I had been a big believer in Yelp and the review site model: treat your customers well and they will reward you. I have also had little time for the Yelp haters: “Stop complaining about Yelp and work on your business.”
Well that is what I used to think and then I saw the real, ugly side, of Yelp. Forbes, PBS, and the New York Times seem to agree.
As a rule, the larger the business, the more clients you have, and therefore the more chance that you are not going to be able to keep them all happy. That is not to say that you should not try, but there is always that reality.
In the veterinary world, there is a great product called Vsurv that allows for electronic surveys to be sent out to clients who visit your practice. It plugs straight into practice management software. The great thing out surveying every client for whom you have an email address, as Vsurv does, is that to gives you real data for client satisfaction. Data that you can track from month to month. Even with a 50% – 60% compliance rate you are still talking about hundreds of responses. If I have 30 online reviews 10 of which are filtered (more on that later) but I see 100 – 150 clients a day the online review numbers add up to the statistical error rate of direct surveying.
So a product like Vsurv is better than online review sites. Then what about Yelp?
Well the big problem with Yelp is its review filter. What’s Yelp’s review filter you ask? Well you wouldn’t be alone in not knowing much about it. Unless you run a Yelp page you probably don’t know about the filter, and many who do run pages don’t know about it until they get bitten by it.
Yelp’s review filter is supposed to protect the integrity of Yelps reviews by filtering out suspicious reviews: Overly positive reviews by users that have only one or a couple of business reviews or overly negative reviews by the same kind of user. A least that is the idea…
The problem is that the criteria that Yelp uses to filter it’s reviews is a closely guarded secret – supposedly to avoid businesses “gaming” the system. The filter is supposedly “automatic” and therefore is not influenced by petty concerns such as advertiser preference. However, individual users, and businesses have no recourse to un-filter filtered reviews.
To add to the problems, consistent reports exist of Yelp filtering only good reviews and leaving only bad reviews after the business concerned refuses to advertise with Yelp. I personally have seen a negative review get filtered and then miraculously become unfiltered – not sure how an automatic filter changes its mind but apparently it can.
You can even read the filtered reviews – and it is quite amazing how different a picture of most businesses you can gather by reading the filtered reviews. Yelp only allows access to filtered reviews via a Captcha – why? To make it more difficult to link to? It is quite an experience to see 15 filtered reviews 13 of which are positive that have basically the same user profile as the six recent negative reviews that have not been filtered.
Then, of course, are the online reputation management companies that promise to get bad online reviews removed from Google, Yelp, and other online review sites. All the major review sites say that the only way to remove reviews is with the same tools that everyone has access to – flagging in other words. There is, however, another way – the reviews themselves have been created by a reputation company which can work “miracles” by removing review that they themselves have posted. On a couple of occasions now, I have seen very odd reviews appear and then been approached by some of the more unscrupulous types of Online reputation managers who say that they can work “miracles.” This issue has been addressed by Yelp, but only in the broadest of sense.
The real issue with Yelp; however, is that is does not practice what it preaches. Concentrate on customer service and customers will give you great reviews. So what does is say when so many potential customers feel that the Yelp system is fundamentally flawed and refuses to engage them on the subject? Yelp encourages businesses to respond to negative reviews however provides no mechanism to challenge its filter. Yelps does provide a flagging system, but no feedback on why it does or does not agree with the business owner flagging the review in question. Yelp also refuses to engage with clients about the review side and will only engage about advertising.
I, for one, do not actually believe that Yelp is trying to extort business owners as some charge. I do, however, feel that the product and company is flawed.
The word from Yelp seems to be do what what say – not what we do.
I’m not a big believer in that.
I enjoyed reading this piece. It was very well thought out and presented where anyone can follow. Im a small business owner who’s experienced the pitfalls and flaws of online reviews. It’s motivated me to creat, iTrueReview where reviews are not filtered, deleted or altered and our proprietary patent pending verification system ensures that the reviews are generated within the business which will dramatically alleviate competitve or false reputation builders reviews. Its designed to truly provide the truth to both business and comsumers.
I’ve checked out your website. It is lame beyond belief. What good is a review site if there is ONE restaurant listing for all of Chicago?
