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One thing that Yelp absolutely does do, I've seen it with my own eyes, is play with 'recommended' reviews based on whether the business in question is paying th
by Diederich 10y ago
One thing that Yelp absolutely does do, I've seen it with my own eyes, is play with 'recommended' reviews based on whether the business in question is paying them. I can't provide hard links because it's a client of my wife's business.
Specifically, a business had about 20 very positive reviews in total, all of them 'recommended'. A review that isn't 'recommended' basically doesn't exist; it doesn't count toward the average rating and it can only be viewed if a small print, difficult to see link at the bottom is clicked.
So, a business started with 20 total rating, and all 20 of them 'recommended', with a very good average rating.
Said business decides to send some money Yelp's way; that goes on for a few months, and they get a minimal uptick in hits, but worth less than what's being sent to Yelp.
So they (within the contract with Yelp) stop that relationship.
Shortly after, 75% of the reviews switch to 'not recommended'; the ones that remain are among the lowest ratings. The new average for the business isn't terrible, but it's lower.
Multiple calls to Yelp are all handled basically the same; "That's just an algorithm and we don't really control it." ... "I think if you re-establish your contract with us, you might get more business."
The language on the phone is tricky; nowhere is a direct connection between sending money and 'fixing' the Yelp score mentioned. But it's heavily implied. When asked directly, they just deflect talking about the opaque 'algorithm.'
That was the most recent case my wife dealt with. There have been at least two other fairly similar situations.
At this point, she's telling her clients that it can be dangerous to engage with Yelp if they haven't already done so.
TL;DR: Yelp is shady as hell. Full stop.
- openmosix 10y agoWe were just discussing this with my wife yesterday. The very same story happened to our doula, who's very non-technical and she asked us what to do (we are both engineers). Short story: she had a profile on Yelp, almost 20 5-star reviews from former customers (who spend, on average, 2/3 months with her - so each star is a big deal). One day Yelp! connects with her proposing her to become a paid customer, how could that boost her visibility, etc. etc. Moreover, she has great reviews and it would be good for her to maintain that track record. She declines - also because she is not very technical and she has no idea how much business she's getting from Yelp. Within a month, half of her 5-star reviews are gone and 2 1-star reviews appeared (that she does not recollect as customers - so she reported them). My get on the entire story is that Yelp sounds a lot like Italian's mafia (btw, I'm Italian) - where "you have a really nice restaurant there, it'd be a shame if something bad would happen to it. But if you pay us, you'd have nothing to worry about."
- Diederich 10y agoYup, sounds about right. In my wife's correspondences with Yelp (via voice and e-mail) on behalf of her clients, they kept focusing on that word 'algorithm'....like it's some magical, mystical thing that nobody really understands or controls. That was the key word that was used in all of the bullshit deflections. Thing is, Yelp is absolutely dominant in this space, so we're all kind of stuck with it.
- degenerate 10y agoNot if they are exposed to the general public by way of recording / hard proof, as the original commenter said. Once people know they are lying scum, their dominance will fall.
- angry-hacker 10y agoWhy are they so dominant? Do they rank so well on a Google in the U.S?
- Diederich 10y agoI really don't know how they became so dominant, but Yelp is basically The Way my family and tons of people we know find services, restaurants, and the like. We live in the SF Bay Area; I don't know how widely applicable it is, but based on the work my wife has done with her customers (all over the US), Yelp is generally pretty important everywhere in a lot of sectors.
- metalliqaz 10y agoJust provide a link to their profile. These anecdotes never come with links.
- dilemma 10y ago>When asked directly, they just deflect talking about the opaque 'algorithm.' This is precisely why "AI" cannot be trusted and why code must be publicly auditable.
- yuhong 10y agoI have been thinking about it. Are most of these "clients" owned by people who don't know much about Yelp?
- yuhong 10y agoI wonder if it would be worth modifying state extortion laws to cover this.