It's a horror system when they hide reviews. I've seen some really honest reviews for businesses that deserved them and they were hidden by, what appears to be, a biased and misinformed system. I'm appalled at how they do that to honest reviewers.
Yelp is horse shit. At every restaurant I've worked at we've gotten calls from the "yelp guy" who I found out was trying to get the owners to pay for good reviews or the elimination of bad ones. Crooks, and they deserve to get sued.
I gave some local restaurants a review. Good, in depth review of the food I had and what I thought of the place. The restaurants all got 4-5 stars. Apparently my reviews weren't "recommended," while a typical "tis place iz amazin!" is recommended? Bullshit.
+Frisbee if you don't have like 50+ reviews expect to get filtered sometimes. once you hit a certain number of reviews then all your reviewed are unfiltered, even previously filtered reviewed. this is my experience starting at all filtered, then they're unfiltered.
The best relation is taking care of your customers. My wife and I stopped at Lazy Dog for lunch. I ordered the Pot Roast. The Pot Roast was so tough, it was uneatable. The manager walked by and asked how our food was so I showed him the Pot Roast. You stab it and just bounce off. The manager was apologetic and canceled our entire bill though my wife's meal was fine. I offered to pay for her but he said no. He then gave us a free meal to try them again. Because of this, we go back.
WHERE I LIVE THEY JUST ALL apologize and smile and say im sorry over and over and over but never offer a free meal or rate reduction. when I was working and a customer complained about ANYTHING I would immediately remake personally their order without question. and I was HAPPY to do so. and so I had a thousand returned patrons.
As soon as I ignored their aggressive daily calls, they hid good reviews that I had on there for months or years, and then also hid my newest excellent review. They are extortionists. Pure and simple.
Yelp buried two of my reviews in 48 hours. One was 3 stars, the other was 5 stars. I was shocked that they filtered reviews. That's how I found this video. I only have a total of 9 reviews in the past eight months. My activity is low, but my reviews are fair and honest. Now I know the truth about Yelp and I'm disappointed. Is there an alternative review service for consumers?
I generally don't get involved in these sort of finger-pointing things, but I have to chime in that I became suspect of Yelp when they almost immediately filtered out my first (4-star) unsolicited review, and then blocked all of the rest of the positive reviews that were subsequently submitted. There seemed to be no way that any of my clients were able to submit a positive review of my company, no matter how they were worded or who they were. Fortunately for me, to date, no one has submitted a negative (or lower than 4-star) review, so literally no reviews appear on my listing. To make this clear, I do not advertise on Yelp. It is generally my opinion, based on this experience, that Yelp is a scam and I keep wishing that the Attorney General or someone with authority would look into what I'm beginning to believe is actually an organization based on extortion.
My first experience with YELP showed what a disgraceful scam the site is. I gave my gym a 5 star stellar review because they deserve it. It was visable for 2 days, got 2 positive reviews and then was suddenly "not reccomended"
YELP should be investigated for illegal business practices! They have been harrassing my in law's business almost on a daily basis, attempting to get them to pay about 200 per month 'advertising fees'! Without question, they manipulate their website to favor or disfavor businesses by extorting money from them! Their unethical methodology should be illegal.
This is so true my dad's company got a call for yelp asking to pay them when he refused they took all his 3 or higher star reviews. A client asked about her review and was in shock that her review was gone.
Thanks for setting the record straight! I will take the YELP reviews with a grain of salt now. They should not have the power to ruin a small business. I hope the company fails if this is how they do business. I won’t bother writing reviews either now that I know they are filtered and the businesses are being extorted for advertising! I no longer trust YELP!
10 років тому+21
My best review, once at the top, first, Is now hidden at the last place. I think that Yelp is the internet mafia for businesses. Mostly helpful, but strange in it's "automatic" rating standards. They have called me three times, and I told them that I don't make much money with my service, hence my great reviews. But they want.
I very rarely leave comments but I must leave a comment regarding Yelp. A honest, decent, hard working, and truly good human being and friend of mine was a customer with a local business, Budget RV Self Storage, in Phoenix, and the property manager, Ron, conducted an illegal employment background check on my friend. I have read ALL of the documentation regarding the incident, the sworn affidavit from a witness who was privy to the conversation my friend had with the property manager, Ron, who admitted conducted the search, as well as the business owners admitting fault and how they have had too many problems with the employee, Ron. My friend did a review on Yelp to warn consumers and Yelp minimized his review and even took the review of the search engine! Basically, Yelp is condoning a business breaking the law-all for profit! Yelp excuse is that they rely on software to determine the credibility of a review? Yelp is deplorable and I would advise any consumers to read Yelp reviews with a grain of salt because in the end-it's about how much money a business will spend for great reviews! Please read my friend review about Budget RV Self Storage, Phoenix and you'll understand the real truth! Yelp censor 'real' negative reviews-unlike Google plus who showcased a negative review from a former customer for the same business and employee blasting the same employee. Coincidence-hardly!
All the best but I am not at liberty to accept replies that dictate how I chose to express my discontentment with any business affairs. In closing, once a website goes PUBLIC then the PUBLIC have a right to voice their opinion be it good or bad regarding a business review that is advertised on Yelp. I'm ashamed that you don't have the foresight or understanding to comprehend that. As a business owner myself, I embrace any and all negatives comments from any and all social media outlets that my business is active on as it assist my business in striving for five star service and when we fail it help us to get back on track and ANY and ALL competent business owners would agree with me completely. When we become social on media we must also become accountable on social media. Take Care.
Omg! 10 years later and they are still doing the same thing. Good reviews over 20, plenty of solicitation calls to do ads and one was so rude I refuse to hear of any of their crap when they call me. Now my reviews that were showing aren’t showing. Sticking to google SEO! 18 not showing and 7 showing.
IN 2018. NEARLY 100% OF OUR YELP REVIEWS WERE "AUTO-FILTERED OUT" (BY YELP) MAKING THEM ALMOST INVISIBLE! *AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE REVIEWS (100%) HAD RECEIVED A 5 STAR RATING. BUT UNLESS YOU UN-HIDE THEM, YOU WON'T KNOW THEY'RE THERE! These hidden reviews are presently classified as "not currently recommended" and do not contribute to ratings. The people who wrote these reviews apparently had no control and were not even aware of this. (We contacted both customers & yelp numerous times to try & resolve this. And yelp was unwilling to help.) Several days later a yelp sales rep called back and suggested we pay for "damage control." (This was the first time we'd ever had yelp solicit us.) The analogy used was: "If someone graffitis all over your home, do you do nothing, or do you spend the $ to fix it?" (I believe that particular yelp sales conversation/solicitation occurred on Friday late in the afternoon on January 25, 2019. And if memory serves me, the name of this yelp representative/girl (who has also called several times subsequent to that first conversation) is Stephanie. Note: Pretty sure this is the first public comment I've ever left on UA-cam regarding this business. (founded in 2002)
Yelp is one of the most evil companies in existence right up there with Monsanto. In my office, the yelp salesman told us strait up, advertise with us and we'll take care of the bad reviews.
Yelp is very bad for new family owned restaurants. I just had one nice restaurant near me go out of business after opening 1 year ago. Within weeks of opening they had a number of one star reviews from people that only had one or two reviews and yelp deleted some 5 star reviews early on (the only way I could see them was by looking at who posted pictures of the restaurant/food). There were a few glowing 5 star reviews later on from real people, but by then damage was already done. Despite having great fresh food, a nice staff, and a spacious interior the restaurant was always empty every time I went there.
Yes.. I have an account with yelp and they "hide" a couple of my reviews because I gave neg reviews to one business. Yelp is lying! My positive ones are allowed.. Just not my neg., one...