Hi Rhonda, thank you for the feedback. The initial website was geared more as an introduction to business. Its what we needed to even begin populating our site. We launched about a year ago and have been successful capturing over 20,000 reviews. With the approach of our mobile application, within the next few weeks you will see a complete overhaul geared toward consumers being able to read reviews, make reservations, order online etc. Our main focus is of course real reviews.
It is true, that due to the abundant amount of restaurants in the industry, it makes is it very difficult to populate our site with so many locations and information in a short period of time. My apologies for the lack of businesses in the Chicago area. (Businesses are welcome to add their businesses at will).
Being based out of NY, we have focused on populating businesses in our area and upon launch of our mobile application will be asking users to assist us in adding more locations, much faster. I completely understand the lack of quality you are currently viewing but be sure… it will come. iTrueReview was created to protect the integrity of a business but also serves as a resource to potential guests for capturing the TRUTH about a business. What you read on our site is what actual guests are writing; good, bad or indifferent.
We hope you see value in such a system for both businesses and consumers. Looking forward to your feedback in the future.
Contractorscustomers.com is a review site where business owners can write reviews on their customers. It is worth taking a look at. It is well done and finally business owners can now write reviews on customers!!
Hi Mike,
Like the blog, and agree that Yelp appears to be mistreating/misrepresenting what people are posting. I believe some legal challenges have been brought and I can only see more coming. Especially if larger businesses feel mistreated.
Ultimately however, the golden question for any of these sites is “can I trust the content?” And when legit user content is being manipulated in this way, the people will eventually work this out. When a critical mass of users reach this point Yelp will have to change or expire. Online reviews are hot property with any number of competitors vying for position.
For this reason it is supremely important for clinics to canvas reviews and build up social proof on a variety of sites like google local business, facebook and a host of others. My tip is to perform a search locally and see what review sites come up tops on your location. Then work like crazy to get good reviews on this site.
I hate to suggest giving them money, but if you have to pay to manage your yelp listing and that helps, then I’d seriously cost this out as part of your strategy. And I’d recommend doing it before your competitor does.
It’s not ideal, but it is what it is.
Dave
Hi Dave,
Thank you for the kind words.
I think there is a decision to be made, and I certainly do not feel that disengagement from Yelp is a solution; however, the real problem with the Yelp filter is that even if you do work really hard to get reviews they get filtered and then look really suspicious. For example, my hospital’s Yelp page almost has as many filtered reviews as unfiltered. Unfortunately, my filtered reviews are 95% positive and my unfiltered reviews are more like 55% positive.
I know from vsurv that my extremely, or very, customer satisfaction level is around 95%.
The question really becomes how many people are going to look at that profile and what am I willing to do about if that number is significant – if the main issue, customer service, is not actually an issue. For my part I publish my vsurv data on my website. It is not a perfect way to fight back but it makes me feel better and I think differentiates us from other hospitals.
Yelp wants reviews from “Yelpers” and really only gives weight to them. I’m not sure you can turn your clients into Yelpers in order to get reviews without losing your mind.
Mike
Great article. We recently experienced this ridiculous ‘filtering’ at one of our surgeries. We had five excellent reviews and two mediocre-negative ones at one of our surgeries listing on Qype. When Qype became yelp the good reviews were filtered out. I contested this with the pestering reps that continuously beg for advertising and was told that nothing could be done even when I offered the contact details of the clients who wrote the reviews for confirmation. There seems to be no way to challenge the filtering process – I was refused any further details regarding how to pursue the matter further. It is ironic that a site that prides itself on reviews is not subject to the same scrutiny. Perhaps they will help if I take up advertising with them…
Hi Dane,
Thank you for the kind words – and I feel your pain. I have a suspicion that the criteria for filtering may change if you advertise; however, Yelp of course, says this is not the case. It could also be the case that the types of businesses that attract “Yelpers” are also those who feel that it is worth advertising.
There is defiantly more rigorous filtering for good reviews than bad.
Mike
[…] a couple of times through Twitter, or blog comments but that is it. Recently, Mike posted a blog on Yelp that made me nod my head. A week or so later he posted a blog on the website for the practice he […]
I want to introduce a new website called SMALLMAP (www.smallmap.com). This website is a “social city guide” designed as a convenient and user-friendly website that connects people with small businesses. The website focuses on the “Real Reviews” feature where users can write and publish unsolicited reviews about different local small businesses. It also includes social features to encourage a sense of community and motivate contributors to produce high-quality content. I encourage everyone to sign up (it’s free) to check out what its offering.
