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I don't like Yelp, so here are some random unsubstantiated complaints about the reviews about Yelp itself. I'm inclined to agree with you about the original po

I don't like Yelp, so here are some random unsubstantiated complaints about the reviews about Yelp itself. I'm inclined to agree with you about the original poster's perspective but it is hard for me to get past the serious accusations and evidence presented by numerous business owners; that Yelp basically extorted them when they received negative reviews and were a new listing on Yelp. Based on multiple reports it appears as if Yelp's business intelligence group actively targeted(s) businesses that met certain criteria (new, very few reviews), sent those results to an inside sales team, and then if the customer didn't purchase from the inside sales rep Yelp effectively changed their filter process for that individual business to "penalize" them for not paying to play. Zagat, Urbanspoon, and TripAdvisor, have never to my knowledge ever implemented these type tactics. I might be wrong, but barring a set of insurmountable complete coincidences for each and every one of the businesses that reported these algorithm changes in the way reviews were displayed, I've got to conclude that Yelp is using their inside sales teams to pressure (extort?) businesses that their business intel teams identify, and make them pay dearly if they don't pay.

derwiki 15y ago
I think this is a vocal minority. Sure, you hear all the time about this random biz owner who thinks Yelp is out to get him, but that doesn't account for the hundreds of thousands of biz owners who have claimed a free account and not cried afoul. A more likely explanation of "extortion" is that the sales org hires 21 year olds fresh out of school who routinely don't make it past 90 days. I'd imagine some of these reps might resort to shady practices to fill a quota, but that's also why they don't last past 90 days. I think this is just a problem of needing a sales organization to make money. Disclaimer: I used to work on the engineering team at Yelp, and I have the utmost respect for the intelligence and morality of the engineers on the review filtering team.
- nieve 15y ago
  I'm willing to postulate that the shady tactics are originated by the sales reps, but not that Yelp isn't responsible in that case. Tolerance of a culture of unethical sales, creating an incentive & hiring structure that encourages it, and being obstructionist when someone who encounters it tries to get their issue dealt with speaks rather more to complicity than innocence. As further anecdotal indication (since you appear to believe that all complaints are isolated and don't appear to have any threshold at which you'll accept otherwise), my girlfriend's cell phone was listed as her restaurant's phone number and she was told repeatedly by support staff, sales, and supervisors that Yelp would not under any circumstance correct this unless she paid for an account. Since her place was open from 6pm to 9am and she had to have to phone on in case of emergencies there, she got calls all night long seven days a week. The only thing that fixed this when she was at the point of involving her lawyer was a random Yelp employee who frequented the restaurant hearing about it. If a single internal comment is enough to fix it, but a legally actionable case (non-public number acquired from a review, refusal to address, telemarketing calls to it) gets "sue and be damned" I'm inclined to think that the company has a major issue at the interface with businesses. She literally did not care what the reviews were because word of mouth in a couple of communities was far more important, but they kept trying to sweeten the deal by offering to "fix" the negative ones.
pbreit 15y ago
But that has never been proven and is highly unlikely. The critics always stretch the facts. For instance in the dog trainer case, the one negative review was by a yelp elite member (typically harsher reviewers) with over 400 reviews. While most of the hidden reviews were during a one week period and by users with only one review (ie, "drive by").

derwiki 15y ago

I think this is a vocal minority. Sure, you hear all the time about this random biz owner who thinks Yelp is out to get him, but that doesn't account for the hundreds of thousands of biz owners who have claimed a free account and not cried afoul. A more likely explanation of "extortion" is that the sales org hires 21 year olds fresh out of school who routinely don't make it past 90 days. I'd imagine some of these reps might resort to shady practices to fill a quota, but that's also why they don't last past 90 days. I think this is just a problem of needing a sales organization to make money. Disclaimer: I used to work on the engineering team at Yelp, and I have the utmost respect for the intelligence and morality of the engineers on the review filtering team.

nieve 15y ago
I'm willing to postulate that the shady tactics are originated by the sales reps, but not that Yelp isn't responsible in that case. Tolerance of a culture of unethical sales, creating an incentive & hiring structure that encourages it, and being obstructionist when someone who encounters it tries to get their issue dealt with speaks rather more to complicity than innocence. As further anecdotal indication (since you appear to believe that all complaints are isolated and don't appear to have any threshold at which you'll accept otherwise), my girlfriend's cell phone was listed as her restaurant's phone number and she was told repeatedly by support staff, sales, and supervisors that Yelp would not under any circumstance correct this unless she paid for an account. Since her place was open from 6pm to 9am and she had to have to phone on in case of emergencies there, she got calls all night long seven days a week. The only thing that fixed this when she was at the point of involving her lawyer was a random Yelp employee who frequented the restaurant hearing about it. If a single internal comment is enough to fix it, but a legally actionable case (non-public number acquired from a review, refusal to address, telemarketing calls to it) gets "sue and be damned" I'm inclined to think that the company has a major issue at the interface with businesses. She literally did not care what the reviews were because word of mouth in a couple of communities was far more important, but they kept trying to sweeten the deal by offering to "fix" the negative ones.

pbreit 15y ago

But that has never been proven and is highly unlikely. The critics always stretch the facts. For instance in the dog trainer case, the one negative review was by a yelp elite member (typically harsher reviewers) with over 400 reviews. While most of the hidden reviews were during a one week period and by users with only one review (ie, "drive by").