jan 18, 2009)
* San Francisco Chronicle: Merchants Angry Over Getting Yanked by Yelp (Jul 4, 2008)
YELP REPUTATION:
* Yelp BBB Rating
* Is Yelp a Scam?
* Reviews of Yelp at Yelp
* Complaints Board Yelp Complaints page
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- Yelp CEO: This lawsuit is bunk (news.cnet.com)
- New class action lawsuit targets Yelp (news.cnet.com)
- Yelp facing class-action lawsuit over extortive “ad sales” (arstechnica.com)
- Long Beach Business Sues Yelp, Claims Site Runs ‘extortion scheme’ (laist.com)
- Yelp accused of extortion (again) (vator.tv)
- Yelp CEO Denies Extortion Scheme (mashable.com)
- Real People. Real Reviews. Real Extortion Scheme? (blogs.wsj.com)
- Yelp Inspires New Business Model for Gawker [Shakedowns] (gawker.com)
- Yelp Reviews: The CRAZIEST Things Reviewed On The Site (PHOTOS) (huffingtonpost.com)
- David v Goliath (news.bbc.co.uk)
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- Yelp Is Sued After Dispute Over a Review (bits.blogs.nytimes.com)
Gail Gardner
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i think fake and negative online review is very harmful for your business or services.
And finally…..! I found the aspired article that entirely reflects my mind & the absolutely true facts.
I had a small hotel business that served customers fresh seafood & fishes. Our business was going well and the customers were happy too. But that was just until one morning when I discovered the Yelp account with 100-one-star-reviews! Can you imagine that?!?
As it was a local business, I knew most of my customers. Besides, we used to keep a directory where we simply collected our customers’ name & location for business purpose. I checked there again & again. But none of the 1-star reviewers was my customer ever.
Yes! The same service providing a new competitor hotel that was a little distance from ours bought that 100 1-star-Yelp-reviews for us to destroy our fame. They were totally false from fake accounts.
Yelp says that they are very sincere about reviews. I believed that before. After that event, I just hate Yelp, Just HATE! Primarily, I thought that Yelp authority must filter them & remove them. But after a few days, I realized that my thought was a dream only. Because Yelp just knows to remove 5-star-reviews from your page. A hundred 1star review is very usual for them.
After that, I tried to contact them on this matter. But they have a sarcastic help center with a horrible support team. They ensured me they will look into my matter. And still, now, they are just looking in.
People who are gonna use & trust Yelp, here is an advice for you from me…
Yelp is not that much trustworthy as they say. Just keep in mind that they earn from Advertising. That is why they emphasize 5-star reviews more than 1-star reviews to remove. Never purchase a single penny and waste a single second on that website anymore. Even FourSqaure is far better than them.
And finally thanks Gail for writing such a valuable blog that depicts the reality. And also thanks to GrowMap.
Hi Rasel,
I’m sorry to hear that an unethical competitor caused you that problem and Yelp did nothing to clear it up. I’ve seen the same thing happen on Facebook reviews.
Hopefully, your potential customers realize those must be fake. Don’t bother suing Yelp – they always win no matter how many people know what is up over there.
Gail Gardner would love you to read ..How to Get Recommended: Recommendations ARE WHAT WORKS to Grow Your Small Business or Blog
There are so many people who always use yelp to identify or judge a product. But in yelp there so many scamming happening on yelp specially on Loan Sharks, digital products etc. Because business owner hire someone else to write review about their product and I think this is the great way of spamming. Your article are really very informative, thanks for sharing.
Yelp is a horrible business and worse than google in terms of customer service.
I am a small business owner, and I want to recommend the following to ALL business owners:
1. NEVER PAY to advertise on Yelp, and
2. AVOID YELP at all costs if possible.
Google is a horrible company as well, but at least there are not bogus reviews of your company left on their sites for all eternity.
I am sure Yelp will be around for quite a while only because consumers ( especially the youngsters) are not clued in to the shenanigans committed by Yelp management and their employees.