YELP is a known extortion scheme whereby businesses who decline to advertise wind up with their positive reviews filtered and their negative reviews made prominent. A cadre of so called elite Yelpers (chronically unemployed losers paid off with invitations to catered events) are Yelps hired guns who do the dirty work of defaming small businesses for them and shilling for advertisers. As a matter of fact, a large group of them in California have filed a class action lawsuit seeking compensation as unpaid Yelp employees. In addition, the site has become a dumping ground for disgruntled patients (often with malignant personality disorders or body dysmorphic disorder) to anonymously air their so called grievances against physicians. If their complaints against a physician were legitimate then they could be taken up by County Medical Boards or Offices of Professional Misconduct. Instead, Yelp irresponsibly and shamefully airs these highly destructive defamatory statements without any regard whatsoever as to the consequences. Kudos to those who have the courage and stamina to sue! More lawsuits are coming. Let’s hope this money losing sham of a business dies the slow death of “a thousand cuts”.
Hi Mike,
you are 100% write and great article. If you would like to write an article about a website called http://www.woyps.com , the idea of it to encourage the people to list any business or store around them and own it in their profile and when the business owner claims it they get almost 40% share of the profit. Smart and nice way of interacting the customers with the business owner. Websites like this can make yelp stop using people.
its a small website yet however if the people became to know about it, then a big change will happen as it allows the customers to become a partners.
thanks
Yelp always takes town good reviews because they assume they are fake. Ok how to fight yelp is once you get a good review take a picture of it and post it on your photos on your yelp page and type here a good five star review before yelp takes it down … And they remove you picture of the good review ,,you got them..
Hi Mike,
Just finished reading your article and that is one of the reasons I and others started coding a new website called YAPFISH.COM. Was very tried of the unfair and unprofessional way the website was being handled. No why we are very small and growing. I think we are one of the fastest changing websites based on consumer and business needs. If someone has a good idea and we also agree. We have coded that info as soon as 24 hours to make those changes come true.
Check ups our at:
Yapfish.com
Search * Review * Decide
Thanks,
Rob Stone/Founder
Checked out Yapfish.com. Yes, it is far better and less crap on it them Yalp.com but it is still needing reviews and need to get it mobile app going.
“Hidden” reviews are posted as screen captures because, i think, that way you cannot click on the authors’ names and read their other reviews, so you can’t form your own judgment of their legitimacy. Awful.
Wow – is that new? Had not noticed that before. As you say just awful. Thanks for commenting, hope you liked the post.
Mike
Do you proof your copy before posting?
Hi Victor,
Thanks for reading the post and for the comment. Yes, I do proof, but we are human. Any errors that you find I would be glad to fix please just drop me a line.
Thanks,
Mike
I run a regional service business and come from a very professional background.
I have many of the same complaints as others around Yelp’s review filter – we are ranking 4-5 stars in several locations although have some weak ones too. One of the ways we are managing this is simply by motivating service people and rewarding them for good service.
But, one major issue that has continued to grow with Yelp – and seems to not have much discussion around it – is the extent to which Yelp “Elites” or power Yelpers increasingly use their status to blackmail businesses.
Yelp elites are selected based on how much they use Yelp and how much free content they provide Yelp.
We – at least once per month – have a power Yelper blackmail us (“Yes, I was happy with the work, yes the guy was great, yes I agreed on a price and signed a contract, but I am a Yelp Elite and I would like money back…”).
As Yelp tries to push into service businesses and in some cases home services and construction, this problem will grow as the $ value an Elite can receive – say after a kitchen re-model – is a lot larger than a discount he may get on his $20 dinner.
Yelp’s review filter creates a clear incentive for this. Yelpers are not compensated monetarily for creating content for Yelp. Their historical compensation was community based – they Yelped and they are part of a hipster community.
But increasingly, for a large segment of Yelpers, they also seek monetary compensation by using their status and the fact the their reviews always stick to extract discounts, favors and refunds.
