Comments on: Yelp's credibility problem: Blame it on algorithm?

Advertisers and consumers are crying foul over alleged practices, but the popular consumer-reviews site says the problem is due to the algorithm.

[shahnyboy]

I really like yelp but always wondered about the credibility of some reviews on that site - whether it seemed biased towards the business or an over-zealous reviewer.

I would feel much more comfortable if yelp wasn't "the" review website and it had at least one other major competitor. This way yelp wouldnt have too much pull and in effect level the field a bit.

[sfotoord]

Read this thread on Yelp:

http://www.yelp.com/topic/san-francisco-disappearing-reviews-2

There is tons of this going on and it is very suspicious.

[Penguinisto]

Err, if sales-critters are indeed saying that they can "take care of that for you" upon payment of $300/mo., that ain't an "algorithm", that's just plain old racketeering.

/P

[dmcjoshua]

As an ex-Google employee, I empathize with the growing pains that the company is going through... the black-box approach to identifying spammy reviews is a tough road for the reasons mentioned in this article, but ultimately it does result in the best experience for users. Recall that Google has always been lambasted by site owners for its sometimes harsh (and always opaque) re-ranking process... and yet, it works and the vast majority of humanity is better off because of it.

I stopped using CitySearch in 2001 when it was so painfully apparent that fraudulent reviews had overrun the listings. CitySearch, unfortunately, became inordinately dependent on their revenue model and had no incentive to validate their reviews.

Professor Hanson neglects to mention that Moral Hazard is a fact of life in almost all business models -- Google's included. What matters is whether the company falls prey to said hazard. As a friend to and user of Yelp, it is my honest opinion that Yelp's management team and employees exhibit the same ethics as Google's founders. Both companies are complex and opaque, but both are committed to their users above all else.

[pentest]

Is that a compliment? Comparing one businesses ethics to Google's alleged ethics?

[inachu]

Yelp is like Wikipedia.
I could create a page on a subject matter only I know of that nobody else in the entire world knows of and on a daily basis as I edit it then near completion of the edit someone sees my Wiki entry and erases the entire thing or deletes teh entire subject for no reason based on fact and I have ZERO recourse other than wishing I could harm their NIC card.

[hackingbear]

On the Web as well as in life in general, no system can be completely trustworthy. That's nothing new on this planet and will remain so.

If someone can find a PERFECT way to easily filter out fakes and spams from true and trust, we should nominate him/her to solve the current economic crisis.

[Jcasquet]

Here is a free alternative to Yelp for local businesses: www.rateitall.com/promote

[techgeekdude]

Algorithm...nice excuse. May as well blame it on the delayed digital TV conversion.

[lorincpartain]

I am a wedding photographer, I have not had any bad reviews. In fact I have had all 5 star reviews on yelp just not as much of them as say a restaurant owner might have. We have 20 or so clients a year, not hundreds or thousands. So each review is far more important to me. I got a 5 star review from a wedding planner, it does'nt show up, another one from a past client, can't see that one either. It's a little crazy. This is great if your a business that turns over a lot of customers every day, then the algorithm works, but if your clients are far fewer it could take a long time for the algorithm to kick in. Once size does not fit all Yelp !!

[abinSF0]

The fact that a business cannot exclude themselves from Yelp (for any reason) shows that it has been designed as a tool for making money, not a public service. All users should keep that in mind. It is likely that Yelp will always make the "ethical" choice to make money over doing the right thing (like allowing business to opt out of their service completely) lest they eventually find they no longer have anything to Yelp about.

[Monsoon5500]

I have a photography business and have many positive reviews on Yelp. However, they seem do disappear every time I decline Yelp's offers to "upgrade" my account. And they are very persistent. They call and call and I always decline. I don't know the timing, but I do know I've lost about 4 positive reviews. If I were to pay for the "upgrade", I'm thinking I'll get those back. I think Yelp is not to be trusted.