Naww but my thing is that customers don't have time to setup a yelp account and become yelpers just to leave a review. We service over 200 people in a span of 3 hours and most of them just want to have a good meal. They don't want to be bogged down with having to setup an account just to say the food is good on a review site. All my customers love our food and that's the reason why they keep coming back and the reason why they wait in line for 3 to 5 mins to get their food so I know our stuff is good. However, I can't get that testimonial on yelp because you have to have a history of reviewing with yelp for them to consider those reviews legitimate. Furthermore, most people ain't going to go online to give a good review when they have a good experience but some petty people will go online to give a bad review if they have one bad experience and those are the ones that usually end up on yelp for a lot of companies (the bad reviews).
I wondered about their "filter" system after I discovered reviews that were hidden that seemed legitimate. It took me many visits on the site before I even discovered these hidden reviews. I've posted about 3 reviews and have no Yelp "friends", yet all of mine were unfiltered, yet I saw some hidden reviews by people with more reviews and friends. I wondered what criteria Yelp used to "filter", uh, I mean censor reviews, as there was no apparent reason behind it. I've seen many reviews that just looked like they were done by shills, that give no real information, but just say that the business is wonderful. Yet, I've seen hidden reviews that go into detail of what happened with their business encounter. It's apparent now that Yelp is a scam.
I had 7 reviews (up there for months)but now only 3 are shown with no explanation as to why? scam....leads even more credence to this story posted here on youtube. grrrrrrrr
Yelp reviews are worthless. I purchased house and the house inspector assigned by the real estate agent did not identify numerous issues in his home inspection report. I wrote yelp review for house inspector and rated it with one star. This review was shortly removed from the reviews for the house inspector. I was unable to even contact yelp to find out why they removed my review without notifying me about it.
The business i work for Quality First Home Improvements has been affected by yelp. Our good reviews (well over 20) are all hidden. All the bad reviews are at the top of the review page. They have even called my business and tried to extort money from us to hide our 2 or 1 star reviews. Extortion. We still lose business over this to THIS DAY.
Completely agree. We have excellent reviews on 15+ small business review sites, yet Yelp decides to filter nearly half of our reviews. The algorithms are a tactic to drive leads into the company and still abide by the law.
Yelp has harrassed the shit out of me for paid advertising since I listed on their site, and now they're hiding honest reviews by verified customers. BS indeed.
I worked very hard the last 12 years to build my business and I am very generous to my all customers. I am also very professional and love all my customers. We have excellent reviews on Yelp, Google, and Facebook. 2 years ago, I received many calls from Yelp to Advertise with them because I am getting high traffic on Yelp. The associate asked me to combine the two-business listing under one listing. So, I did this, and all my 5-star reviews disappeared. Now it only shows the negative one As recommend review..!! and 2 of the negative reviews are absolutely false. Why is it not showing the positive reviews anymore? I really believe that Yelp is a good company, but they have a something wrong with their system and it needs to be fixed. Yelp also needs to acknowledge the problem, for Yelp’s benefit as well as the customers. Having the customers and the businesses on their side would be beneficial to have greater growth and success for all. I hope yelp team can do something before I go bankrupt… I really believe that the only way to Success has a Great Customer service... Thank you,
I've been a real estate agent for 7 years. Only 4 out of 16 reviews of mine are posted, ALL legitimate. I would be happy to have Yelp speak with each client. ONE, JUST ONE negative review is certainly not helping my business and career.
This video was posted in 2013, but it's 2020 now and Yelp is still operating the same scam. I own a small business and literally EVERY review (all 5 stars) has been hidden in the "Not Recommended" section on my business' Yelp page. Yelp "account managers" (sales people) have called numerous times to get me to pay for advertising and they've stated that the reviews will become visible only after I sign a contract to pay Yelp monthly. It's an extortion racket.
Thank you so much for sharing this video. I have done some research on Yelp the past few days just to see what kind of information they provide and I was shocked at what I discovered. They clearly link advertising with the reviews. I watched the video on Yelps page regarding how they post reviews. They said they filter out people who not frequent visitors to the establishments they are rating. If a restaurant gets a great review from a frequent patron, a bad review from someone out of town or one who rarely eats out, the latter two are dismissed. Is this not filtering? Why review if Yelp only considers positive reviews necessary for posting. The catch here is, favor goes to a business that advertises on Yelp. If they don't, the negative reviews more than likely will show. This is censorship. This is wrong.
Ha ha. My business stopped advertising with yelp (44 reviews shown out of 70) and 6 months later we were at 10 reviews shown out of 72. 2 years later we are only 10 reviews shown out of 91 reviews. Every time we get a review it’s moved to hidden within 24 hours.
Harassed by Yelp for years. It's quieted down in the last several months. Maybe they finally gave up. Unfortunately I just noticed a recent filtering of over 12 reviews. They are shysters.
That is why I feel so lucky because my clients do research before making a decision before making a decision and do mot rely on YELP to make decision for them!
I'd had 22 reviews with about 11 hidden for the past several months. After declining to invest in Yelp ads after multiple attempts from their sales people lately.... Those numbers have reversed rather quickly over the course of the last 2 months. It's now down to 11 reviews, with 22 hidden!!! Coincidence? UPDATE: It's now down to 9 reviews, with 24 hidden!
Same here! I am going to do a livestream proving they hide reviews and also take calls on it for people to share their story! I will sub to you to keep you posted!
Paul Garafola - same here. I had 23 5-star reviews that I was proud of because I never asked anyone to leave a review. Then I advertised on Yelp and it was ineffective so I cancelled. Now Yelp has wiped out 15 of my 5-star reviews and are promoting 2 1-star reviews where one reviewer was not even a client and the other lost a small claims action against me. Now I have a 3 star rating with only 8 reviews.
@@jammin6816 WOW! They are SHADY, the way they do business. And they blame it on the "algorithms". Ha! What a joke. I just updated my post here. Since declining their sales people, the public reviews and hidden reviews for my business have now completely reversed. There are now 24 reviews HIDDEN and 9 reviews PUBLIC. 😏 Some advise that we not decline their sales pitches, but that we should just tell them to try again in 6 months when we might have the budget to advertise. That way we don't get put on the list that hides most of the reviews. Whether that's true or not, don't know. But I will try it, if they call again.
Positive and negative: Positive- yelp did grow my business. It exploded because I worked hard to get the 5 star reviews. Negative- their filter process has no logic. Some of my customers who do rate a lot are filtered which makes no sense. 5 years in business and yelp hides 90% of the reviews so it looks like I’m a new business. When business grew and I decreased advertising they began calling constantly for more money. I also noticed they go through employees like crazy. I have a new account rep every 6 months or so. Overall- you have to play their game. I don’t like how much power they have to shut a business down with negative reviews because they appear to be extorting some companies but at the same time a company needs to do whatever they can to keep customers happy so a few businesses going out may not be a bad thing. Reputation is everything in business. Double edged sword but live by it, die by it.
I'm so glad they are being exposed. I have a great business, and we have wonderful clients and staff. We joined yelp, got a bunch of great reviews that were showing up, received lots of clients..... then they asked me to advertise. In May 2015 I finally told them no I wouldn't advertise and now all of our positive reviews are hidden, 41 to be exact and 7 are showing. The negative reviews are from YELP ELITE status members. www.yelp.com/elite These people are looking for a deal anywhere they can get it, and yelp knows this. They reward these clients through "status" and "parties" but these people have to prove themselves with multiple reviews both positive and negative. Therefore even if these people had a great experience in every business they ever go to, yelp actually promotes that they need to have unbiased reviews by having reviews of all kinds. To me this is paying for people to write negative reviews. No elite reviewers that I can find speak to be very loyal to anyone. Example the client who came to us came in to get her hair done, but yet she had her hair done 3 times in that month. Reviews are supposed to help gain clients right? So how is this helping anyone, except yelp try and sell advertising to me?Guess what? That girl also posted crazy pictures of her supposed issue on yelp which was then shown as our profile picture! So yelp, you win, your "elite member" created us enough hassle that I finally had to pay yelp! I really look forward to this movie and the exposure. How can you sleep at night knowing you are doing such horrible things to small businesses? In the end, they will be found out, and it will be interesting to see what happens.
