Yelp.com (2004-) - A California-Based Review Website, Widely Accused of Extortion in Building Their Business

[zoramargolis]

Virginia judge rules that anonymous business bashers on Yelp must be revealed.

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[DonRocks]

Virginia judge rules that anonymous business bashers on Yelp must be revealed.

click

"The Washington Post filed a friend of the court brief in support of Yelp"

What?!

Heh. I guess The Washington Post's libelous comments sections have them running scared that they might actually have to do a little work for a change. Welcome to my world.

And thank you again to Pat for all she does (and she does a *lot*).

[Waitman]

"The Washington Post filed a friend of the court brief in support of Yelp"

What?!

Heh. I guess The Washington Post's libelous comments sections have them running scared that they might actually have to do a little work for a change. Welcome to my world.

And thank you again to Pat for all she does (and she does a *lot*).

A BS ruling that allows a legal tactic whose only purpose is to intimidate critical posters.  The Post is exactly right, and the implication that you want businesses to be able to force you to reveal the names of critical members is distressing.

[DonRocks]

A BS ruling that allows a legal tactic whose only purpose is to intimidate critical posters.  The Post is exactly right, and the implication that you want businesses to be able to force you to reveal the names of critical members is distressing.

I don't care if it distresses you or not. Read the article carefully - it's not about "critical posters"; it's about liars. We don't have this problem here because we go to great pains to ensure people are who they say they are, and to verify that negative reviews are true.

The ironic thing is that even if Yelp must turn over the user's real names, there's a chance that the "real names" are fake names.

And I have nearly a nine-year track record of protecting our members' privacy with a 100% success rate, so don't feed me this B.S. of me wanting to comply with the law as being "distressing." It's about time businesses have access to a legal relief for libel.

[Waitman]

You don't know they are liars, and neither does the plaintiff.  All we have is his word.  And, whether or not Hadeed is correct, allowing this tactic will empower every company with a form cease and desist notice and a paralegal on staff to threaten posters and site owners with legal action anytime a proprietor don't care for a review.  It opens the door to blatant intimidation.

if the point of the internet is to democratize the conversation, this is a direct attack on that.

[DonRocks]

if the point of the internet is to democratize the conversation, this is a direct attack on that.

Yeah, kind of like checking ids at the voting booth.

Nobody is going to threaten me, so you needn't worry about that.

[Waitman]

First, you have no idea if anyone will threaten you.  If this ruling stands, it would certain serve a number of establishments to sweep the web every day and send out routine notices.  And, as much as I love this site, there are many others that would be affected.

Funny you should mention checking voter ID, since the only point of the recent ballot security fad is to discourage and intimidate legitimate voters.

[DonRocks]

First, you have no idea if anyone will threaten you.  If this ruling stands, it would certain serve a number of establishments to sweep the web every day and send out routine notices.  And, as much as I love this site, there are many others that would be affected.

Funny you should mention checking voter ID, since the only point of the recent ballot security fad is to discourage and intimidate legitimate voters.

The only thing that matters to me is that our members know that, short of a court order issued to me by a judge suspecting someone of committing a crime, their privacy and identities are safeguarded here. Always have been, always will be - no other website in the world can promise more than this.

"Yelp Seeks DC Clout After Rapid Rise" by Julian Hattem on thehill.com

[DaveO]

In that I co operate several businesses with others I've been following the issue of web reviews for some time in a variety of sources.  Reviews are controversial.  There are slews of faked reviews just as there are honest reviews.

Faked reviews are and can be made to promote businesses or attempt to destroy them.  Across the web you can find examples of both and complaining about both.  Most faked reviews end up being anonymous, by definition  (doh).

Our businesses have been the recipients of anonymously placed faked reviews with the purpose of ruining our credibility, costing us business, and destroying our financial well being.  Our best defense is to run terrific businesses that give good customer service and merit good reviews on our own.   One of the consequences of that is to become the target of faked reviews focused on destroying one's business.

In our case in one business we received a series of similarly timed reviews in 3 different review sites all roughly at the same time.  All more or less made the same claim, which was patently false.  One review source took down the review after a lot of back and forth.  One didn't bother communicating.  The review sits there today.  In the case of Yelp we reviewed all customers.  There were none of the name connected to the Yelp review.  We offered to share that data with yelp.  They declined.  We offered to share other data with Yelp that completely contradicted the charge by the anonymous reviewer.  Yelp didn't respond.   We contacted the negative reviewer through yelp.  We never got a response.  We wrote our response in Yelp claiming it was a faked attack review and detailing why.