[jfvb1225]

This issue is no different than things are with Yahoo local. It is very easy for someone to manipulate the ratings of a merchant or business in the Yahoo local search results, and the merchant has no recourse against a negative rating that is unfounded. This has happened to me with my business, and unless you agree to PAY Yahoo for an enhanced listing the negative rating will not go away. It is in fact RACKETEERING.

[bayareafoodie]

I thought everyone knew this already.

I met Jeremy a few years ago and he told me that this was what they did. I said at the time that I thought it was unethical. Him and his crew laughed about it. This way before Yelp had become popular.

[cvaldes1831]

Yelp is already damaged goods. The credibility of many reviewers is absolutely ludicrous. There are several sites (albeit mostly restaurant-focused) that do a far better job at soliciting high-quality reviews; Yelp cannot be counted amongst them.

[Small_Business_Owner]

Yelp?s Chief Hypocrite, Jeremy Stoppelman, continues to dismiss this article and any other criticism of yelp as false, ridiculous, or simply ?confusion? on the part of the entire small business community (see his yelp blog). Yelp insists that small business owners should just take whatever negative reviews they get, no matter how wrong, malicious or fake they may be, and use them to ?improve? their business. So why doesn?t Stoppelman take this criticism of his own business and use it to improve yelp? Because he is incredibly arrogant. And probably equally scared.

After declining to advertise and noticing that our positive reviews started to disappear, I started printing all of our reviews from time to time. This article inspired me to review those archives and, in less than an hour?s time, I have already found four positive reviews that were suppressed. Using the ?member search? feature on yelp, I was able to locate the reviewer (proving the account has not been deleted) and find the original review (proving that the review was suppressed by yelp, not deleted by the user). There is nothing ?suspicious? about any of these reviews, other than the fact that they have been mysteriously suppressed by yelp.

When our business reached 100 reviews, one of our positive reviews would drop off, bringing our total number of reviews back to 99. That happened five times over a period of three weeks, until yelp apparently gave in and allowed us to go over 100 reviews. Stoppelman blames anything suspicious about yelp?s business tactics on their so-called ?spam algorithm?, but there is no way that five long-standing positive reviews would suddenly appear to be ?spam?. Yelp is simply using spam, something most people despise, as an excuse for manipulating its content to its own advantage. Yelp is insulting the intelligence of business owners and reviewers by suggesting that spam is a complicated problem that we just don?t understand. Forcing users to verify an email address prior to posting a review and allowing users to flag posts is sufficient for fighting spam. I think the only thing complicated about yelp?s algorithm is coming up with a good explanation of how it works without revealing unethical business practices.

I also have a documented example of retaliation. I flagged a review from a user whose post was nothing more than a personal attack and did not include an actual review of the business, two things identified in yelp?s terms of service as inappropriate behavior. Yelp ignored my flag, letting the inappropriate review stand, and instead removed my own review. I took a screenshot before flagging the item, captured the contents of the flag itself, and then took a screenshot showing that my review was missing (not deleted, just suppressed or hidden from view, which a user cannot do). Yelp apparently prefers to suppress reviews, rather than delete them, because they can continue to use them in their marketing numbers. Yelp claims that more than 4.5 million reviews have been written so far, but it does not disclose how many are suppressed from view or written by paid staff.

Yelp has some serious explaining to do if they expect to recover from this public outing of their wrongdoing. Without the documented evidence I?ve described above, they will just continue to dismiss this problem as ?confusion? on the part of small business owners. Many small businesses feel that yelp has great power over them, and that?s exactly what yelp wants. If you?re scared, you won?t put your business at risk from retaliation and you won?t provide the evidence that is needed to put a stop to yelp?s unethical business practices once and for all. I believe that a class action lawsuit will take shape once documented evidence is provided and more coverage in major newspapers occurs. I plan to send my evidence to all papers that have already reported on the matter and those that probably should, including the following: New York Times, Wall Street Journal, San Francisco Chronicle, San Jose Mercury, Chicago Tribune, Dallas News, London Times, East Bay Express, Daily Cal, and any other local papers that can help to spread the word about yelp?s unethical business practices. I hope other business owners will do the same and help keep this great momentum going until a solution can be found.

