I’ve just published a longer article on the Yelp Review Filter, what it is, how to manage it and, of course, how to spam it.
Since I wanted to make it a page rather than a post it doesn’t have comments so I’m putting up this post to collect comments.
Are you a business who is stinging from being Yelped? Tell us about it and we’ll do a follow up blog post with the best stories.
And even if you’re not a business owner I’d love to hear your opinion of the Yelp Review Filter in the comments.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
We have recently implemented a system to outsmart yelp from hiding our filtered reviews:
Step 1- first of all, if you’re advertising with yelp, we suggest that you stop doing so and shift that money to optimize your own web site instead
Step 2- Have a graphic designer make a yelp badge that is placed on your web site. It should say “we have …… filtered and unfiltered reviews on yelp”.
Step 3- when a visitor clicks on the badge, it will go to another page ON YOUR OWN WEB SITE (instead of going to yelp’s. (why help them get traffic and rank higher anyways)?
Step 4- On this page have your graphic designer get a screen capture (picture) of all your filtered and unfiltered reviews and have them pasted together onto one page.
Now, all your reviews (filtered or not) will be visible to all your web site visitors.
5- put a note on the top that says, “for your convenience we have placed all our filtered and unfiltered reviews on one page to see. If you’d like to go to our live yelp page, click here …………”
Make the whole page clickable to your live yelp page so no-one will think you’re trying to hide something or trying to be dishonest
Advantages of doing this:
1- Your visitors will stay on your web site instead of being directed to yelp’s
2- Your visitor can’t click on your competitors
3- No more being a slave to yelp’s algorithm
4- Yelp would not benefit from getting traffic from you and higher rankings on google
5- This project cost us less than $150 to implement
Just be sure to shift that $300 per month on yelp advertising and put it into KEYWORDS that people will search for.
Please pass this along
I do not think that the article about Yelp’s filters, which I’ve just read is truthful, sorry. The only truth is that Yelp wants to GET money by performing half-legal and totally illegal actions. They use pressure frankly. First, they “filter” the best review. In a couple of days they call the business owner and offer their “help” for $300/month. If one tells them that their “system” doesn’t make them any credit, and, in case any BAD review appears on their site, they will be sued, they RETURN the review on the page. Isn’t it funny that their “filters” are so fearful?
I’ve given up on Yelp. I could just observe with sarcasm how they would “filter” some review and “unfilter” another. Then, they would switch them, and the “suspicious” review would be found among the ones that are totally fine. Recently, they’ve “filtered” four OLD reviews on my school and left only one, the one that had been “filtered” before. It’s not funny, and the only thing I am going to do after they’ve “filtered” the last review, I’ll file a complaint on Internet crime website. Oh, and, if ANY bad word about my school gets published on Yelp or somewhere else, I’ll consider it to be the Yelp’s action.
Well said. In my experience (yours may vary) the best way to to get your favorable yelp reviews filtered out is to not advertise with yelp. This may not happen to everyone. It did happen to my business. After we declined to advertise, all of our favorable reviews became filtered (not all of them were, before that).
What does Yelp mean when they filter out a review because it did not happen ‘naturally withing Yelp’?
Yelp has always held that there is such a thing as a natural, or organic review. These happen when one discovers Yelp and decides, with no coaxing, to leave a review. I know, right?!
I agree with all of you. Yelp is a mafia for small businesses. I had advertised with yelp for only one month and after I found out what they promised was fake I stopped paying them. Since than all of my good reviews even from people with history wil be filtered.
I hope one day they pay for what they are doing to small business owner like me.
This business just published a list of 12 filtered Yelp reviews out of 17 total: http://www.bartending-school.com/yelp-reviews-professional-bartending-school
2/3 of the reviews are filtered. All the recent ones are filtered. The business is not hard chasing after reviews. The 12 filtered go back to 2008.
But seriously 2/3 are filtered. That isn’t a “filter”. That is part of an underlying strategy to strong arm businesses in the chase for advertising dollars.
….and frankly…we have nothing bad to say about yelp. It is delivering some traffic to the site. But 2/3 filtered….come on yelp. That is BS.
Now interesting is that one scathing review sits on the front of the site….from years ago. The owner comments include that they are 99% sure its an attack review from a competitor.
Its interesting…when that attack review occurred there were 3 very similar reviews in 3 different review sites. Yelp saw them. Yelp got the argument, which can be seen in the business operators response.
But yelp left that probable faked attack review up…..and subsequently fiters virtually all the subsequent reviews.
We don’t pursue yelp reviews. We believe the yelp filter is baloney. Its too bad they use these strong arm tactics since they have better content and search engine rankings than any other kind of IYP.
It really leaves a bitter taste!!!!!
“The Yelp Elite Squad” comment was a favorite. Haha
In all honesty though, I am secretly quite proud of my two shiny “Elite” badges. I haven’t had a chance to check out a Yelp event but when I do, i’m sure ill gloat about it all over Twitter (and Instagram, and Youtube)
someone’s getting ‘kickbacks’ for promoting yelp, aren’t they?
*cough*
i find yelp, useless and biased.
Sadly, not us.
I have always been frustrated that all the good reviews were filtered but recently I learned that ONE bad one was posted. I understand that Yelp claimed to have an algorithm to make good selection but I believe my business is blacklisted because I did not buy any Yelp advertisement.
I recently did a test to prove my suspicion. I created a fake profile at Yelp, I then wrote 4 positive reviews on 4 different businesses, one of which is my own. I learned that 3 of them were posted successfully and only the one wrote for my own business was filtered. I concluded that Yelp was incapable to detect my fake profile. Yelp black listed my business account.
I tried to be open minded but it is fair to say that I uncovered that Yelp’s algorithm is financially motivated. You all can try the same and witness that Yelp is a big scam.
Yelp has filtered almost ALL my good reviews which were from legitimate patrons. They even left on 2 bad ones, one that was entered twice! Pretty incompetent that they didn’t catch that obvious mistake. So I have 18 reviews filtered and only 3 showing. 2 are longwinded bad reviews, obviously from impossible to please cranks, and the one and only good one (unfiltered) they left because it was from someone with Elite status and hundreds of friends. One of the bad reviews (the one that is listed twice) is from someone with zero friends and only the 1 review. She logged in twice with different names to leave 2 reviews.
Almost all my reviews on other sites are overwhelmingly excellent, as are 17 out of 18 of the “not recommended” reviews on Yelp. What happens is a new review comes up on Yelp and stays about a day and then gets removed. They claim that you cannot “PAY” to be listed on Yelp but that’s not true, it’s semantics.
You can get listed higher and better by paying, they put you ON TOP of the non-paying listings, just like a search in Google, paid ads go on top above regular search results.
There are MANY other review sites and NONE that I have found use any sort of filter at all. Yelp’s “logarithm” or whatever they call their filter is totally useless at filtering fake ads. I see many highly ranked listings where EVERY review is from 1 review 0 friends “member”. I like Yahoo Local and Google Maps. I don’t like Angies list, it’s also a money making scam, they charge the consumer AND the merchant!…but don’t get me stated on THAT.
Smitty
http://www.SmittysKennel.com
Smittys Kennels, Middle Island, NY 11953
631-345-0000
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