5 ms·
My wife runs a small business and is furious with Yelp. She gets a lot of 5 star reviews, legitimate ones from customers she knows, but Yelp embargoes lots of
by golfer 9y ago
My wife runs a small business and is furious with Yelp. She gets a lot of 5 star reviews, legitimate ones from customers she knows, but Yelp embargoes lots of them and doesn't display them on her Yelp page. She gets frequent cold calls from their sales department, promising that if she signs up for advertising, they can get those 5 star reviews un-embargoed and live on her page.
21st century cyber-extortion?
- metalliqaz 9y agoI became active on Yelp after a new Cafe opened in my town. I loved it so much I just had to go home and write a good review. I did so, and it was embargoed. A user with one 5-star review is usually not taken into account. After I had written more like 5 or 6 reviews, all my reviews started to count. Remember how viral those recordings of Comcast shenanigans went? If she keeps getting those calls from Yelp, record one and be the one that finally turns the tide.
- golfer 9y agoWhy would those embargoed reviews start to count after she paid Yelp? That is what the Yelp salesperson is implying. Embargoed reviews shouldn't suddenly have more legitimacy due to her buying ads on the site. Something is shady here.
- koolba 9y agoI can imagine the corp spin on this being something like: We embargo reviews until we can validate the reviewer. Paying Yelp can bump the priority of who is validated...
- cjensen 9y agoThe 'embargo' algorithm is nothing as sensible as you suggest. If you click through to the hidden reviews, you can quickly see that there is very little logic happening. You'll often see a hidden review from a user who has left 20+ reviews, while at the same time one of the shown reviews is from a first-time reviewer.
- chinathrow 9y agoWhat a racket. However, it looks like it's their site and their rules - hence you live by the sword or you die by it.