+Jamie Carman A lot times being good and being filthy rich conflict so much that one of the ideas has to be completely thrown out. Psychopaths rise in the hierarchy fueled by lust of money and the desire to rule subordinates. Certain parts of their brain are poisoned and don't operate correctly. These Yelp people are a bunch of kooks, just like many other big businesses that come to power to rule the sheep and take a little of bit their money. The root of the problem is low levels of consciousness in the mind, this happens either through high toxicity levels of mycotoxins, other parasites, etc. or just weak strands in the DNA. Typically the weak mind attracts bullying by the common people and over time, this vampirism penetrates their heart and causes mild psychosis, thus creating monsters who take over the work place and anything else they can. Yelp is humanities problem, its all our fault, people wouldn't be so screwed up if everyone as a whole was more enlightened and fair to each other. A possible solution is that everyone question the legitimacy of any source of information they use to dictate a life decision (like which restaurant they visit), care about the content they consume, and if encountering someone which is found to be pathetic, simply ignore them --do not charge them full of negative energy which they will then later use to screw people with.
+Jamie Carman People with 50+ reviews are almost NEVER filtered. How do I know, because I'm at over 100+ reviews and I'm never filtered. basically, if someone with only a few total reviews is filtered, that's normal. if most of your reviews are from people with few total reviews Yelp can fuck with you completely. you need to get reviews from people with lots of total reviews who are NEVER filtered. even my first several reviews with Yelp years ago that were filtered, were unfiltered when I hit around 50 total reviews.
Something new is coming to the review site industry and I’m sure the review sites are not going to like it but I’m going to love it and businesses across the country are going to love it
If there is no shady dealing, then it's not so much the lack of transparency with the filter algorithm, but rather that the filter they built sucks at its job and is filtering out so many legitimate reviews. Google's search algorithm is not transparent and yet it returns me the results I want to see.
Yelp is unconscionable. We have over 250 five stars reviews. They have put the one one and two star reviews on our front page. Then the phone call came wanting us to advertise with them. We can help your business. Pardon me Yelp we have a successful business because we serve amazing food and excellent customer service. We have a successful business despite Yelp. Never, never advertise with them. All you do is keep them in business.
please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm! They are extorting me and I want to help other small businesses like me who are being harassed by YELP.
I’m a technician who asks people after I do my work to post a picture of the good quality work and leave an honest review I have them confirm email and do everything under the sun , they leave their honest review and yelp just hides it because you can’t receive too many good reviews ! Flawed system I get raises and hours based off yelp reviews and now yelp is hiding all my good reviews
We did an experiment, same person writing the same kind of reviews for 2 same kind of business, the business that pays yelp the review stays, the business that doesn’t pay yelp the review gets “filtered”, how shady is that, try explaining that yelp
Corrupt system, used to be able to pay for reviews directly, but now you have to pay for their advertising so positive reviews don't get "filtered" to be accepted for their algorithm. If you pay more money, you can also get negative reviews "filtered".
Liars ..I have a 5 star biz , small biz ...once I stop paying yelp ads they filtered 23 honest reviews from very good yelp users...they left me with 10 boom all of the sudden is extortion for real I swearrrrr
Please share your story on my upcoming livestream! I am exposing them by showing the decline in my reviews, the forged signature and a threat in email! I subbed to you so when I go live I will let you know!
What I would say to the Harvard business school genius is that it's not about the number of reviews filtered, its about which ones are filtered... I could be wrong.
I wrote a positive review about a club that had re-opened and YELP said No, No, not good enough, basically 0_______0 I've seen other reviews of clubs/stores with 1 line, 15 words get a pass while mine was well written and had much thought go into it. O_o
VIDEOHEREBOB - Yelp had misspelled my business name which I had been using for 25 years so I contacted them and a ditzy Yelp Millennial literally said “how do you know it’s spelled wrong?” even after I had told her I was the owner. Then she said she couldn’t change it because I would have to prove it was spelled wrong. I told her again that I should know how to spell my own business name. After going around in circles for 10 minutes she finally gave in and corrected it. Unbelievable!!! 🤨
If there's any doubt at all on whether Yelp personally manipulates the reviews, just look up Yelp itself on Yelp's own site and check the "Not Recommended" section. They filter ALL their 1 star reviews into "Not Recommended." Yelp doesn't get to claim they're unbiased when it's clear they've made it impossible to post negative opinions of Yelp on their own site. It's actually pretty hilarious seeing an entire section of 1 star reviews hidden away because they dared to criticize Yelp.
I refused to buy the advertising and yelp ruined my yelp page into a a one star. They refused to show the good reviews and posted fake bad reviews (made up by Yelp or people working for them). They wouldn't even show my response. I closed the business and started another that does not have a Yelp page. I now have only 5 star reviews on Angie's List and Google as well as other system like thumbtack
It's amazing because Fucking Yelp doesn't even have the options for customers to enter their reciept number so that proves the authanticity of the customer and the review.
Yelp sucks even if you ignore the obvious extortion scam. I've been to so many 4 and 5 star restaurants that were 2-3 at best. Either those places paid yelp for review boosts, or most yelpers have terrible taste.
I had heard some great things about yelp and looked into having some of my clients take time from their busy schedule to leave me a review. I emailed three of my past clients and included a yelp review link and asked them to complete a review. All 3 of my clients left 5 star reviews for me immediately. I was excited about their reviews and thanked them for their wonderful reviews. I also, immediately added a Yelp button to my website and was excited about promoting yelp. However, after a few days, I discovered that Yelp had filter ALL 3 five star reviews from my review page. Yelp had contacted me letting me know that if I advertised with yelp, it would help insure my reviews were not filtered. This really seems a bit like extortion and I am very disappointed knowing that even though my customers made effort to leave me a review, those reviews will be unseen. :(
Hi, may I use portions of this video for my Instagram account I am creating for anti Yelp and awareness? I agree with everything you say and businesses need to take a stand against Yelp.
I didn't know about this side of Yelp, but I will say that for a time, I noticed that quite a lot of my reviews had been filtered into the "not currently recommended" section that's accessed by an easily-overlooked link at the bottom. Apparently I wasn't active enough on Yelp for their algorithm's liking, so my reviews got quietly swept under the rug.
I have never liked Yelp.I have never checked their reviews before a purchase. In about 2009 or 2010, they called my place of work asking for us to advertise with them. I was shocked that a company where people writes reviews would want a company to advertise with them They were also rude when they called.
Frustrated because I just started with Yelp , and I’ve gotten 9 reviews in about 2 weeks but everyday they take a review I’m now at 1 review , and people go based off of reviews , but how will they see the reviews if they take it off
Same here.. ppl saying they only take reviews when you don’t advertise with them but I do advertise with them and reviews are still being hidden. It’s crazy!
Yelp has moved 90% of my reviews to the "unrecommended" section. Reviews from verifiable 100% real clients- People known to have bought cars from me on the 911 Forums and on Social media, reviews that have been active for over a year. Yelp contacted me in October to pay for advertising which i declined, and they called again & again finally i asked them to not call, and all of a sudden within 30 days my reviews start to disappear. I called yelp and they said they changed their "algorithm" and recommend more active users. So i'm supposed to bother my clients and ask them to leave reviews for other businesses on Yelp so the reviews they left me stay active? This is unfair & malicious practice, for a small 1 man operated business as mine this is devastating, yelp is and has been acting like a Mafia. Please if you are searching my business visit the "unrecommended" section and you can see pics of the cars i've sold to these clients in most instances and verify these are real 100% reviews.
Yelp wants small business to pay to allow your good reviews to show. They don't seem to have any problem with checking any bad review. They started calling me asking me to advertise with then. I was already getting business from yelp for free and i was advertising with google. so I said no thank you. They kept calling basicly making reference to being able to do something about the bad reviews if I advertise with then. I said no. I now take pictures with my phone of very review before yelp removes it so that I can have proof in case of a class action lawsuit I can be involved in.
