Sad part about Yelp is it has so many followers/users in my area that if you aren’t 4 stars at least as a new(er) business, you likely won’t make it. I get the idea behind the filter they use but at the same time, it doesn’t work properly regardless of what they say and it cost countless people to go under in SF. If you’re 4+ stars in your cuisine, you’ll be busy. If you’re 3.5 stars, you’ll get lost in a huge wave of others and my market is very saturated with restaurants. And if you’re 3 stars, even at first when you just opened and are working out the kinks and don’t have many reviews, you won’t get traffic and are up against the 8-ball. That one 5 star review their “filter” took down for no reason, could cost the new biz owner to lose thousands of dollars just over the weekend. I know this because it happened to me when I first opened. Lots of sleepless nights and stress all because of this site (the filter on their site anyway) I couldn’t have more of a love/hate relationship with. Big chains can withstand the low Yelp ratings, but the small business owners get crushed.I must admit this gave me a perverse moment of happiness.
F$%K these guys:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/09/yelp-craters-30percent-as-advertisers-abandon-the-site.html