Yelp spends exactly zero resources combating this and if you notify them – even in extreme cases where you have recordings or documentation – they just shrug. In essence, they are condoning this behavior and encouraging it.
Of note, other review sites (e.g. Angie’s List is the first that comes to mind), while being extremely pro-consumer – very actively police this same issue and have a moderator function to research significant disputes.
This issue for Yelp is real and growing.
Yelp claims exemption from liability because it is not “their content”. But, their review filter enables and indeed encourages this behavior.
It seems to me, they should have some liability for this. Perhaps they did not create the content, but their filter enables this behavior – indeed encourages it – and Yelp with negligent intent pretends this does not occur.
Would love to hear other perspectives on this.
Thanks for the great comments Jason.
I agree, the way the filter is setup the only people who can leave positive comments are, by and large, Yelpers. Where as almost all negative comments are allowed. This give Yelpers great power. It will be interesting to see whether this lawsuit: http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20131026/00272425024/yelp-reviewers-launch-class-action-lawsuit-claiming-theyre-unpaid-employees.shtml
gets refiled. It was initially dismissed but without predudice and I think it opens some interesting doors if it gains traction.
Thanks again for the comment.
Mike
I am not certain as to what and how Yelp works. We are a small business. Out of 26 reviews, two of them are negative, and completely untrue. I know for a fact on one, because I handled the situation. The first review was from someone who works for a competitor. go figure. I brought this to the attention of Yelp and they said they cannot remove it, but in a few weeks, I was contacted to advertise with them. I told them, I am not interested unless they remove my negative review. They declined, and so did I to advertise.
The most recent situation has me so frustrated. A negative review came through. I asked them to remove it. They declined. I made them aware I was not happy with this or their business practices. I responded to the clients review and up pops an updated come back from the client that has me wanting to sue. I believe people can review businesses, leaving both positive and negative reviews. However, put a cap on how long the review can be. The ranting that goes on is insane and when it is untrue, it makes me livid. For a small business like mine, to spend countless hours and years building a brand and working very hard on creating something very special. Having Yelp in existence, something isn’t right.
Tabitha,
I completely agree. We own a family restaurant and get slammed on occasion by Yelpers. Most recently someone wrote a bad review and commented on my soup. The odd thing.. We don’t offer soup… We’re a steakhouse. I contacted Yelp and sent them link to my menu for review. The responded with a letter stating the review will remain. Absolutely ridiculous!! What type of business do you have?
Hi Tabitha,
Thanks for reading and commenting – I do feel your pain about Yelp. I think you are doing the right things – reserved comments where you either acknowledge the issue or point out that you want to help them. If all else fails I also find that just stating that you are sorry they feel that way.
I have had some success lately with reporting reviews that don’t actually reflect a customer experience as they violate Yelps Terms of Service. Takes a couple of days but does actually work.
Also, make sure that you are logging on to your Yelp page on a mobile device once in a while. Tips cannot be accessed by a desktop – even to flag them. The only way to flag tips is to send an email to Yelp and report what is going on.
Mike
Great article! This is why there are professionals that are paid to review restaurants, bars, and businesses. Yelp is ridiculous and should be shut down.
Thank you Mathew – glad you liked my rantings. There is another article about Yelp on its way at some point.
Mike
SEO Services In Miami
Why I Hate Yelp (and why you should too!) | Mike Falconer
I got friend who work for outsourcing company who sell Yelp advertising. He suspect that when a business don’t pay for advertising or stop doing advertising many negative reviews which they hidden will appear.
Yelp he felt only interest company has is get small medium business to pay for advertising and not care about them, they want business to do all the hars work and they sit back do nothing at all. For instance you pay for abilities to advertise on competitior page and im order for your customers to find you on search bar in Yelp you need to place keywords do all other necessary work yourself, they just simply take money do nothing
In addition to this they give people ability to flag inappropriate review but you most likely get no response he suspect if Yelp start taking responsibility they will have less time trying to get more business to become sucker on to advertise and Yelp make less money.