For any consumers out there, if you are going to rely on Yelp, make sure you read the filtered reviews as well.
And if you want real feedback, use services like Angieslist or ask the contractor for references.
I have to agree with the article as well.
What we have noticed is that any favorable reviews on our services are filtered, especially if the customer only used Yelp to review our service.
Our customers want to provide feedback and because they are new to Yelp their feedback is filtered. On the other hand, out of the 2 negative reviews we have received, those never get filtered. We are also very suspicious about one of the reviews and believe it was a sales rep who we declined ( trying to sell us Yelp services.. DONT DO IT). We used Yelp and ironically our clickthrough was higher when we didnt use Yelp.
Customer service is horrible. When you ask for their assistance, you get a generic auto response. He is this company making millions off of small business but they have no one that can assist small business owners except via email, the quality of which is horrible. Somehow, however, they have the time to have sales reps hound you by phone.
I do believe that there is some sort of retribution on Yelp’s part for companies that decline their services. It seems that every positive review I have received after that conversation has been filtered within a matter of hours.
I encourage my customers to ask for references from me directly. We have thousands of very happy customers and we really do not need a service like Yelp.
All business owners should have a list of references for their customers no matter what type of business you are in.
Online reviews, especially bad ones are one sided and in some cases libelous and tend just to want to bash the business. There is no screening on Yelp’s part.
The other thing to keep in mind is that Yelp is a free service, ie customers do not have to pay to review a business. Consequently, you can have competitors reviewing you, and/or friend.family etc of your competitors.
There are better services to use if you want valid feedback from people. For services, one of those would be Angies List. We have never received a negative review on Angies List. Our customers know that we are approachable and if we have any issues we correct them. Our business is to make our customers satisfied. Why would anyone want angry customers?
It would be nice to see a paid service for restaurants that would compete with Yelp. Yelp has demonstrated in the past that it is capable of unethical business practices.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
We have recently implemented a system to outsmart yelp from hiding our filtered reviews:
Step 1- first of all, if you’re advertising with yelp, stop doing so and shift that money to optimize your own web site instead
Step 2- have a graphic designer make a yelp badge that is placed on your web site. It should say “we have …… filtered and unfiltered reviews on yelp”.
Step 3- when a visitor clicks on the badge, it will go to another page ON YOUR OWN WEB SITE (instead of going to yelp’s. (why help them get traffic and rank higher anyways)?
Step 4- on this page have your graphic designer get a screen capture (picture) of all your filtered and unfiltered reviews and have them pasted together onto one page.
Now, all your reviews (filtered or not) will be visible to all your web site visitors.
5- put a note on the top that says, “for your convenience we have placed all our filtered and unfiltered reviews on one page to see. If you’d like to go to our live yelp page, click here …………”
Make the whole page clickable to your live yelp page so no-one will say you’re trying hide something or to be dishonest
Advantages of doing this:
1- your visitors will stay on your web site instead of being directed to yelp’s
2- your visitor can’t click on your competitors
3- no more being a slave to yelp’s algorithm
4- yelp would not benefit from getting traffic from you and higher rankings on google
5- this whole process cost us less than $150 to implement
Just be sure to shift that $300 per month on yelp advertising and put it into KEYWORDS that people will search for.
Please pass this along to everyone you know
Is Yelp operated by the mafia? Sounds like something the mafia would do: Pay protection money or we burn your store down.
It’s good businesses are catching on, but it is the consumer who needs to realize that Yelp is doing this stuff.
Danny would love you to read ..Remington RM1015P 10-Inch 8 Amp Electric Pole chain Saw
Yikes@Yelp. I’ve not heard of this site before, but thanks for the heads up just in case.
Anthony would love you to read ..Acne Diets-Let’s Get Real
That is incredible news. I have stumbled on this late in regards to the publish date however had never heard about this. Thanks for the heads up and I will be staying well away from Yelp.