Same story. Small business owner. A happy customer leaves a yelp review, I'm getting bombarded with sales calls from yelp offering me to pay them $350 to $500 a month upwards to a grand for advertising locked into a yearly contract with 2 month fee to cancel plus production - $1000 to cancel. Happy review is muted and gone from my listing. I didn't sign. Talk to my partner in New York - he says to avoid at all costs - don't sign with them!!!
At least some of the work of Michael Yuca, the Harvard researcher who found that purchasing advertising does not affect the number of filtered reviews, is SPONSORED by Yelp. I don't know about the study mentioned in this video.
to whom it may concern, I have a restaurant in Ocean City been open in May 2016, in a first year we has very good reviews on Yelp, Google, FB and Tripadviser, but so far this year since begin of June 2017 I has a lot of bad reviews and most of them on Yelp, here the most reason is because I didn't advertise on Yelp they call me many time and asked me to advertise "to bring more customers to my restaurant" I kept told them I'm not interesting. just recently have one restaurant similar to my restaurant in the neighbor, they was open in May 2017 I think this restaurant did business with Yelp they and got so many 5 star reviews and my restaurant had few 5 star reviews from our customers but wasn't show on the Yelp at all. Yelp sale person has call two time last week I have spoke him about my restaurant situation then I'm asked him a question "how come I have few reviews from our customer but wasn't on Yelp page? he told me that maybe the reviewer too new that maybe filted", he tried get me to do advertise again then said "no". Any way can you help because at the youtube I just watched most on this screen was same with matter. I'm so depressed this is ruined my restaurant during I had Article on The Press Of Atlantic City and coming one Ocean City also! please help I'm appreciated!
YELP HURTS a lot of Businesses. Their filter system makes no sense at all. Their filter does not work at all. This company needs to be taken off the market
I started just communicating by email because of all the lies and double talk to confuse me! They were friend as long as I was paying. Now they are harassing me! please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
It is true that there are scammers looking for freebies on Yelp. It is also true that people are 9 times more likely to leave a bad review. It is also unfortunately true that businesses every day are being decimated. That is why it is so imperative for companies to take a proactive approach to their review management. I spoke with a cafe owner two days ago that was in tiers over what had happened to her business because of just 3 of these bad reviews.
I posted negative reviews for the Century 21 Award agent and house inspector. Agent advertised house as pristine and meticulously maintained even though house had multi year mold damage and slab leak, faulty drainage and faulty grading of the backyard (when it rains water collects in the backyard damaging house walls). Agent did not disclose that seller had Alzheimer and she did nto enforce provisions of the purchase agreement (seller was late with seller disclosures and termite report), never provided me accounting of repairs done and removed property from the house without counter offer. The house inspection report issued by National properties Inspections did not disclose any of the issues listed above. Yet my reviews are not displayed by Yelp. I guess owners of the businesses joined the Yelp and negative reviews for them are not displayed. So Yelp ratings are phony. The system is being gamed by smart businesses.
Appliance Man of Colorado 1 Star 1 Review 21 (5) star reviews hidden because we won't pay to advertise. www.yelp.com/biz/appliance-man-of-colorado-denver
Power to the people! Love yelp and it helped me to avoid dealing with low life businesses ! Thanks to all who wrote reviews to help us make good choices in spending our hard earned dollars! Just signed up today! Thanks YELP!!
Don't believe it, I stoped advertising, being a new small business I had only 3 hard won reviews, so happy to get them. Then within a short time if ending the advertisements they were ALL unrecomended now I have no visible reviews, and the phone calls started. Bah, I will not spend my money on them ever again.
Everyone should delete their reviews on Yelp. Word of mouth is the best way to find out about services and good restaurants, that's the way it was for years and years. Nowadays we respect a review of someone we do not know and if we met them we would probably not even want to talk to them. Kids even post reviews. Yelp has put so many good restaurants right out of business. Besides, most people...smart people, know that online reviews are "bought and paid for". Want a good restaurant? Look for the one with long lines. In the mean time, tell all your friends to delete ALL of their reviews on Yelp. All of them...good and bad. It will make this corrupt service go away.
YELP has hidden over 50 of my reviews, now only 29 are showing after I canceled my ads! I have been trying to cancel my ads for years only to have my signature forged and my ad payment increased from $200 to $325! I am still getting business because my clients do not rely on YELP they do extensive research! I am now fighting for small businesses!
I have given a half dozen honest reviews of local companies that I think made sense, I'm still not sure why these comments and ratings I spent a lot of time and energy on are not showing up.
This happening to me over 1,000 views a week down to about 30 now. I used to get hundreds of customers with 3 employees. I stopped paying & lost 100 of 500 reviews ! ! ! Now only 400 reviews! & I don't show up in searches & get 2 or 3 ppl a day & work alone. I can't afford to pay !
It's a horror system when they hide reviews. I've seen some really honest reviews for businesses that deserved them and they were hidden by, what appears to be, a biased and misinformed system. I'm appalled at how they do that to honest reviewers.
If you leave a review for "Yelp" on Yelp, you can help bring them down. So far we've got them at 2 stars, let's get them to 1 star! Come on! !!!
This is obsurd, yelp is censoring us!
Yelp is horse shit. At every restaurant I've worked at we've gotten calls from the "yelp guy" who I found out was trying to get the owners to pay for good reviews or the elimination of bad ones. Crooks, and they deserve to get sued.
They are weasels...I have 32 5 star reviews on my biz and only 8 have made it through in 3 years !
They need a RICO case against YELP!
I gave some local restaurants a review. Good, in depth review of the food I had and what I thought of the place. The restaurants all got 4-5 stars. Apparently my reviews weren't "recommended," while a typical "tis place iz amazin!" is recommended? Bullshit.
+Frisbee if you don't have like 50+ reviews expect to get filtered sometimes. once you hit a certain number of reviews then all your reviewed are unfiltered, even previously filtered reviewed.
this is my experience starting at all filtered, then they're unfiltered.
The best relation is taking care of your customers. My wife and I stopped at Lazy Dog for lunch. I ordered the Pot Roast. The Pot Roast was so tough, it was uneatable. The manager walked by and asked how our food was so I showed him the Pot Roast. You stab it and just bounce off. The manager was apologetic and canceled our entire bill though my wife's meal was fine. I offered to pay for her but he said no. He then gave us a free meal to try them again. Because of this, we go back.
WHERE I LIVE THEY JUST ALL apologize and smile and say im sorry over and over and over but never offer a free meal or rate reduction. when I was working and a customer complained about ANYTHING I would immediately remake personally their order without question. and I was HAPPY to do so. and so I had a thousand returned patrons.
It's not that hard. If everyone will switch to Google Reviews or TripAdvisor. Besides, Yelp usage will decline soon.
Yelp's gonna be bankrupt pretty soon...
@@roehb4s551 Really? Google never harassed us.
@@yunusrajabiy1414 Any day now...
I am giving 100% stick reviews on Google business page, Trustpilot, TripAdvisor etc.
My whatsapp number +917667675301
As soon as I ignored their aggressive daily calls, they hid good reviews that I had on there for months or years, and then also hid my newest excellent review. They are extortionists. Pure and simple.
I have 6 reviews all 5 stars and all hidden. wonder why?
I am giving 100% stick reviews on Google business page
Yelp buried two of my reviews in 48 hours. One was 3 stars, the other was 5 stars. I was shocked that they filtered reviews. That's how I found this video. I only have a total of 9 reviews in the past eight months. My activity is low, but my reviews are fair and honest. Now I know the truth about Yelp and I'm disappointed. Is there an alternative review service for consumers?
I wish, and hope so, in the future. I don't take kindly to YELP anymore, >:(
+TheLifeOnHigh google or facebook! If you review them and use the same guidelines, it will help the business be found with your review!
