4 ms·

Yelp 'pay to play' pitch makes shops scream for help

26 points by alex_c 18y ago

jexe 18y ago
So Yelp puts businesses up for public criticism and simultaneously try to sell advertising to those same businesses.. that puts them in a tricky spot of trying to stay fair and still make money. The local advertising market is hot, but maybe they should be exploring other revenue ideas if they want to keep from descending to Citysearch's depths of mistrust - licensing the data they collect (like InfoUSA), data mining (like Macrosense), maybe even selling a product?
cypress-hill 18y ago
yelp is apparently operating a protection racket. its sad that they go after small businesses who cannot afford to fight, sue or organize collectively against yelp. large or established businesses simply don't give a shit what the astroturfers and cranks on yelp have to say (nor should they) my advice: ignore yelp, its a huge astroturf/troll board. most of the posters are griefers, they would rather post something witty than accurate. i don't think any legit business that serves its customers decently is going to go under due to yelp trolls. most reviews on the site are so uninformed that i tend to treat them as a contrary indicator
noor420 18y ago
This is quite an interesting read. Looks like a lot more business owners will realize the importance of negative reviews, start putting fake negative reviews on rival businesses and flood their own yelp page with good comments. What will be bad for yelp down the road if that happens? maybe an online guide of business reviews with no credibility and guininity.
- riklomas 18y ago
  I helped develop a Yelp-style site for the UK market, and you'd be surprised how often businesses review themselves and review their rivals negatively, it's a pretty common practice. We tried to curb this by letting businesses reply to reviews and control their listing details, but they still come along and blatently review themselves!
- Goladus 18y ago
  The key to using yelp isn't to just read the first few reviews, but to find reviewers that either match your tastes, or have observations that appear to be particularly trustworthy. That can sometimes be determined by reading the user profiles and other reviews. I wouldn't recommend anyone just reading every review on yelp. You have to come up with some sort of filter.
vaksel 18y ago
Yeah thats why I'm not that big on online reviews, because most businesses are now savvy enough to know that they can game the system
blurry 18y ago
I mistrust Yelp because they scrape reviews from other websites. I have found a couple of reviews that I posted elsewhere under fake user names on Yelp.
- thwarted 18y ago
  Considering that things like "elite status", which is based on contribution, is coveted by some users, it's entirely possible that the content in question was posted by an actual user who cut and pasted it from another site. It would be pretty hard to verify that someone's review is truly their own. If you notice something out of the ordinary, there are tools available to flag content. Disclosure: I work for Yelp.

26 points by alex_c 18y ago

jexe 18y ago

So Yelp puts businesses up for public criticism and simultaneously try to sell advertising to those same businesses.. that puts them in a tricky spot of trying to stay fair and still make money. The local advertising market is hot, but maybe they should be exploring other revenue ideas if they want to keep from descending to Citysearch's depths of mistrust - licensing the data they collect (like InfoUSA), data mining (like Macrosense), maybe even selling a product?

cypress-hill 18y ago

yelp is apparently operating a protection racket. its sad that they go after small businesses who cannot afford to fight, sue or organize collectively against yelp. large or established businesses simply don't give a shit what the astroturfers and cranks on yelp have to say (nor should they) my advice: ignore yelp, its a huge astroturf/troll board. most of the posters are griefers, they would rather post something witty than accurate. i don't think any legit business that serves its customers decently is going to go under due to yelp trolls. most reviews on the site are so uninformed that i tend to treat them as a contrary indicator

noor420 18y ago

This is quite an interesting read. Looks like a lot more business owners will realize the importance of negative reviews, start putting fake negative reviews on rival businesses and flood their own yelp page with good comments. What will be bad for yelp down the road if that happens? maybe an online guide of business reviews with no credibility and guininity.

riklomas 18y ago
I helped develop a Yelp-style site for the UK market, and you'd be surprised how often businesses review themselves and review their rivals negatively, it's a pretty common practice. We tried to curb this by letting businesses reply to reviews and control their listing details, but they still come along and blatently review themselves!
Goladus 18y ago
The key to using yelp isn't to just read the first few reviews, but to find reviewers that either match your tastes, or have observations that appear to be particularly trustworthy. That can sometimes be determined by reading the user profiles and other reviews. I wouldn't recommend anyone just reading every review on yelp. You have to come up with some sort of filter.

vaksel 18y ago

Yeah thats why I'm not that big on online reviews, because most businesses are now savvy enough to know that they can game the system

blurry 18y ago

I mistrust Yelp because they scrape reviews from other websites. I have found a couple of reviews that I posted elsewhere under fake user names on Yelp.

thwarted 18y ago
Considering that things like "elite status", which is based on contribution, is coveted by some users, it's entirely possible that the content in question was posted by an actual user who cut and pasted it from another site. It would be pretty hard to verify that someone's review is truly their own. If you notice something out of the ordinary, there are tools available to flag content. Disclosure: I work for Yelp.