Honestly, I was not aware that Yelp was actually so poor in their service. I just read some of their reviews and thought it was not that bad but other than that I never tried to explore yelp. After reading this post I’m glad I didn’t rely on their service even if its free.
Ouch. Wow. I don’t know if this is true but I do know that what you describe having happened seems plausible if distasteful. I’ve done a few reviews on the UK version of Yelp and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was a problem that was localised and not necessarily widespread.
That said, even if it is happening in one location it is too many and they should publish a code of conduct for employees that prohibits this type of behaviour.
Roz Bennetts would love you to read ..Presales Qualification by Roz Bennetts
I’m not a big fan of Yelp. Very poor customer service and shady practices. I’m surprised Google had interest in buying them at one time.
Rodney would love you to read ..Information on Building a Home- Collecting What You Need For a Successful Build
Hi Rodney,
I’m not surprised because Google is far worse than Yelp. You should definitely read my post Google IS Evil.
growmap would love you to read ..Small Business Internet Marketing: Where to Start
Really interesting read, I had no idea this was happening and to hear about it is shocking. I will never reccomend Yelp anymore and will stay well away from them myselfs. Thanks for the great insight.
Karn would love you to read ..SEO Business Box Review
Yelp is a joke. It’s funny, I thought something was fishy about their review policies for years and this just confirms it. Shady practices.
i agree..it was suspicious and so unreliable..a lot were fooled by yelp
fresh salsa would love you to read ..A Simple Quesadilla Recipe
It’s amazing how a huge company like Yelp, that has spent years building a tremendous brand, loyalty and trust, can just throw it all away like this by being shady. This stuff NEVER ends well and I cannot believe even the mighty Yelp got caught. Too bad.
Is this true? I’ve been using Yelp for several months now, and so far, its still good for me. If Yelp really does that, maybe Brandon is right that Yelp is unlucky that they are the one that was caught for this doing. I hope you would also reconsider this, or better yet, you can suggest an alternative.
Wow. I had never heard about this side of Yelp before. Pretty shocking for me personally. Thanks for the info!
Hi it’s my first time to hear this Yelp, but anyway I’ve learned something from this article and I appreciate your effort writing this one. Keep us updated with this kind of business start ups.
Thanks,
Marco B.
I have not heard of Yelp before this, but I have to comment by saying that NO ONLINE WEBSITE today can get away with what Yelp is doing. There are too many educated people online, and once something like this is found, can be plastered around the internet within seconds. There are a dozen other sites like Yelp (Foursquare, etc.), so some other site can easily take their business away.
I became a Yelper because I enjoy writing reviews and reading other’s honest and discerning ones. Stopped consulting Yelp because many times I’ve been led astray by Yelpers’ ratings and comments. True I’ve been turned on to good finds, but overall been disappointed more than not and have found that Yelpers tend to congregate rather than explore new territories. A false sense of adventure exists because Yelpers tend to fit a certain demographic-not all of course-being predominantly white and middle-class. They are by and large followers of fads and trends that pretend to buck the main stream, but in actuality are led by carefully crafted mass pop-culture. The whole atmosphere is rather like that of the “Smug” storm in an episode of South Park. That would be fine if that’s what it styles itself to be, but Yelp likes to portray itself as a kind of vanguard of critiquing freedom. Recently stopped Yelping because comments seem to be rewarded for being snarky, sarcastic, or somehow “hip”, by some undefined Yelp standard. Often thoughtful reviews get few votes for helpful or funny but you’ll see supposedly witty comments like: “this place is the bomb to go when you’re trashed at 2 am” as helpful and funny. In the end the reason critics get paid for their critiques is because some of them have cultivated knowledge and taste and work at expressing it. Elitists snobs (who are fairly easy to detect) aside, you get what you signed up for with Yelp-mass mutterings and lowest common denominator thinking. It appears to be just another social networking phenomenon where folks who often don’t know much about the field or business they’re critiquing get to sound off and feel empowered. Though it appears it’s just a false sense of that since I find out here Yelp is lacking any sort of integrity, nor does it encourage adult reviews but hypes the sophmoric sort. THe founders of Yelp both graduated from the school of PayPal success, where they clearly learned about successfully building up buzz and participation. What they clearly didn’t learn are any ethics, without which PayPay would not be successful. Is it any wonder though in this day and age of Big Bank bailouts and Maddoff’s that they have resorted to strong arming and unethical practices. Thanks for the insight-I’m going to post it on my FB and Twitter!