TheLifeOnHigh check out my UA-cam reply about this and see what I did
Yes, Google Reviews and Facebook Reviews are an alternative. There is generally no filter on those, so keep that in mind since it can go both ways.
use google
I generally don't get involved in these sort of finger-pointing things, but I have to chime in that I became suspect of Yelp when they almost immediately filtered out my first (4-star) unsolicited review, and then blocked all of the rest of the positive reviews that were subsequently submitted. There seemed to be no way that any of my clients were able to submit a positive review of my company, no matter how they were worded or who they were. Fortunately for me, to date, no one has submitted a negative (or lower than 4-star) review, so literally no reviews appear on my listing. To make this clear, I do not advertise on Yelp.
It is generally my opinion, based on this experience, that Yelp is a scam and I keep wishing that the Attorney General or someone with authority would look into what I'm beginning to believe is actually an organization based on extortion.
My first experience with YELP showed what a disgraceful scam the site is. I gave my gym a 5 star stellar review because they deserve it. It was visable for 2 days, got 2 positive reviews and then was suddenly "not reccomended"
I find the best Yelp reviews are the ones they hide. If I could rate Yelp itself I would rate them a ONE.
YELP should be investigated for illegal business practices! They have been harrassing my in law's business almost on a daily basis, attempting to get them to pay about 200 per month 'advertising fees'! Without question, they manipulate their website to favor or disfavor businesses by extorting money from them! Their unethical methodology should be illegal.
This is so true my dad's company got a call for yelp asking to pay them when he refused they took all his 3 or higher star reviews. A client asked about her review and was in shock that her review was gone.
please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
Thanks for setting the record straight! I will take the YELP reviews with a grain of salt now. They should not have the power to ruin a small business. I hope the company fails if this is how they do business. I won’t bother writing reviews either now that I know they are filtered and the businesses are being extorted for advertising! I no longer trust YELP!
My best review, once at the top, first, Is now hidden at the last place. I think that Yelp is the internet mafia for businesses. Mostly helpful, but strange in it's "automatic" rating standards. They have called me three times, and I told them that I don't make much money with my service, hence my great reviews. But they want.
Yelp can be useful if you know how to use it. Check out this book goo.gl/Ed2CEM. Yelp Secrets and Strategies for business owners revealed.
Advertising Solutions
Good book , helpfull
Brian D it’s scam .
Yes it’s scam
yelp has hidden my good reviews for my business!
IF EVERYONE NEVER GIVES YELP MONEY THEY WILL GO BANKRUPT !!!!!!!
That's Yelp's S.O.P. (standard operating procedure).
Me to for both of my business just because I will not pay for advertising on their site. Yelp can go jump in a lake they suck
I very rarely leave comments but I must leave a comment regarding Yelp. A honest, decent, hard working, and truly good human being and friend of mine was a customer with a local business, Budget RV Self Storage, in Phoenix, and the property manager, Ron, conducted an illegal employment background check on my friend. I have read ALL of the documentation regarding the incident, the sworn affidavit from a witness who was privy to the conversation my friend had with the property manager, Ron, who admitted conducted the search, as well as the business owners admitting fault and how they have had too many problems with the employee, Ron. My friend did a review on Yelp to warn consumers and Yelp minimized his review and even took the review of the search engine! Basically, Yelp is condoning a business breaking the law-all for profit! Yelp excuse is that they rely on software to determine the credibility of a review? Yelp is deplorable and I would advise any consumers to read Yelp reviews with a grain of salt because in the end-it's about how much money a business will spend for great reviews! Please read my friend review about Budget RV Self Storage, Phoenix and you'll understand the real truth! Yelp censor 'real' negative reviews-unlike Google plus who showcased a negative review from a former customer for the same business and employee blasting the same employee. Coincidence-hardly!
oh no, somebody have to sue them
All the best but I am not at liberty to accept replies that dictate how I chose to express my discontentment with any business affairs. In closing, once a website goes PUBLIC then the PUBLIC have a right to voice their opinion be it good or bad regarding a business review that is advertised on Yelp. I'm ashamed that you don't have the foresight or understanding to comprehend that. As a business owner myself, I embrace any and all negatives comments from any and all social media outlets that my business is active on as it assist my business in striving for five star service and when we fail it help us to get back on track and ANY and ALL competent business owners would agree with me completely. When we become social on media we must also become accountable on social media. Take Care.
Northwest Business Training They sue them all the time and they don’t win! There is something much bigger behind the scenes!
Omg! 10 years later and they are still doing the same thing. Good reviews over 20, plenty of solicitation calls to do ads and one was so rude I refuse to hear of any of their crap when they call me. Now my reviews that were showing aren’t showing. Sticking to google SEO! 18 not showing and 7 showing.
IN 2018. NEARLY 100% OF OUR YELP REVIEWS WERE "AUTO-FILTERED OUT" (BY YELP) MAKING THEM ALMOST INVISIBLE!
*AND EVERY ONE OF THOSE REVIEWS (100%) HAD RECEIVED A 5 STAR RATING. BUT UNLESS YOU UN-HIDE THEM, YOU WON'T KNOW THEY'RE THERE! These hidden reviews are presently classified as "not currently recommended" and do not contribute to ratings. The people who wrote these reviews apparently had no control and were not even aware of this. (We contacted both customers & yelp numerous times to try & resolve this. And yelp was unwilling to help.) Several days later a yelp sales rep called back and suggested we pay for "damage control." (This was the first time we'd ever had yelp solicit us.) The analogy used was: "If someone graffitis all over your home, do you do nothing, or do you spend the $ to fix it?" (I believe that particular yelp sales conversation/solicitation occurred on Friday late in the afternoon on January 25, 2019. And if memory serves me, the name of this yelp representative/girl (who has also called several times subsequent to that first conversation) is Stephanie. Note: Pretty sure this is the first public comment I've ever left on UA-cam regarding this business. (founded in 2002)
Sounds similar to mine. Over 80% filtered. All 5 star reviews. The solicitation is annoying!
Very interesting that the "Yelp" reviews that are mostly favorable are "recommended", whereas the mostly negative reviews are "not recommended".
That's only true if you're paying them to advertise if you reject their offer they hide all your positive reviews.
Yelp is one of the most evil companies in existence right up there with Monsanto. In my office, the yelp salesman told us strait up, advertise with us and we'll take care of the bad reviews.
He sounds like Don Corleone......lol
IF EVERYONE NEVER GIVES YELP MONEY THEY WILL GO BANKRUPT !!!!!!!
Susan Miller On the other hand in some cases a genuinely dishonest business will suffer extortion from Yelp.......something good out of it.
Yes they are not shy about their blackmail
Yelp is very bad for new family owned restaurants. I just had one nice restaurant near me go out of business after opening 1 year ago. Within weeks of opening they had a number of one star reviews from people that only had one or two reviews and yelp deleted some 5 star reviews early on (the only way I could see them was by looking at who posted pictures of the restaurant/food). There were a few glowing 5 star reviews later on from real people, but by then damage was already done. Despite having great fresh food, a nice staff, and a spacious interior the restaurant was always empty every time I went there.
Yes.. I have an account with yelp and they "hide" a couple of my reviews because I gave neg reviews to one business. Yelp is lying! My positive ones are allowed.. Just not my neg., one...
Naww but my thing is that customers don't have time to setup a yelp account and become yelpers just to leave a review. We service over 200 people in a span of 3 hours and most of them just want to have a good meal. They don't want to be bogged down with having to setup an account just to say the food is good on a review site.
All my customers love our food and that's the reason why they keep coming back and the reason why they wait in line for 3 to 5 mins to get their food so I know our stuff is good. However, I can't get that testimonial on yelp because you have to have a history of reviewing with yelp for them to consider those reviews legitimate.
Furthermore, most people ain't going to go online to give a good review when they have a good experience but some petty people will go online to give a bad review if they have one bad experience and those are the ones that usually end up on yelp for a lot of companies (the bad reviews).
jesusneverexisted300 - exactly!