They seem like mafias signed up business tell them how it will help them grow business and they often use words like may or might which is understandable, no advertising is guaranteed. However by not able to keep good or constructive negative reviews only left to they called it Yelper community the elite members to me it’s just as deceptive I would highly encourage people not to support Yelp anymore it’s useless
I hear some people say they used yelp and it was o.k. It gave them good info on services.Great ,We are not saying that yelpers can’t direct you to some good businesses but they can steer you away from some honest companies simply because those company did not cave in and paid for advertising.I will say that yelp does cost the consumer more money for those services that are highly rated/advertise.My business is primarily repeat/referrals.Now if another business has to pay yelp $1200.00 a month for advertising/reviews where do you think they get their money from? You,the consumer. If yelp was truly the unbiased review site that is portraying itself to be then no one would have to pay for advertising. That’s why they tell companies not to ask real customers to send in reviews,seriously they have a section on “Don’t ask customers for reviews”.If a person sees a company that has a 5 star rating with 100′s of great reviews who did not advertise next to a company who pays big bucks for advertising or for being placed on top of the search list with only 3 stars who do you think the customer will contact?
YELP ABSOLUTELY SUCKS…. NEVER NEVER ADVERTISE WITH THEM AS I DID. AND THEY TOTALLY WENT BACK IN THE CONTRACT. NOT ONLY THAT BUT THEY COULDN’T HELP ME WITH THE unacceptable comments posted to my business. NEVER USE YELP…. SAVE YOURSELF
Each day more and more people learn about the so called unbiased filtering system yelp uses to dictate what reviews are considered to be an honest consumer experience.My site,I have 104 reviews 22 that are recommended and create my star rating which is at this time 3.5. The other 82 are hidden in the “not recommended “section and are not factored in my company’s rating.Out of that 82, 76 are 4/5 star reviews.That’s quite a few 4/5 reviews withheld from a mere 82 reviews.Now let’s see how this magic filter reacts to reviews about yelp.Yelp has received over 16000 reviews. 7840 recommended,7193 not recommended and over 2000 in violation of their guidelines. Now I didn’t have enough time to waste pouring through over 9000 hidden reviews but in the over 3,000 I saw there wasn’t one 5,4, or even a 3 star review that was hidden.So my question is how this ol mighty filter of truth can find so many not recommended 4/5 star reviews in less than 100 reviews for me and 1,000’s of other businesses and yet can’t find 1 in the many 1,000’s of yelps own reviews? And what other company has had over 10,000 people write how much they hate them on one website?
WHAT happened to yesterday?!?! We weren’t all spoiled
Well said! Very, VERY frustrating.
Hi Chris, glad you liked it. New post about Yelp coming soon.
Mike
A League of Extraordinary Movers asks why is it that every time recently when we get a 5 star review Yelp has to dig into the old ” not recommended ” files and change a 1 star review into a recommended review? Is it because I’m a big supporter of small businesses and have been very outspoken about yelp or is it because I don’t pay to advertise and I’d look better than those who do? Yelp didn’t make our company and yelp can’t break our company.It’s YOU the consumer that made us great. A League of Extraordinary Movers asks why on..July 11,2016….29 reviews…78 not recommended….July 13,2016…30 reviews…77 not recommended….July 25,2016…32 reviews,…77 not recommended…July 30,2016 ..34 reviews…..76 not recommended. August 1,2016,,,,37 unfiltered,75 filtered.My last 4 reviews were 5 stars and yelp keeps adding previously filtered 1 star each time I’ve get a new review. Is their algorithm so faulty that it just in the past few weeks found errors that it made? How many more errors are there? Doesn’t this broken algorithm corrupt the integrity of the site?
Hi ward, as you know, Yelp really does not release any information about their algorithm so it is difficult to say what is going on. But I have seen similar things go on in the past like you are experience, and the only answer I was able to get was that is was just a algorithm adjusting itself. It is interesting that your ratio of filtered vs unfiltered is so out of whack with each other.
I agree that the algorithm, and Yelp’s refusal deal with its potential clients about these issues does undermine the site’s legitimacy.
Mike
The algorithm is a fraud and I’ll prove it. Today I received a 5 star review. I have 75 filtered reviews,tomorrow I’ll have 74. Bear in mind this software already readjusted itself 5x in past 4 weeks
already and only when I receive a 5 star review.
Hi Ward,
I’d be interested in taking a look at your Yelp page – can you send me a link?