That’s a big “Ouch!” for Yelp. I never even thought that they were capable of doing that. But it’s a good thing that their MO came out. Serves them right for fooling people.
I only heard of them recently, so I appreciate this research.
.-= Dennis Edell´s last blog ..$100 – 10 Winners – Comment Contest! ‘Till Months End… =-.
Thanks Dennis,
It is sad that so many great sites are marred by negative behavior. Businesses and consumers alike need a great community with higher ethical standards. Yelp could change – IF they care.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..BizLuv MEME: How to Support Your Fav Businesses =-.
I have heard mixed reviews about Yelp for small businesses. I always think that it’s not the best of systems, as you could have hundreds of happy customers a day who may never hop online and review you. But then you get that one customer that no matter what you do to try to please them, they are determined to have a bad experience, and that will be the on that jumps on one of these sites and bash your store left and right. Then, anyone who finds the review for your business online gets the most horrible first impression.
For Yelp as a business though, completely smart idea. Businesses almost have to cater to them, paying their fees, sending their customers to that site to review them, etc. just to make sure they get more positive than negative reviews. Sucks for businesses, but genius for Yelp.
.-= Shawn @ Promotional Items´s last blog ..TexOLeather Vinyl Deposit Bag/Organizer =-.
Hello Shawn,
Good to see that your comments are finally getting through fine. We as Internet users and merchants are all still learning about reviews and how to best evaluate them. I need to do more posts about them soon.
When we read reviews we have to keep in mind that most people are far more motivated to complain than to praise. More will go out of their way to write about a bad experience than a good one and that is why I regularly encourage people to recommend their favorite businesses, blogs and causes and am working on a way to increase how much that is done.
Consumers have to learn which reviews are worth believing. Every business will have some complaints and some reviewers only write bad reviews. The first step is to read their other reviews. If they seem to make valid points – both good AND bad – they are more trustworthy than if they only post negative reviews or only wrote one review ever.
Merchants are afraid of bad reviews and I know from experience that they can temporarily reduce sales; however, when you have more reviews they definitely increase sales especially when your reviewers are honest.
The most useful review of a product or a business is one that shares both what you like and what you don’t like. This is easy to see in Yahoo Stores which often have many reviews.
I highly recommend all ecommerce stores enable some way for shoppers to review both their business and their products. See these examples of Yahoo Store Reviews and Yahoo Product Reviews to see what I mean.
There are upgrades for most blogging and ecommerce platforms that add this type of functionality.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
Thanks for helping get the comments through and responding via email. I don’t mind negative reviews if they are honest because they can help a business find its weak points and make them better so that customers can have a better experience. It’s just the false reviews made by angry employees, or people with some kind of personal need for vengeance against a business for whatever reason. I know of another business that has a nasty review that he is 90% sure came from an ex-girlfriend of one of the partners based on writing style.
Thanks for the suggestions on Yahoo reviews. I’ll have to see if that is something we can incorporate in the future.
What many businesses do not realize is that it is the objective reviews that include both pros and cons that are the most credible and valuable to potential buyers.
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..How CommentLuv Grows Businesses and Blogs =-.
I don’t have a problem with them allowing merchants to feature a review as long as they make it clear that the merchant got to SELECT that review.