Yelp, what a sad joke and a sloppy creation.
Michael Ambrose Damn your obedient...ick.
Michael Ambrose So I guess you would also argue that Bernie Madoff was not a sad joke? Try turning on the brain before using it.
I wondered about their "filter" system after I discovered reviews that were hidden that seemed legitimate. It took me many visits on the site before I even discovered these hidden reviews. I've posted about 3 reviews and have no Yelp "friends", yet all of mine were unfiltered, yet I saw some hidden reviews by people with more reviews and friends. I wondered what criteria Yelp used to "filter", uh, I mean censor reviews, as there was no apparent reason behind it. I've seen many reviews that just looked like they were done by shills, that give no real information, but just say that the business is wonderful. Yet, I've seen hidden reviews that go into detail of what happened with their business encounter. It's apparent now that Yelp is a scam.
They filter reviews when businesses refuse to pay for ads! please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
"I cant tell you what they are but these are the ways we will rip you off" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Act 1. Lovebombing. Act 2. Request for payback. Act 3. Punishment for non-compliance. It's just corporate narcissism.
Story of my life with YELP!
I had 7 reviews (up there for months)but now only 3 are shown with no explanation as to why? scam....leads even more credence to this story posted here on youtube. grrrrrrrr
I watched a business owner have the bad review removed. Making this product pointless.
Yelp reviews are worthless. I purchased house and the house inspector assigned by the real estate agent did not identify numerous issues in his home inspection report. I wrote yelp review for house inspector and rated it with one star. This review was shortly removed from the reviews for the house inspector. I was unable to even contact yelp to find out why they removed my review without notifying me about it.
Yelp is probably now extorting $ from that house inspector or the real estate agent to keep the negative reviews hidden
The business i work for Quality First Home Improvements has been affected by yelp. Our good reviews (well over 20) are all hidden. All the bad reviews are at the top of the review page. They have even called my business and tried to extort money from us to hide our 2 or 1 star reviews. Extortion. We still lose business over this to THIS DAY.
Completely agree. We have excellent reviews on 15+ small business review sites, yet Yelp decides to filter nearly half of our reviews. The algorithms are a tactic to drive leads into the company and still abide by the law.
...So THAT'S why yelp hid my five star review of the blood bank!!! Because I did not leave tons of reviews!!!!!!?????????
Ugh. So lame!
Yelp has harrassed the shit out of me for paid advertising since I listed on their site, and now they're hiding honest reviews by verified customers. BS indeed.
I worked very hard the last 12 years to build my business and I am very generous to my all customers. I am also very professional and love all my customers. We have excellent reviews on Yelp, Google, and Facebook. 2 years ago, I received many calls from Yelp to Advertise with them because I am getting high traffic on Yelp. The associate asked me to combine the two-business listing under one listing. So, I did this, and all my 5-star reviews disappeared. Now it only shows the negative one As recommend review..!! and 2 of the negative reviews are absolutely false. Why is it not showing the positive reviews anymore? I really believe that Yelp is a good company, but they have a something wrong with their system and it needs to be fixed. Yelp also needs to acknowledge the problem, for Yelp’s benefit as well as the customers. Having the customers and the businesses on their side would be beneficial to have greater growth and success for all. I hope yelp team can do something before I go bankrupt… I really believe that the only way to Success has a Great Customer service... Thank you,
YELP lies to the public! They have zero morals!
I've been a real estate agent for 7 years. Only 4 out of 16 reviews of mine are posted, ALL legitimate. I would be happy to have Yelp speak with each client. ONE, JUST ONE negative review is certainly not helping my business and career.
Please joing my livestream to tell your story...will be posting soon!
You don’t get it- Yelp is shaking you down for money and they couldn’t care less if the reviews are legitimate.
This video was posted in 2013, but it's 2020 now and Yelp is still operating the same scam. I own a small business and literally EVERY review (all 5 stars) has been hidden in the "Not Recommended" section on my business' Yelp page. Yelp "account managers" (sales people) have called numerous times to get me to pay for advertising and they've stated that the reviews will become visible only after I sign a contract to pay Yelp monthly. It's an extortion racket.
Thank you so much for sharing this video. I have done some research on Yelp the past few days just to see what kind of information they provide and I was shocked at what I discovered. They clearly link advertising with the reviews. I watched the video on Yelps page regarding how they post reviews. They said they filter out people who not frequent visitors to the establishments they are rating. If a restaurant gets a great review from a frequent patron, a bad review from someone out of town or one who rarely eats out, the latter two are dismissed. Is this not filtering? Why review if Yelp only considers positive reviews necessary for posting. The catch here is, favor goes to a business that advertises on Yelp. If they don't, the negative reviews more than likely will show. This is censorship. This is wrong.
Ha ha. My business stopped advertising with yelp (44 reviews shown out of 70) and 6 months later we were at 10 reviews shown out of 72.
2 years later we are only 10 reviews shown out of 91 reviews. Every time we get a review it’s moved to hidden within 24 hours.
Harassed by Yelp for years. It's quieted down in the last several months. Maybe they finally gave up. Unfortunately I just noticed a recent filtering of over 12 reviews. They are shysters.
So true!!!!!!!! 90 percent of our 5 * reviews are hidden after we told them we would not advertise with them.
“Set aside wether it’s a good business or not” lmao okay.
That is why I feel so lucky because my clients do research before making a decision before making a decision and do mot rely on YELP to make decision for them!
I'd had 22 reviews with about 11 hidden for the past several months.
After declining to invest in Yelp ads after multiple attempts from their sales people lately....
Those numbers have reversed rather quickly over the course of the last 2 months. It's now down to 11 reviews, with 22 hidden!!!
Coincidence?
UPDATE: It's now down to 9 reviews, with 24 hidden!
Same here! I am going to do a livestream proving they hide reviews and also take calls on it for people to share their story! I will sub to you to keep you posted!
Paul Garafola - same here. I had 23 5-star reviews that I was proud of because I never asked anyone to leave a review. Then I advertised on Yelp and it was ineffective so I cancelled. Now Yelp has wiped out 15 of my 5-star reviews and are promoting 2 1-star reviews where one reviewer was not even a client and the other lost a small claims action against me. Now I have a 3 star rating with only 8 reviews.
@@jammin6816 WOW! They are SHADY, the way they do business. And they blame it on the "algorithms". Ha! What a joke. I just updated my post here. Since declining their sales people, the public reviews and hidden reviews for my business have now completely reversed.
There are now 24 reviews HIDDEN and 9 reviews PUBLIC.
😏
Some advise that we not decline their sales pitches, but that we should just tell them to try again in 6 months when we might have the budget to advertise. That way we don't get put on the list that hides most of the reviews. Whether that's true or not, don't know. But I will try it, if they call again.
Positive and negative:
Positive- yelp did grow my business. It exploded because I worked hard to get the 5 star reviews.
Negative- their filter process has no logic. Some of my customers who do rate a lot are filtered which makes no sense. 5 years in business and yelp hides 90% of the reviews so it looks like I’m a new business.
When business grew and I decreased advertising they began calling constantly for more money. I also noticed they go through employees like crazy. I have a new account rep every 6 months or so.
Overall- you have to play their game. I don’t like how much power they have to shut a business down with negative reviews because they appear to be extorting some companies but at the same time a company needs to do whatever they can to keep customers happy so a few businesses going out may not be a bad thing. Reputation is everything in business. Double edged sword but live by it, die by it.
