04
Ongoing Yelp Drama
Okay, now I'm going to yelp about Yelp. We've had some ongoing drama with the popular business review site Yelp.com. We created a business profile a while back, so people would have an opportunity to review our work and give good or bad reviews of our service. But when we went back to add more photos a few months later it had mysteriously disappeared. So we created another profile, and discovered the new profile had a funky "-2" at the end (http://www.yelp.com/biz/gutensite-walnut-creek-2). It turns out old profile still existed, at the same address, minus the -2, but was not discoverable with the search.
So we asked Yelp if they could remove the duplicate and merge the two accounts together. But instead we got a response saying that the new profile was also being removed from the search because we weren't a local business. This of course is totally ridiculous. We have a local Walnut Creek business license, are members of the Walnut Creek Chamber of Commerce, have a local office in Walnut Creek that employs local employees who do work for local clients. Sure we have a website, and we also do work for a national and international audience, but this does not make us non-local. Our services are computer based, but that is no less legitimate a target for reviews than someone who trims trees.
We complained to them and got no response. Several days passed and fortunately for us a Yelp salesman called and wanted to sell us advertising. I told him the problem and he realized he needed to fix this before he could make his pitch. So he kindly talked to the powers that be, and without comment or apology, our profile was turned back on.
I was considering advertising with Yelp, but I decided it would be in our best interest to first acquire some reviews from any of our past customers. So I asked a couple long term clients if they would do us a big favor and consider giving us a review on Yelp. Several agreed and the next day we had 5 great reviews, which moved us up from #8 for "Web Design" in Walnut Creek, to #3.
The next day I looked at our profile to see if others had reviewed us, and I discovered that all the reviews had been removed ("suppressed"). Evidently Yelp has an automated filtering system (fatally flawed) that is supposed to flag suspicious reviews, to ensure that spam or malicious reviews from competitors don't clog the review process. They say that because it has no human interaction it is unbiased. This is supposed to alleviate their responsibility, but: 1) humans write the rules of these algorithms, so it's not really unbiased. 2) we would like some human interaction, because all of our reviews were 100% legitimate. So that's not comforting. Don't blame the robots people.
In the end, their filtering system is so tragically inept that it deleted 100% of our totally legitimate reviews, so now we have no reviews, we are back to #8, and anyone that wants to read what other clients had to say about us, is unable to because Yelp's review system is biased towards young, tech savvy "yelpers" with too much time on their hands, who are able to actively cultivate an online identity and "credibility" as defined by Yelp's algorithm. And meanwhile, real business owners in the b2b sphere, are busy running their businesses and are not going to be active yelpers, so all their reviews are going to be dismissed and suppressed, even though their reviews should be particularly noted because of the extra effort they made to create and confirm a new account, learn a new system, and post a review during their busy day.
So what's the moral to the story? I don't know. Things aren't what they seem? Yelp brands itself as a local review site, but in reality it masks a caste system of Elite Yelpers and robotic censorship that skew it's credibility. But unfortunately, like Google, you can't ignore them. Most people don't understand or care why you don't rank high in Google, or don't have good reviews on Yelp. They just won't find you, or trust you, because a site they trust (Google or Yelp) doesn't say anything favorable about you. It's like being a nerd in high-school all over again, if you don't hang out with the cool kids no one will notice you. So I believe you should still have a Yelp profile, and you should ask people if they ever use Yelp and if so if they would consider reviewing you (if not don't let them waste their time). But that's it.
You can't stress it. If you do good old-fashioned work, it will pay off. Your clients will tell their friends over a cup of coffee or a beer in the backyard, and word will get around. It's easy to get caught up in these little fads, and they are interesting, but at the end of the day only 30 people viewed our profile on Yelp last month, compared to 10,000 unique visitors to our website, 90% of whom came directly by typing in our URL. Which means that most people still find us because a friend recommended us. That is priceless. I wish Yelp wouldn't delete our client's reviews, but oh well, it's not going to affect our business.
Comments
Chadwick Meyer
Lots of other complaints about this same thing:
http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-disappearing-reviews-2
Interestingly, some people complain that the negative reviews are being deleted, and they claim the business has some special powers to suppress bad reviews. But as a business owner, I don't believe that's true. We have no special powers.
I think the accurate assessment is that Yelp is just a broken piece of technology. Terribly broken filtering engine that is going to destroy their user confidence if they don't get it fixed ASAP. Thousands of people are complaining that their reviews are being deleted. That's just insane, and those people won't write reviews anymore if their time is wasted.
Chadwick Meyer
UPDATE. Pam at Yelp has confirmed that Yelp only values reviews from "established" accounts, "...there's nothing further I can say (or do) about the automated system. If all reviews on your listing are suppressed, that simply means the reviewers were all found to be not established enough." Which is of course true, people that review our business will most likely not be active "Yelpers", since they are generally business men and women busy running their companies.
It is as we suspected, Yelp filters promote a biased review system, which promotes reviews from members of an internet subculture. They do not accurately reflect the majority of a business' customers, or even a majority of the people who actually left a review on Yelp.