Thanks
Mike
https://www.yelp.com/biz/a-league-of-extraordinary-movers-fort-lauderdale-7 I have pictures over the past couple weeks when the changes were being made. I’d tell people not to bother sending reviews to yelp but last month I stopped and I gotten 5 x 5 star reviews and the first 4 they’ve added the 1 star. They haven’t done it to this one yet,it takes a couple days or if the review doesn’t effect my rating in a positive way they won’t bother. Only if it will make my rating over 4 stars will they bother it.
Yelp is a scam. I see family members leave 5-star reviews for work thay never happened. As I don’t devote my life to finding Yelp friends: it doesn’t matter that I have pictures and invoices. It’s all based on kissing ass.
[…] The most popular post to date on my site is: “Why I hate Yelp (and you should too!).” […]
[…] personal feelings about Yelp have evolved over the years; from outright despising them for their failure to engage with their clients and critics which you can read here, to acceptance with a few reservations which you can read here. However, the issue that Yelp […]
[…] best tools and resources for a business to protect itself. I am not a big fan of Yelp, you can read my feelings about Yelp and why I dislike their business model here, but when it comes to Yelp bombing they really do have their act […]
Yelp is horrible. One of the main reasons a lot of people would review a business is that they had a horrible experience or a great experience. So why filter infrequent users who give 1 or 5 star reviews? And I am pretty sure that is the main factor for filtering. Personally, I don’t want to make reviewing businesses into a hobby. I’m not your typical self-important, opinionated yelper. But if a business is exceptionally good or bad, I want to let others know. But guess what, since I don’t post reviews very often, they are usually filtered. The funny thing is that I will post a very long and detailed explanation for my rating. That alone should be enough to prevent the filter from filtering my reviews.
And I dont trust yelp reviews at all. I have gone to restaurants with almost 5 star ratings based on many many reviews, and the restaurant is unbelievably bad in food and service. How did it get such a high rating? It isn’t subjective like – I don’t like Chinese food. It is objective like we got cold food and our drinks were never refilled, etc.
Also, the most annoying thing ever is that yelp won’t let you see their content on your phone unless you have their app. No thanks. I hope yelp goes out of busIness soon.
And one last thing, why can’t you review yelp on yelp? Hypocritical, right?
Yes indeed. My feelings for Yelp have mellowed a little because the do care about their review space, where as others could not give two hoots. Its still a flawed product and I think the company has issues. I wrote an update here: https://mikefalconer.net/2016/09/03/learning-to-live-with-yelp/
Interestingly, I’ll have a new post out probably later today about what I consider “the new Yelp” and I think they are issues there are far worse – stay tuned!
Mike
Try http://www.YapFish.com – Very small site on a shoe string budget that is growing to be competition for Yelp.com Would love response and feedback about the site. No Mobile sight yet. Looking for publicity. Thanks for looking. Rob Stone/Founder
[…] I think Yelp’s business model is flawed, how I’ve pretty much come to terms with Yelp on a daily basis, and how to defend yourself from […]
Can you trust a review site that takes money from those who they are reviewing?
That’s been the accusation against Yelp from the beginning. I do think that Yelp tweak things like search results to encourage companies to advertise. Deliberately returning
– Sorry mobile version issues. Lets try that again.
That’s been the accusation against Yelp from the beginning. I do think that Yelp tweak things like search results to encourage companies to advertise. Deliberately returning bad search results hurts the user experience, and using that to sell advertising is short sighted and a little shady. I’ve not seen the main accusation “pay us and your bad reviews will go away” and I actually think Yelp does care about its review ecosystem. But there are definite issues and I do believe it is a conflict from both sides. Interestingly , I just wrote about this problem, and others not learning from the Yelp criticism here: https://mikefalconer.net/2017/09/22/everything-you-hate-about-yelp-and-then-some/
Thanks for commenting.
Yelp seems to lay loosely with there own rules of conduct. For example: “Your contributions should be unbiased and objective. For example, you shouldn’t write reviews of your own business or employer, your friends’ or relatives’ business, your peers or competitors in your industry, or businesses in your networking group”. Yet over 80%of Yelps own positive reviews come from fellow yelpers known as yelp elite. Without the help of yelps own consistently rewarded members of the elite yelps rsting would be the lowest possible.
yes I do hate this YELP APP
They want to push you to unload his app to read the review