I'm so glad they are being exposed. I have a great business, and we have wonderful clients and staff. We joined yelp, got a bunch of great reviews that were showing up, received lots of clients..... then they asked me to advertise. In May 2015 I finally told them no I wouldn't advertise and now all of our positive reviews are hidden, 41 to be exact and 7 are showing. The negative reviews are from YELP ELITE status members. www.yelp.com/elite These people are looking for a deal anywhere they can get it, and yelp knows this. They reward these clients through "status" and "parties" but these people have to prove themselves with multiple reviews both positive and negative. Therefore even if these people had a great experience in every business they ever go to, yelp actually promotes that they need to have unbiased reviews by having reviews of all kinds. To me this is paying for people to write negative reviews. No elite reviewers that I can find speak to be very loyal to anyone. Example the client who came to us came in to get her hair done, but yet she had her hair done 3 times in that month. Reviews are supposed to help gain clients right? So how is this helping anyone, except yelp try and sell advertising to me?Guess what? That girl also posted crazy pictures of her supposed issue on yelp which was then shown as our profile picture! So yelp, you win, your "elite member" created us enough hassle that I finally had to pay yelp! I really look forward to this movie and the exposure. How can you sleep at night knowing you are doing such horrible things to small businesses? In the end, they will be found out, and it will be interesting to see what happens.
+Jamie Carman A lot times being good and being filthy rich conflict so much that one of the ideas has to be completely thrown out. Psychopaths rise in the hierarchy fueled by lust of money and the desire to rule subordinates. Certain parts of their brain are poisoned and don't operate correctly. These Yelp people are a bunch of kooks, just like many other big businesses that come to power to rule the sheep and take a little of bit their money. The root of the problem is low levels of consciousness in the mind, this happens either through high toxicity levels of mycotoxins, other parasites, etc. or just weak strands in the DNA. Typically the weak mind attracts bullying by the common people and over time, this vampirism penetrates their heart and causes mild psychosis, thus creating monsters who take over the work place and anything else they can. Yelp is humanities problem, its all our fault, people wouldn't be so screwed up if everyone as a whole was more enlightened and fair to each other. A possible solution is that everyone question the legitimacy of any source of information they use to dictate a life decision (like which restaurant they visit), care about the content they consume, and if encountering someone which is found to be pathetic, simply ignore them --do not charge them full of negative energy which they will then later use to screw people with.
+Jamie Carman Yelp are on our list of people to troll. Thank you for sharing your story.
+Jamie Carman People with 50+ reviews are almost NEVER filtered. How do I know, because I'm at over 100+ reviews and I'm never filtered.
basically, if someone with only a few total reviews is filtered, that's normal.
if most of your reviews are from people with few total reviews Yelp can fuck with you completely. you need to get reviews from people with lots of total reviews who are NEVER filtered.
even my first several reviews with Yelp years ago that were filtered, were unfiltered when I hit around 50 total reviews.
Something new is coming to the review site industry and I’m sure the review sites are not going to like it but I’m going to love it and businesses across the country are going to love it
If there is no shady dealing, then it's not so much the lack of transparency with the filter algorithm, but rather that the filter they built sucks at its job and is filtering out so many legitimate reviews. Google's search algorithm is not transparent and yet it returns me the results I want to see.
please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
Yelp is unconscionable. We have over 250 five stars reviews. They have put the one one and two star reviews on our front page. Then the phone call came wanting us to advertise with them. We can help your business. Pardon me Yelp we have a successful business because we serve amazing food and excellent customer service. We have a successful business despite Yelp. Never, never advertise with them. All you do is keep them in business.
please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm! They are extorting me and I want to help other small businesses like me who are being harassed by YELP.
I’m a technician who asks people after I do my work to post a picture of the good quality work and leave an honest review I have them confirm email and do everything under the sun , they leave their honest review and yelp just hides it because you can’t receive too many good reviews !
Flawed system I get raises and hours based off yelp reviews and now yelp is hiding all my good reviews
We did an experiment, same person writing the same kind of reviews for 2 same kind of business, the business that pays yelp the review stays, the business that doesn’t pay yelp the review gets “filtered”, how shady is that, try explaining that yelp
Not true.. I pay Yelp and my reviews are still being hidden! I won’t be paying next month
Everything yelp does in this video they have done to me as well. True on all counts.
please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
Yelp has a simple business model, take your good reivews off and sell them back to you.
Corrupt system, used to be able to pay for reviews directly, but now you have to pay for their advertising so positive reviews don't get "filtered" to be accepted for their algorithm. If you pay more money, you can also get negative reviews "filtered".
Liars ..I have a 5 star biz , small biz ...once I stop paying yelp ads they filtered 23 honest reviews from very good yelp users...they left me with 10 boom all of the sudden is extortion for real I swearrrrr
Please share your story on my upcoming livestream! I am exposing them by showing the decline in my reviews, the forged signature and a threat in email! I subbed to you so when I go live I will let you know!
What I would say to the Harvard business school genius is that it's not about the number of reviews filtered, its about which ones are filtered... I could be wrong.
I wrote a positive review about a club that had re-opened and YELP said No, No, not good enough, basically 0_______0 I've seen other reviews of clubs/stores with 1 line, 15 words get a pass while mine was well written and had much thought go into it. O_o
As a business owner, in business way before Yelp ever began, Yelp had us listed incorrectly. Good luck trying to contact them.
VIDEOHEREBOB - Yelp had misspelled my business name which I had been using for 25 years so I contacted them and a ditzy Yelp Millennial literally said “how do you know it’s spelled wrong?” even after I had told her I was the owner. Then she said she couldn’t change it because I would have to prove it was spelled wrong. I told her again that I should know how to spell my own business name. After going around in circles for 10 minutes she finally gave in and corrected it. Unbelievable!!! 🤨
Many business owners including myself all feel and experience the same thing.
If there's any doubt at all on whether Yelp personally manipulates the reviews, just look up Yelp itself on Yelp's own site and check the "Not Recommended" section. They filter ALL their 1 star reviews into "Not Recommended." Yelp doesn't get to claim they're unbiased when it's clear they've made it impossible to post negative opinions of Yelp on their own site. It's actually pretty hilarious seeing an entire section of 1 star reviews hidden away because they dared to criticize Yelp.
IKR
I refused to buy the advertising and yelp ruined my yelp page into a a one star. They refused to show the good reviews and posted fake bad reviews (made up by Yelp or people working for them). They wouldn't even show my response. I closed the business and started another that does not have a Yelp page. I now have only 5 star reviews on Angie's List and Google as well as other system like thumbtack
please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
Yelp will distort you for advertising money.
It's amazing because Fucking Yelp doesn't even have the options for customers to enter their reciept number so that proves the authanticity of the customer and the review.
That would be a great idea!
Yelp sucks even if you ignore the obvious extortion scam. I've been to so many 4 and 5 star restaurants that were 2-3 at best. Either those places paid yelp for review boosts, or most yelpers have terrible taste.
It’s a conflict of interest to sell ads to companies you are reviewing.
I had heard some great things about yelp and looked into having some of my clients take time from their busy schedule to leave me a review. I emailed three of my past clients and included a yelp review link and asked them to complete a review. All 3 of my clients left 5 star reviews for me immediately. I was excited about their reviews and thanked them for their wonderful reviews. I also, immediately added a Yelp button to my website and was excited about promoting yelp. However, after a few days, I discovered that Yelp had filter ALL 3 five star reviews from my review page. Yelp had contacted me letting me know that if I advertised with yelp, it would help insure my reviews were not filtered. This really seems a bit like extortion and I am very disappointed knowing that even though my customers made effort to leave me a review, those reviews will be unseen. :(
Hi, may I use portions of this video for my Instagram account I am creating for anti Yelp and awareness? I agree with everything you say and businesses need to take a stand against Yelp.
Please join in the fight with me! I will be doing a livestream showing proof that YELP controls algorithm and threatening emails and forged signature!
I didn't know about this side of Yelp, but I will say that for a time, I noticed that quite a lot of my reviews had been filtered into the "not currently recommended" section that's accessed by an easily-overlooked link at the bottom. Apparently I wasn't active enough on Yelp for their algorithm's liking, so my reviews got quietly swept under the rug.
