posted
I don't know who here uses Yelp for service or product reviews. The entertainment company I work for received 6 positive reviews and 1 bad review (due to a performer that no longer works for us). Yelp has filtered out all 6 positive reviews, leaving only the bad one on the page.
We've asked Yelp why they were filtered, and when we received a bland reply saying its all their algorythem and nothing they will do. We received a new positive review it was also filtered out with in a couple of days.
None of these reviews are false, planted, or written by employees or paid reviewers.
Has anyone else had issues with Yelp?
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
Do they offer any sort of "premium" service level? Sounds like a scam to get you to give them money, where magically their algorithm will filter out bad reviews and show the good ones.
Posts: 5656 | Registered: Oct 1999
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posted
I'm pretty sure that they do allow business to prioritize their place in search results based on paying yelp (which is annoying more than actually corrupt) so it wouldn't entirely surprise me if they're doing something similar with reviews.
That being said, if they are doing it with reviews I think it would pretty quickly undermine the integrity of their rating system and cause a similar loss in popularity (in addition to just being downright deceptive).
To play devil's advocate, perhaps a lot of people were clicking the box saying that the one negative review was helpful while no one was clicking the same box on the positive reviews?
Posts: 1038 | Registered: Feb 2006
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We think we discovered the issue. We attach a "If you like our program give us a good Yelp review" on our follow up emails--with a link to our page. They are probably tracking back and finding that the reviews came from that link, from our system, and are calling them suspect.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
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posted
In general Yelp is harsh about filtering small numbers of positive reviews, especially given what you said about the email. They have a certain baseline level of suspicion, I think.
I've definitely heard that they are less harsh to paying businesses, too. Which is kind of crappy but also kind of understandable.
But also, if you get enough good reviews it'll be okay, and bear in mind that most big Yelp users are aware of this and definitely check filtered reviews. So don't let it dishearten you too much! Posts: 3580 | Registered: Aug 2005
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