The response showed far less prominently than the attack review.  We are sure it was not read nearly as much.   We are sure that one attack review cost us business.

We contacted the competitive sources we were sure to have generated the review warning them they would see countless examples that of their own disservices.   The attack reviews stopped.  Nevertheless the attack reviews stood prominently for years and are there today.  It has cost us revenues.

I can't believe the original amendment to the US constitution passed in 1791 could ever have considered malicious anonymous attack reviews  as a mechanism of free speech completely protected.  The constitution was not written to support malicious efforts.  Beyond that freedom of speech has never been an absolute.  There have long been situations where "free speech" is constrained for the good of others.

Yelp has long sided with reviewers over businesses.  There are innumerable ways for reviews to be further filtered to mitigate against the plethora of attack reviews that float across the web in every industry and in every corner of the globe.   Mostly they aren't instituted.

I will say that with this most recent court decision in a different web setting I noted where a commentator stated that he was threatened by a business operator for making a negative review about a business while doing so with his real name and identity.   As mentioned at the top, reviews are controversial.

I have yet to read the reviews on the Yelp site about Hadeed's business.   Still I believe its a positive step to make yelp come up with the identities of the anonymous reviewers.   Are they competitors?   Are they customers?  Are they flakes?

One thing is certain:  a ton of negative reviews can tank a business.  Either in this thread a way's back or a different thread in this forum there is a story about a local business that blames its demise on negative reviews.

A ton of positive reviews makes a business.  Not long in this forum it was mentioned that the positive review in the Post caused wait lines to be enormous at Rose's Luxury.

The Hadeed case is up for jucicial review.  Its going to be a long time before anyone finds out the identities of the reviewers if it ever occurs.

By the way:   This article includes the comment by a customer who says his life was threatened by a business operator !!!  yikes

[DaveO]

One thing that I found interesting and different than several years ago:  I was updating with some of our smb's about the process of "asking for a review".  Like so many non-restaurants/non hotels there are a lot of types of businesses that don't naturally get reviews.  We are involved with some of them.

But as reviews have become highly visible, often read, tremendously important, and often controversial we had started "asking for web reviews" from customers probably back in 2008/2009 and continue to do so.   Its a process of "managing reviews" and many non restaurants apply it in one form or another.

I reviewed a lot of different review sites besides highly visible one's like yelp and google+ local reviews.  What is significantly different now as opposed to several years ago is that every single review site of some size or merit or history requires some form of sign in...with only one allowing completely anonymous reviews as an option.   4 years ago there were no hurdles in that regard.  Anyone could post a review across the web with total anonymity.

None of that stops people from creating anonymous identities and writing anonymous reviews.  Its the slightest hurdle.  In fact with the enormous volume of anonymous reviews that non restaurants (and restaurants) face I'd say its not a real hurdle at all.

In any case it is a semblance of a change from several years ago...albeit one with no effectiveness...other than the fact that as we ask real customers for real reviews...we have to notify them that every one of these sites requires a sign in of some sort...and in many cases the sign-in is connected to a facebook persona.

[Bart]

Sort of on topic....................

I got this picture in a retweet (I hate myself for typing that) from Mike Isabella.  The original tweet came from @JohnBarton_Chef and it said, "Everyone should have this written on the bottom of their menu"

[lperry]

Someone should tell him about hegemonic, gender-biased word choice.  Or perhaps he does not hire women to make anything.

[Bart]

Yeah, it's a weird choice of word.  I didn't get bent about the "man" part, I just thought it would have sounded better with "handmade"

[DonRocks]

Someone should tell him about hegemonic, gender-biased word choice.  Or perhaps he does not hire women to make anything.

Yeah, it's a weird choice of word.  I didn't get bent about the "man" part, I just thought it would have sounded better with "handmade"

Of course if the feedback is positive, by all means, tell TripAdvisor so we can quote them on our website.

[Bart]

Where's the Trip Advisor quote?  I couldn't find one on the Graffiato website.

Anyhow, Mike Isabella didn't write it or post it, he just retweeted it.  (not sure that matters, but may it does a little)

[DonRocks]

This lawsuit, filed in 2012, is going to trial.