I have never liked Yelp.I have never checked their reviews before a purchase. In about 2009 or 2010, they called my place of work asking for us to advertise with them. I was shocked that a company where people writes reviews would want a company to advertise with them They were also rude when they called.
Frustrated because I just started with Yelp , and I’ve gotten 9 reviews in about 2 weeks but everyday they take a review I’m now at 1 review , and people go based off of reviews , but how will they see the reviews if they take it off
Same here.. ppl saying they only take reviews when you don’t advertise with them but I do advertise with them and reviews are still being hidden. It’s crazy!
Yelp has moved 90% of my reviews to the "unrecommended" section. Reviews from verifiable 100% real clients- People known to have bought cars from me on the 911 Forums and on Social media, reviews that have been active for over a year.
Yelp contacted me in October to pay for advertising which i declined, and they called again & again finally i asked them to not call, and all of a sudden within 30 days my reviews start to disappear.
I called yelp and they said they changed their "algorithm" and recommend more active users. So i'm supposed to bother my clients and ask them to leave reviews for other businesses on Yelp so the reviews they left me stay active?
This is unfair & malicious practice, for a small 1 man operated business as mine this is devastating, yelp is and has been acting like a Mafia.
Please if you are searching my business visit the "unrecommended" section and you can see pics of the cars i've sold to these clients in most instances and verify these are real 100% reviews.
Yelp wants small business to pay to allow your good reviews to show. They don't seem to have any problem with checking any bad review. They started calling me asking me to advertise with then. I was already getting business from yelp for free and i was advertising with google. so I said no thank you. They kept calling basicly making reference to being able to do something about the bad reviews if I advertise with then. I said no. I now take pictures with my phone of very review before yelp removes it so that I can have proof in case of a class action lawsuit I can be involved in.
Good luck against this Advertising Mafia called Yelp
If that's true stop filtering the reviews. It's that simple. There should be 100% transparency of reviews.
I will be doing a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
Same story. Small business owner. A happy customer leaves a yelp review, I'm getting bombarded with sales calls from yelp offering me to pay them $350 to $500 a month upwards to a grand for advertising locked into a yearly contract with 2 month fee to cancel plus production - $1000 to cancel. Happy review is muted and gone from my listing. I didn't sign. Talk to my partner in New York - he says to avoid at all costs - don't sign with them!!!
It's true, it is a scam, I happens at my place of business. The way to fix this is don't pay attention to Yelp.
People please don’t go with what Yelp is telling you .. learn from your own experience that’s all .
At least some of the work of Michael Yuca, the Harvard researcher who found that purchasing advertising does not affect the number of filtered reviews, is SPONSORED by Yelp. I don't know about the study mentioned in this video.
It's done by our algorithm filter..
If adv_review payed then positive_review.visible = false
to whom it may concern, I have a restaurant in Ocean City been open in May 2016, in a first year we has very good reviews on Yelp, Google, FB and Tripadviser, but so far this year since begin of June 2017 I has a lot of bad reviews and most of them on Yelp, here the most reason is because I didn't advertise on Yelp they call me many time and asked me to advertise "to bring more customers to my restaurant" I kept told them I'm not interesting. just recently have one restaurant similar to my restaurant in the neighbor, they was open in May 2017 I think this restaurant did business with Yelp they and got so many 5 star reviews and my restaurant had few 5 star reviews from our customers but wasn't show on the Yelp at all. Yelp sale person has call two time last week I have spoke him about my restaurant situation then I'm asked him a question "how come I have few reviews from our customer but wasn't on Yelp page? he told me that maybe the reviewer too new that maybe filted", he tried get me to do advertise again then said "no". Any way can you help because at the youtube I just watched most on this screen was same with matter. I'm so depressed this is ruined my restaurant during I had Article on The Press Of Atlantic City and coming one Ocean City also! please help I'm appreciated!
YELP HURTS a lot of Businesses. Their filter system makes no sense at all. Their filter does not work at all.
This company needs to be taken off the market
YOU NEED TO RECORD THE SALES CALLS THESE GUYS ARE CROOKS THEY HIDE THEIR TRACKS
I started just communicating by email because of all the lies and double talk to confuse me! They were friend as long as I was paying. Now they are harassing me! please share your story when I do a livestream on my page exposing Yelps fake algorithm!
i no longer use yelp after several of these youtube videos
YELP IS A TOTAL SCAM AND WASTE OF TIME! THANKS FOR THIS VIDEO.
It is true that there are scammers looking for freebies on Yelp. It is also true that people are 9 times more likely to leave a bad review. It is also unfortunately true that businesses every day are being decimated. That is why it is so imperative for companies to take a proactive approach to their review management. I spoke with a cafe owner two days ago that was in tiers over what had happened to her business because of just 3 of these bad reviews.
Yelp's algorithim is only triggered after you decline to pay for their service.
I posted negative reviews for the Century 21 Award agent and house inspector. Agent advertised house as pristine and meticulously maintained even though house had multi year mold damage and slab leak, faulty drainage and faulty grading of the backyard (when it rains water collects in the backyard damaging house walls). Agent did not disclose that seller had Alzheimer and she did nto enforce provisions of the purchase agreement (seller was late with seller disclosures and termite report), never provided me accounting of repairs done and removed property from the house without counter offer.
The house inspection report issued by National properties Inspections did not disclose any of the issues listed above.
Yet my reviews are not displayed by Yelp. I guess owners of the businesses joined the Yelp and negative reviews for them are not displayed. So Yelp ratings are phony. The system is being gamed by smart businesses.
Appliance Man of Colorado 1 Star 1 Review 21 (5) star reviews hidden because we won't pay to advertise. www.yelp.com/biz/appliance-man-of-colorado-denver
Michael A This is great! Thank you so much!
Someone needs to make a review on Yelp itself. ZERO OUT OF TEN STAAAARRRSSSS!!!
You can leave a review for Yelp! Look them up on Yelp! They have 2 stars hahah! Help get them to 1!
Just out of curiousity what do most people do about YELP filtering the reviews even though it is valid
Power to the people! Love yelp and it helped me to avoid dealing with low life businesses ! Thanks to all who wrote reviews to help us make good choices in spending our hard earned dollars! Just signed up today! Thanks YELP!!
The best around is ABCHACKERS
Don't believe it, I stoped advertising, being a new small business I had only 3 hard won reviews, so happy to get them. Then within a short time if ending the advertisements they were ALL unrecomended now I have no visible reviews, and the phone calls started. Bah, I will not spend my money on them ever again.
Everyone should delete their reviews on Yelp. Word of mouth is the best way to find out about services and good restaurants, that's the way it was for years and years. Nowadays we respect a review of someone we do not know and if we met them we would probably not even want to talk to them. Kids even post reviews. Yelp has put so many good restaurants right out of business. Besides, most people...smart people, know that online reviews are "bought and paid for". Want a good restaurant? Look for the one with long lines. In the mean time, tell all your friends to delete ALL of their reviews on Yelp. All of them...good and bad. It will make this corrupt service go away.
Why doesn't she get off YELP those DAMN CROOKS!
It is hard to get off of YELP they do not remove yor business they just publicly shame you!
YELP has hidden over 50 of my reviews, now only 29 are showing after I canceled my ads! I have been trying to cancel my ads for years only to have my signature forged and my ad payment increased from $200 to $325! I am still getting business because my clients do not rely on YELP they do extensive research! I am now fighting for small businesses!
I have given a half dozen honest reviews of local companies that I think made sense, I'm still not sure why these comments and ratings I spent a lot of time and energy on are not showing up.
does yelp have their own page for people to make comments to make reviews about them?
Yelp is dirty ,,,,don't touch them
This happening to me over 1,000 views a week down to about 30 now. I used to get hundreds of customers with 3 employees. I stopped paying & lost 100 of 500 reviews ! ! ! Now only 400 reviews! & I don't show up in searches & get 2 or 3 ppl a day & work alone. I can't afford to pay !