Deleting valid reviews so we as consumers can not read them makes their reviews less reliable. We need to see both good AND bad reviews to get a clear picture of any business. NO business can please all of the people all of the time and the most trustworthy comments are those that contain both what someone liked AND what they didn’t like.
We are silly for holding such pollarized viewpoints. Here is an example. Food that is too spicy for one individual might be just perfect for another. That doesn’t make any level of seasoning “bad” – it only reveals which restaurant we might prefer or which dishes we may wish to avoid!
Writing bad reviews (or even targeting merchants because of a real bad review) as a system for selling advertising is IMHO exactly what others are calling it: extortion.
To their credit I do find it interesting that they have not deleted all the bad reviews of Yelp posted on their own site. Perhaps they don’t because allowing us to read them means those who look know how their site works and can not complain they were deceived.
The reason many sites have trouble selling advertising is because it is extremely challenging to generate enough additional sales for advertising to pay for itself.
That is why Web site owners want to sell advertising and why most small businesses can not afford to buy it: in most cases it simply does not generate enough sales to cover the cost.
.-= Gail @ Social Media Marketing´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
And I hate to say it , but YELP isn’t the only one doing this , they’re just the ones who were caught.
Consumerreports, and for the most part the BBB all have “Special Pricing” to remove bad complaints.
I’m glad YELP has been brought to light, but wish the word would get out that this goes on ALOT. Heck , alot of competing companies get on similar sites to badmouth eachother ,and reduce sales……..Slimy it is , but it does happen alot.
Hi Brandon,
I agree that most people do not realize that the BBB will not accept complaints from someone wise enough not to have been taken in so it is not a good early warning system. I was not aware that companies could have complaints removed but it is obvious that responding to them is all that is really necessary to keep up appearances there.
The primary benefit of the BBB is that really bad scammers are too dumb to even respond to complaints. I have run across a few of those and they consistently have bad BBB ratings. They also change their names, addresses and phone numbers to start over periodically but since the advent of the Internet a good researcher like me can usually connect their new name with the old ones.
As for competitors bad-mouthing each other I agree that happens and that is a very bad thing. Yahoo’s system of publishing what I hope are random selected post-sales interviews is useful for eliminating that type of thing.
What businesses need to figure out is that collaboration is far more powerful than competition. Those that start working together can grow the pie larger instead of fighting over a limited pie,
.-= growmap´s featured blog ..Support Small Businesses =-.
I can’t stand deceptive companies like this! Glad they admitted to this themselves…
When a company publishging admissions that usually means they don’t recognize that others would find their conduct objectionable, they don’t see anything wrong with it themselves, or they don’t care whether their actions would be considered ethical by others.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..BizLuv MEME: How to Support Your Fav Businesses =-.
Interesting article. We are subscribed to HubSpot and they just (within the past few days) posted an article on the virtues of Yelp and how to optimize for them.
.-= Colleen@Kennewick Real Estate´s last blog ..Kennewick Real Estate =-.
Hello Colleen,
There is always a catch-22 when it comes to powerful sites online. If we use them we do so with our eyes wide open to their bad behavior. It is not possible yet to stop using all bad actors because they usually have virtual monoplies over some areas of the Internet.
Both Yelp and Merchant Circle have been repeatedly accused of manipulating reviews. They are definitely not the only sites that offer reviews as I shared in the BizLuv MEME post I featured in CommentLuv in this reply.
While businesses may still want to be listed in them they may or may not want to invest much time in their communities unless one or both of them decides to act with more integrity. There are many other communities but those two are very large.
If anyone has other communities they prefer I’m all ears. Please share in the comments here or if you’re shy use my contact information.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..BizLuv MEME: How to Support Your Fav Businesses =-.
I hate to hear about stuff like this. I participate on Yelp, but it would be extremely easy for businesses to sway their own Yelp reviews. But how could we police the site? Yelp isn’t going away any time soon.