[ktmoomau]

I agree with the Virginia ruling in terms of the law it ruled on.  But I like to read the opinions straight from the source and not articles about them.  I don't think it is going to be as easy as stated above to get a review taken down, and just getting there it would take a business quite a bit of money, hiring a lawyer, going before a judge, getting the name, establishing if they were a customer.  Even establishing if someone was a customer is hard if you accept any cash transactions.  But I think if Yelp didn't want a ruling such as this it should have reformed it practices- it is quite obvious they have major problems.  Now it has provided precedent for other websites in other situations to have to do the same sort of due diligence, but personally I think more due diligence is a good thing.  Making sure people posting on your sites are real people and aren't committing defamation of a business is important. But that is just a personal opinion.   

[DonRocks]

I agree with the Virginia ruling in terms of the law it ruled on.  But I like to read the opinions straight from the source and not articles about them.  I don't think it is going to be as easy as stated above to get a review taken down, and just getting there it would take a business quite a bit of money, hiring a lawyer, going before a judge, getting the name, establishing if they were a customer.  Even establishing if someone was a customer is hard if you accept any cash transactions.  But I think if Yelp didn't want a ruling such as this it should have reformed it practices- it is quite obvious they have major problems.  Now it has provided precedent for other websites in other situations to have to do the same sort of due diligence, but personally I think more due diligence is a good thing.  Making sure people posting on your sites are real people and aren't committing defamation of a business is important. But that is just a personal opinion.   

I have never felt so comfortable riding a wave as I do riding this one. Yelp and Angie's List, while at the same time they're kicking my ass, are doing my marketing for me, and establishing "minimum standards" that we're *so* far beyond that it's like having Chuck Norris as a bodyguard.

[DaveO]

Ultimately reviews have a big impact on revenues, on competition, etc.  There is a lot of money involved so it gets dirty.

I went to a source where reviews have been a "sticky topic" and picked up this complaint from an smb owner about what he calls "faked reviews".   Here are some of the comments showing to the public:

Fake reviews are being posted regularly at our Google Place page.

It is all related to the "fratirist" David Thorne, who posted an article about F4S

You can tell that all the negative feedbacks being left there are with fake accounts

created just for that reason. Here are some review examples:

 

"Asked to rent a skateboard and the sales rep --obviously drunk--threatened me. His name tag said "Fatty."

 

"... I made my way over to this side of the shop and picked up a snowboard, which exploded in my hands, sending debris everywhere, and blinding me, my wife, our nine children and our dog, Horace..."

 

"so on his first day with the board, the board exploded in mid-air when my son attempted a jump. he's paralyzed now and attempted suicide twice."

 

"Went in with my son and the guy behind the counter stood up...nude from the waist down! And he overcharged us, too."

 

"Went there for my free snowboard but was denied, so I stabbed Anton in the throat because he deserved it."

 

"...Even though I have never been to this store and even if the email exchange is untrue..." - And he still left us one star and defaming review?!

 

From what I could see this business closed in 2013.    Over the last several years I spent a lot of time inside the google forums for businesses, wherein businesses would struggle with all the issues about getting google visibility.  One of the recurring issues has been about reviews, and one of those recurring issues has been about competitors or angry folks posting numerous faked attack reviews.  

 

On the other hand that google forum would not be the place wherein there would be a lot of complaints about faked positive reviews by the business owners or their friends...but over time google took various steps to cut down on what they perceived as mass volumes of faked positive reviews.  I haven't followed this issue vigorously but last year they by algo they eliminated millions of reviews that were generated via IP's inside the locations of various businesses in certain industries and then issued standards limiting that option.  I'm not current on the issue.

 

Its an incredibly sticky issue and there is a lot of money involved.  I don't see how the review venues can eliminate the volumes of faked reviews either positive or negative as it remains relatively easy to establish a web presence and generate reviews.

 

Its a big conundrum.

[Pat]

This lawsuit, filed in 2012, is going to trial.

The jury ruled that both sides defamed each other and neither has to pay damages or compensation.  WTOP frames it as an "unexpected" ruling.

[DonRocks]

"Yahoo To Partner With Yelp On Local Search Engine Results"

What's interesting about this is that Yelp consistently comes up very high on Google searches. I wonder if this will be considered a knife shoved into Google's back.

