Yelp

[Home_Town_Pizza]

If 10 or 15 places document a pattern of withholding reviews it may give you more fuel to pursue an action against Yelp…

What action exactly? They’ve been taken to court before. They don’t even try to hide what they do. The courts have said they are within their rights.

 

[d9phoenix]

Home Town Pizza is correct, the latest suit they won (that i remember, was in CA). The judge said they could do what ever they want and it is legal.

 

[Integraoligist]

So I’ve heard of places offering their customers discounts for going on their yelp and adding good postings… And that it states on the yelp site that they will suspend your account for doing so. But even when your account is suspended i hear your still able to see your company stats. So why not just do this and take the chance of them suspening the account… That way you either have a ton of good reviews or 0 reviews.

 

[Integraoligist]

Then you have that place in CA that gives discounts to their customers for giving them 1 star reviews… They have thousands, and have been on the local news because of it. Yet yelp still dosent take them down or suspend their account.

 

[d9phoenix]

If they removed my business then i would do it. Because i did not ask to be there in the first place.

 

[Joe]

Is there a way to write a review for the Yelp algorithm? That’s the real problem and even after all the huff and puff about how it removes only good reviews for the most part over the past 5 years or so, Yelp still has yet to make any changes to it. Just be fair and remove all reviews that seem inaccurate, not just the good ones because there are plenty of those too I’m sure. Half of my good reviews that have been filtered though, I know they are regulars and I can’t understand why they would be filtered. They are real people and wrote unsolicited reviews, why did the algorithm deem them “not recommmended”? Just be fair!

 

[LittleMissPizza]

I have spent the better part of a half decade trying to figure out your question about the Yelp algorithm and I think it boils down to:

How many total reviews you’ve ever made (The vast majority of reviews that are filtered, the person has less than 15-20 reviews)
Your frequency of reviews
The length of your reviews
Possibly also, the distribution of your star ratings for reviews. (Are all of your reviews 1 star reviews or all 5 star reviews?)
And possibly also whether the business is a paying customer of Yelp

It makes sense that Yelp would give their users with more reviews (and thus more active on the site and value to Yelp) more credibility over people who write a review just to rant about a bad experience(s) or to help out a friend/family member with a 5 star review. Not saying I agree with it, just giving my two cents on the algorithm.

 

[Joe]

It makes sense that Yelp would give their users with more reviews (and thus more active on the site and value to Yelp) more credibility over people who write a review just to rant about a bad experience(s) or to help out a friend/family member with a 5 star review. Not saying I agree with it, just giving my two cents on the algorithm.

Majority of my bad reviews are from people with 5 or less reviews, a few with only 1 review which could be competitors in my opinion because the reviews are erroneous. However, any good reviews from folks with less than 5 reviews are filtered within days so it doesn’t add up if you ask me. Just be fair Yelp!

 

[d9phoenix]

Fair != Profit

 

[pizzapiratespp]

Thru time we, have some how declared victory with Yelp. I’m not sure how, I guess just time and patience. We have gone thru all the good reviews getting filter and the bad ones going to the top. We have dealt with the constant sales calls time and time again and we have "all " of our reviews removed at one location about 5 years ago. For whatever reason, they don’t call us anymore and they don’t seem to unfairly filter our reviews anymore. They have even removed some of the fake ones when I requested it.

We also get a ton of business from them. I feel a little guilty not giving them some money.

 

[bodegahwy]

I feel a little guilty not giving them some money.

I expect you might get over it… lol

 

[pizzapiratespp]

Not 3 minutes after I posted how they are now leaving me alone I got a email from them. They want to talk. It will only take 20 minutes of my time. Blah Blah Blah I jinxed it.

 

[pizzanow]

My erroneous (competitor) reviews got filtered, couple other axe grinding reviews got filtered, few good ones got filtered along with them but that still leaves 10 reviews or so, the majority of them quite favorable. I really can’t get too angry about the whole thing. I’m more happy that urbanspoon got bought out by zomato because urbanspoon showed EVERY review and I had a few up there that were bogus that got filtered by the new zomato system.