Hello Frank,
The problem here is that Yelp is enabling this behavior as a way to increase their income. We can’t police it; they have to decide whether they want to be trusted or unethical and then we decide whether to use them or not.
Be sure to check out the post about a fast way to get your business listed in more Local Search Directories. That can really increase your visibility online and get you more reviews on major sites.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
Wow… I had no idea. I did a little Google search, and you seem to be right on the money.
Step one: delete Yelp from my iPhone…
Hi James,
I do my best to thoroughly research and only post what I believe to be accurate. The truth is usually available to those wise enough to seek it out.
I enjoy checking our your photos James. If you ever have any that would fit one of my posts and would like attribution and links just let me know?
.-= growmap´s last blog ..Better Twitter Retweets From Favorite Twitter Apps =-.
Absolutely! I really enjoy sharing the pictures – it’s part of what makes this all fun for me.
.-= James R. Lee´s last blog ..Star Trails from 3/6 =-.
Whats wrong with extortion? We engage in loan sharking. White collar crimes are where all the money is at. It’s only illegal if you get caught. A good company has great lawyers to sweep that shit under the rug anyways. Seriously Yelp, if you need a law firm referral, email me.
Ah yes, all peas in the same pod. I worked for IBM for 23 years so I understand where you’re coming from on your site. AT&T and American Express are all bed-buddies. AT&T and IBM swapped employees to eliminate their pensions and benefits and cut their pay while I was there.
While I don’t advocate invading anyone’s privacy (oh, I forgot “There is no privacy; get over it”), I can understand why you might want to share that information.
The more individuals can present the big picture on the bad behavior of corporations the greater chance we might all have of surviving the economic wreck we’re already in.
Perhaps you can spread the word in your circles about how bloggers can support small businesses and make a difference. The post I’ve linked to this reply contains more information on that.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
I think yelp have to change its ways before it loses its credibility entirely.
.-= clickonportal@ Click On Portal´s last blog ..One Piece: Who’s the Best Guy for Nami? Luffy! =-.
It is unwise for Yelp to allow or probably even encourage this type of behavior; however, only the wise will know so they can probably get away with it for as long as they choose.
What I recommend is finding and supporting those people who choose the most ethical business models and promoting them to raise their visibility.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..Better Twitter Retweets From Favorite Twitter Apps =-.
People never rely on anonymous user reviews on web sites for their purchasing decisions. Too much potential for false and malicious posts by competitors, or paid shills promoting some outfit. Bottom line you can’t trust what you read from nameless, anonymous posters. Everybody has agendas and axes to grind these days.
I totally disagree. I regularly use reviews to select restaurants, Bed & Breakfasts, and any other businesses I need especially when traveling. I even wrote about finding an exceptional mobile mechanic using Yahoo Local reviews.
It is not difficult to tell which reviews are written by people who are impartial and write truthful reviews and which were written by PR types or people who just like to complain. When in doubt just look at their other reviews.
Real people – even when anonymous – who have written multiple thoughtful reviews that contain specific information can be trusted. Not everyone has an agenda or axe to grind. Some of us go out of our way to recommend quality businesses and products and warn others so they can avoid bad experiences.
Only those businesses that have the support of consumers will survive as the economy worsens. See the post in CommentLuv for more details on what that is true and how you can keep them open.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
Gail,
Thanks for doing the research. We are conflicted about Yelp, too– but have decided that just like the old days of MerchantCircle and what RipOffReport still does, you have to play with these folks, as they carry a lot of juice. I’m hoping that search engines give these directory players less juice over time– not because they are extorting consumers, but because the engines themselves want to play the directory game and because social media is an increasing share of pageviews (an area that big companies will likely be slow to react to).
Dennis
.-= Dennis Yu´s last blog ..How to use Google Conversion Optimizer in just 3 minutes =-.
Thank you Dennis,
I really appreciate you taking the time to share your viewpoint in this post. I don’t recommend that those who already have Yelp listings or information remove them; only that businesses that are not already listed may want to weigh the pros and cons.