[anonybot]

One issue that hasn't been raised with Yelp, as far I know, is that they are currently paying "Scouts" in markets that aren't getting local uptake to post reviews.

They don't identify these Scouts though they post large numbers of reviews while on the clock.

I would consider this an ethical issue as well.

anonybot aka former yelp scout

[bknoxville]

Yelp removing reviews from non-advertisers? It is an absolute certainty from my experience. Yelp has definitely pulled two bona fide reviews from my business listing on the Yelp website . I recently asked a number of our recent customers to be so kind as to leave our business a review. I gave links to three different online forums, one of which was Yelp.com. Within a couple days, we went from zero reviews on Yelp.com to two reviews. The two reviews were up for approximately two weeks and then poof they were gone. There was nothing suspicious about the reviews, each review came from a state other than ours (internet customers of ours)

[lisaCA2012]

As always, be wary when reading the comments. You never know who might be biased towards a company and for what reasons. For example, the DMCJoshua guy, the ex-googler, who compares Yelp to Google and vouches for Yelp with such earnest... ? Well, his wife works for Yelp.
If Yelp loses credibility, his wife could lose her job, and he loses income.
Get it?
Just a heads up to be aware of all these kinds of things...

[Clubrazzberry]

There is no Yelp algorithm. That's why no one at Yelp can ever explain it and the story changes each month.
The sales Yelp sales reps have access and control of the reviews for each account in their territory.

[SueYelp]

I own a small business in Seattle, very proud of our 12 5 star reviews. But sales calls start coming with each "no thanks" a few of our positive reviews drop off? Why? I see businesses with over 50 reviews but those companies, small like mine are paid advertisers...hum.

So I get a bad review, it was a 2 star rant and it was untrue statments and really inflammatory. I flag it and I get a cookie cuttter response from Yelp that they found the review appropriate and the reviewer is allowed to say how she "feels" about my business. Never mind she refers to another company in her review, so obvious she was a "plant" or a competitor. After my flagging this one 2 start review, others had flagged it as well I get yet another sales pitch. I ask about this suspicious review and I'm told that they have no control over the placement of reviews or bad reviews. I decline their offer. After the most recent decline this ONE bad review out of 12 good reviews was then place at the top of my review page, number one and is now showing up in a google search under my business name on page one of google. What? How does that work? It's outdated, other newer more "useful" reviews are there but THIS is at the top and now showing under my company name when searched.

Now I get yet ONE more call from Yelp and they tell me if I pay 300 dollars a month, while they can't say the review will go away, I can have the power to put my favorite review at the top and the bad review will drop and who knows, perhaps it may just disappear. ARE YOU KIDDING ME! IF THIS IS NOT EXTORTION WHAT IS? Yelp is now, holding me hostage to a false review, won't remove it, won't edit it, ignore ALL the red flags indicating it's a bogus review and are telling me if I just pay up it will all change. Oh, one other little bit of interesting tactic, the refused to put the offer in writing, no email, no letter. She told me they only "deal" over the phone, conversation, nothing in writing.

I think Black Mail applies:
bleed
bribe
extort
payoff
ransom
shakedown
squeeze
threaten
exaction
extortion
hush money
protection
Or Extortion:
1. an act or instance of extorting.
2. Law. the crime of obtaining money or some other thing of value by the abuse of one's office or authority.
3. oppressive or illegal exaction, as of excessive price or interest: the extortions of usurers.
4. anything extorted.

Look at what they do, hunderds if not thousands now of small businesses all with similar stories I am amazed Yelp just does not clean up their act and move on. Investors should be shaking in their boots for sure as they should be.