New Yelper and Grumpy
In the past week I discovered Yelp and enthusiastically posted 14 reviews. I was so pleased that as a consumer, I finally had a place to give proper credit or criticism to businesses. Of those reviews over 50% of them were filtered and suppressed within hours of posting them. Little did I know my independent reviews posted in earnest with no ties to any business whatsoever were considered suspect by the mysterious Yelp algorithms. When questioned, Yelp offers no answer other than the typical "we appreciated your input" crap.
Additionally I noticed a new Yelper and perused her account out of curiosity. Out her 17 reviews, a whopping TEN had been suppressed & filtered from view.
As a consumer, a user, & a contributor, this type of excessive suppression of honest reviews really makes me wonder what the flying Fark is Yelp doing?
So, what really is Yelp doing? A dopey patronizing video aimed at their perceived knucklehead users is insulting and leaves more questions than it answers.
Additionally Yelp gives it's users the illusion that one's reviews are all visible as they always remain from the users vantage point. I wonder how many contributors would continue to help Yelp by writing free reviews knowing that a large percentage of their contributions are suppressed.
CR
Fellow business owner here. We recently had a total nutter of a client write a horrible review of us on Yelp. Most of it was total lies, I could back up with proof from our lawyers and past correspondence. She only wrote a single ranting review, has no profile pick, info, Yelp friends, no other reviews, etc. So according to Yelp this should be caught in the filter, right? Nope.
The very next day Yelp calls to get us to advertise. Literally a day after our five star rating was tarnished. We said, "Thanks but no thanks" (hi, it's insanely unaffordable for a small business), low and behold, her SINGLE review remains unfitlerd, while other reviews by reviewers who should have "Yelp cred" get filtered. She has since never reviewed another business, never made a Yelp "friend," and is one of the reviews that SHOULD, by YELP's own terms, be filtered. And when you talk to Yelp, "We have no human powers over the filter, it's all an alogorythm." Sure it is. If it was an algorythm her ranting email would have been removed weeks ago, and you wouldn't be houdning me to advertise a day after our 5-star reputation was tarnished by a single, crazy ex-client. The only good news is that I've been told by multiple people that she actually sounds bona fide crazy in her review of us. We have 11 five star reviews, one 1 star (her). Thanks Yelp!
Silverado
They put "honest reviews" in the filters.
I had an account and wrote a few reviews, they were filtered so I stopped using it.
Forgot about first account, opened another. Started writing reviews....
Figured how to get around the filter. Put a picture in your profile, does not have to be you. Also write 10+ reviews, make sure at least a few are 5 stars. Much like CL, even if telling the truth, the flag nazi's will try to shut you down.
Posted on the threads, found people were petty and mean. Called me a "troll"-I made another account. Made up "funny" threads which offended the flaggits-wrote about Thads even though I had never been there. Had 70+ friends, all laughs, didn't think people were taking it serious. Got put in Talk Jail. (couldn't post in threads.)
My "serious" posts from the "serious" account got attacked by a maniac who would bend the truth to fit his political agenda. My comments and reviews got flagged. Got a message from the Yelp HQ that I had violated the TOS and my accounts were banned. hahahaha. They took down all the "free" content I gave 'em.
I guess it was against the rules to have more than 1 account......
Anyways I found out more about their devious ways of working by going against the grain than by following the rules.
Made another account and my IP address got banned-hahaha little good that did, first, ever hear of an anonymizer?
Second, I have a dynamic IP that changes every few days......
So, if you do use Yelp, realize that most of the reviews are sugar coated and the honst ones get filtered.
Now, if you must post and don't want to be filtered, as stated above, write 10+ reviews. Also have a pic on your profile. Avoid the talk threads-losers.
If you have multiple accounts, access them via an anonymizer or one only at a work location, another at home and the third at a different location or on your phone, don' criss cross.
These are the things THEY don't want you to know so cutt and paste, cutt and paste.
Pissing of one Yelp IT person at a time.
- Location: how to get around the BS
- it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests
Frank
My and my wife own a salon in Austin. Our business some how ended up on yelp. We had great reviews and all. After few months we were contact my Yelp Rep Audrey who spacificaly told me that if I want to keep my reviews on top and put my business infront of local Austinites I will have to subscirbe to their $300 service. I tried to put her off and she kep calling, She even gave me her personal Cell phone number to call her when I make up my mind on the weekend.
After I started to ignore her calls we saw our reviews started to filter out, and only bad reviews were put in front. We then started to run special for our customer to and get customer feedback. 90% of our customer said they do not know what yelp is. We gave people gift card to review us on Google and City Search instead of Yelp. If all of us business owners start doing this I can assured yelp will be under water in no time. I am also writing a letter to the Attorney General office how yelp is affecting small businesses.
Christian
Yelp's been in a lot of hot water over their predatory "sales" practices. I've heard from a few different sources that they will push down positive reviews and highlight negative reviews in order to "incentivize" business owners to purchase their marketing services. This completely nullifies the spirit behind Yelp, which started out as a great resource for information. I can't tell you how many great restaurants I've found on there alone... that being said, if they continue strong-arming business owners into advertising with Yelp, they will quickly become the next MySpace or AOL - dead weight.
I am happy to hear that Gutensite's business is not dependent on online reviews and word of mouth is working so well!
New Look for Gutensite
Portfolio Improvements
New Free Skin: Oak Grove
New Free Skin: Brockman
New Admin Design in Progress
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