There is nothing we do that does not have both positive and negative impact. Some believe simply having Yelp or Merchant Circle Listings is bad for their business as Allen Harkleroad explains in his post about Merchant Circle outranking business listings while others would consider an incoming link from most any PR7 site.
Businesses that choose to be active on community sites like Yelp and Merchant Circle have much to gain as well as much to lose. It is sad that both of these sites have so tarnished the reputations and credibility of their reviews.
Each of us has only so much time to participate in communities so we must be selective about which ones we patronize lest we lose the cumulative effects of our contributions to them.
If anyone knows of trustworthy independent communities I invite them to share links to them in the comments of this post. I will be discussing this situation with the people at My Local Lookup to see what they may have to offer.
I would also like to hear about any niche or geo-targeted communities my readers use and like. I will research and report on what I learn for the benefit of all.
Dennis, my time, efforts and blog focus specifically on small traditional and ecommerce businesses and bloggers. By choice I do not work with or advise major brands or Corporations and doubt many, if any, would be interested in what I have to say.
What is best for them often differs from what is best for big brands. If you know of any who can benefit from what I write I hope you will share it will them.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
I give the same recommendation to my customers.
Why? Yelp is biased in favor of negative reviews. First, their thumbs up option to honor reviews that are funny or cool means that sarcastic and snarky reviews have an advantage in their internal algorithm. Second, when you attempt to flag a review, the option is to “flag an unwarranted five star review”. Their presumption is that five star reviews are far more likely to be false than one star reviews. I disagree.
.-= Juliemarg´s last blog ..Everyone’s in the Media =-.
Thank you for sharing these additional important details JulieMarq. I agree with you that assuming five star reviews are more likely to be false is incorrect.
While many are only motivated to write when they are annoyed or angry, there are some of us who go out of our way to write good reviews for our favorite businesses. I regularly suggest that both here and at Twitter.
Speaking of Twitter, all of the plugins I have seen to date that allow you to share your Twitter ID want only your Username without the @ symbol or the http:// in front. I don’t know where to edit that field as it is not visible in the comment editing section of WordPress or I would fix your Twitter ID there instead of here: Follow JulieMarq on Twitter.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..BizLuv MEME: How to Support Your Fav Businesses =-.
Have you tried Foursquare? Instead of the competition being who is the snarkiest, it’s who is the best customer of that establishment. It’s much happier and rarely do you see negative vibes.
.-= Juliemarg´s last blog ..Everyone’s in the Media =-.
I haven’t seen Foursquare yet Juliemarg. I will make a point to check it out. Thank you for the recommendation.
.-= growmap´s last blog ..KeywordLuv: How Using It Benefits Us All =-.
Foursquare is a hoot! We are the ‘mayors’ of several businesses/locations in our town. What’s really funny is we are the mayor of one of our competitor’s offices! 😀
.-= Colleen@Kennewick Real Estate´s last blog ..Kennewick Real Estate =-.
Hi Colleen, JulieMarq,
Maybe one of you could give me a tour of how Foursquare works and what you specifically do there some time.
Good to see you are another realtor who has a self-hosted WordPress blog. I collaborate with several other real estate sites and we’re seeking more bloggers interested in exchanging guest posts, writing about each other, and supporting each other’s efforts.
If you’re interested in hearing more contact me?
.-= growmap´s last blog ..MEME: BizLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
Just sent a message via your contact form! 🙂
Thanks – I am off to check out Foursquare now. The social side of the internet is going to force businesses to be more honest, hopefully posts like this mean that businesses like Yelp change their game to one that is more morally correct before its too late.
Hi Lisa,
Unfortunately many businesses manage to continue in spite of their bad behavior because most consumers don’t act on what they find out. Many continue to support businesses that have been cheating them for decades.
.-= Gail @ Social Media Marketing´s last blog ..Search Engine Positions: Easy Free Ways to Track =-.