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So sales reps say that your good reviews will stay and your bad reviews will disappear, but what they say is untrue? I don't know about the Thai restaurant own

So sales reps say that your good reviews will stay and your bad reviews will disappear, but what they say is untrue? I don't know about the Thai restaurant owner, but I certainly trust JWZ. http://www.jwz.org/blog/2009/02/yelp-shakedown/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2009/02/yelp-shakedown/

timr 13y ago
OK, you trust JWZ, but did you read what he wrote, or did you just glance at it and make a snap judgment because you think he's cool? Here's what he says in easy-to-consume bullet points for the TL;DR set: 1) The linked post is four years old. Yelp used to sell a "featured review", but hasn't done that for years because it was controversial (duh). So that part is true, but no longer relevant [1]. 2) Stupid people with bad taste write Yelp reviews. This is definitely true (hello, internet), but again, irrelevant [2]. 3) He links to the tired old East Bay Express article that started the whole "Yelp extortion" meme, and which has been definitively debunked. Repeatedly [3]. So, fine. Trust JWZ. He's a good, smart guy. But in this case, you're "trusting" a mix of his opinion (which is valid), and out-dated, second-hand information (which is not). [1] http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/yelp-kills-featured-reviews/3073/ http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/yelp-kills-featured-reviews/... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdXhH97Z7E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdXhH97Z7E [3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204505304577002170423750412.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020450530457700...
- aristus 13y ago
  So.... you're saying that it's a bad idea to trust what people say about businesses on the internet, because it's often outdated and lacking detail? What does Yelp do again? I forget.
  - aiiane 13y ago
    It's bad to indiscriminately trust what completely random people say. That's different from not trusting at all. There's a reason why Yelp displays friends' reviews before other random reviews, and why Yelp goes to significant effort to get people to write textual reviews rather than just leaving a star rating.
seekup 13y ago
Trust him about what? That article says: - He's "pretty sure" (direct quote) that they offered to take down reviews. Hardly a smoking gun. - He doesn't agree with the reviews of his business. No surprises there. - There's an article in a newspaper where a bunch of business owners claimed Yelp punished them for not advertising. - I think he even implies that Yelp's PR people being scared about that article is somehow evidence of it being true...which is borderline funny. I trust my heroes too, but like, that blog post doesn't really...say anything.
danso 13y ago
A little off-topic, but this remark by JWZ is funny: > I can't stand Yelp. Mostly because it's always the top hit when I search for a restaurant instead of that restaurant's own web site, which is useless, but also because I wouldn't trust any of its reviews for a second. Yelp's SERP ranking is actually their best feature...because they at least have the important facts of the store (its phone number, address, category, etc) in a predictable, usually parseable format. JWZ's post is from four years ago, which means that many more restaurants were using Flash (many of them still do now)...Yelp's listings overtaking those was a welcome phenomenon for me

timr 13y ago

OK, you trust JWZ, but did you read what he wrote, or did you just glance at it and make a snap judgment because you think he's cool? Here's what he says in easy-to-consume bullet points for the TL;DR set: 1) The linked post is four years old. Yelp used to sell a "featured review", but hasn't done that for years because it was controversial (duh). So that part is true, but no longer relevant [1]. 2) Stupid people with bad taste write Yelp reviews. This is definitely true (hello, internet), but again, irrelevant [2]. 3) He links to the tired old East Bay Express article that started the whole "Yelp extortion" meme, and which has been definitively debunked. Repeatedly [3]. So, fine. Trust JWZ. He's a good, smart guy. But in this case, you're "trusting" a mix of his opinion (which is valid), and out-dated, second-hand information (which is not). [1] http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/yelp-kills-featured-reviews/3073/ http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/yelp-kills-featured-reviews/... [2] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdXhH97Z7E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdXhH97Z7E [3] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204505304577002170423750412.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405297020450530457700...

aristus 13y ago
So.... you're saying that it's a bad idea to trust what people say about businesses on the internet, because it's often outdated and lacking detail? What does Yelp do again? I forget.
- aiiane 13y ago
  It's bad to indiscriminately trust what completely random people say. That's different from not trusting at all. There's a reason why Yelp displays friends' reviews before other random reviews, and why Yelp goes to significant effort to get people to write textual reviews rather than just leaving a star rating.

seekup 13y ago

Trust him about what? That article says: - He's "pretty sure" (direct quote) that they offered to take down reviews. Hardly a smoking gun. - He doesn't agree with the reviews of his business. No surprises there. - There's an article in a newspaper where a bunch of business owners claimed Yelp punished them for not advertising. - I think he even implies that Yelp's PR people being scared about that article is somehow evidence of it being true...which is borderline funny. I trust my heroes too, but like, that blog post doesn't really...say anything.

danso 13y ago

A little off-topic, but this remark by JWZ is funny: > I can't stand Yelp. Mostly because it's always the top hit when I search for a restaurant instead of that restaurant's own web site, which is useless, but also because I wouldn't trust any of its reviews for a second. Yelp's SERP ranking is actually their best feature...because they at least have the important facts of the store (its phone number, address, category, etc) in a predictable, usually parseable format. JWZ's post is from four years ago, which means that many more restaurants were using Flash (many of them still do now)...Yelp's listings overtaking those was a welcome phenomenon for me