Google market cap: $395B, number of employees: 48,000

Yahoo market cap: $38B, number of employees: 12,000

Yelp market cap: $6B, number of employees: 1,200

DR market cap: $0, number of employees: 1

Head down, blinders on, moving forward, waiting patiently for a savvy investor to tap me on the shoulder ...

[FunnyJohn]

Yelp Reviews Brew a Fight Over Free Speech vs. Fairness

"A closely watched Internet free-speech case is headed to the Virginia Supreme Court this month, with many businesses that live and die by online reviews rooting for the owner of a small, suburban carpet cleaner."

The article in the Wall Street Journal is behind a paywall....Hadeed Carpet Cleaners is the business concerned.

[lperry]

^ I got to it by clicking through on a Bing news search for "Hadeed Carpet Yelp", so it may be accessible that way.  I didn't add the link because I thought there might be a cookie in there somewhere.

I'm still quite surprised that Yelp has that much of an impact on business.  I have never used it.

[FunnyJohn]

^ I got to it by clicking through on a Bing news search for "Hadeed Carpet Yelp", so it may be accessible that way.  I didn't add the link because I thought there might be a cookie in there somewhere.

I'm still quite surprised that Yelp has that much of an impact on business.  I have never used it.

Well, in most cases the impact is on "small" businesses where a relatively small reduction in customers would have a more dramatic effect on their bottom line.

[dcs]

And it keeps getting worse:  Yelp's Deal With Yahoo Has Small Businesses Crying Foul

[DonRocks]

And it keeps getting worse:  Yelp's Deal With Yahoo Has Small Businesses Crying Foul

Could someone please try and start a viral tweeting campaign about donrockwell.com? We really ARE better - if only people knew about us. I can handle whatever additional workload may come my way.

[SeanMike]

Could someone please try and start a viral tweeting campaign about donrockwell.com? We really ARE better - if only people knew about us. I can handle whatever additional workload may come my way.

I was just thinking it'd be nifty if there was a button I could push to suggest a thread on Twitter...then I looked down...

[DaveO]

This article about yelp includes stunning writing.  

[The Hersch]

This article about yelp includes stunning writing.  

Are you being ironic, or are you using "stunning" in a sense I don't appreciate?

[PappyVanWise]

This article about yelp includes stunning writing.  

Whenever I see a story like this, I imagine it's an attempt for a restaurant to go viral.  A one time Yelp reviewer trashes a restaurant, the owner posts a cutting response, blogs pick it up, people comment on it, and all of a sudden it's everywhere. Like mini-versions of a reality show.

[DonRocks]

Whenever I see a story like this, I imagine it's an attempt for a restaurant to go viral.  A one time Yelp reviewer trashes a restaurant, the owner posts a cutting response, blogs pick it up, people comment on it, and all of a sudden it's everywhere.  Like mini-versions of a reality show.

I agree with you except I'm not sure you can imply intent to go viral; it could just be one strong-willed owner standing up for him or herself, without the expectations that everyone is going to pick it up (really, what are the odds?)

[DaveO]

Are you being ironic, or are you using "stunning" in a sense I don't appreciate?

Possibly a poor choice of words.  I'd say seeing the story written up with a good bit of editorializing "stunned me".  It got a lot of comments.

Reviews are an issue that drives business operators "nuts".  They have an enormous impact--good and bad.  The review sites get a lot of power.

Meanwhile the story in the WSJ that dcs referenced wherein Yahoo and Yelp have decided to replace existing yahoo reviews with yelp reviews for businesses was one more example where the existence of reviews or their loss, just has a powerful impact on smb operators.

In short, Yahoo has a deal with yelp to show yelp reviews for businesses.  The yelp reviews will replace existing yahoo reviews.  (from a purely business sense for yahoo I suppose that makes sense--there are millions more aggregate yelp reviews than yahoo reviews.)  but in some examples as the one in the story...the business operator was despondent.  He had generated a lot of positive reviews on yahoo....and poooof.....because of this business arrangement between yelp and yahoo they are all gone.

Its tough.  There are a group of players in this circle.  The review writers.  In the case of the WSJ article, its the business operator...and probably the business person did follow up with customers to solicit the reviews.   Finally there are the web sites that carry reviews:  in this case yahoo and yelp.

I view the websites as the least impacted of the players.  While in yahoo its probably more common that review writers don't put their real names to reviews...they do make a statement about the business(es).   The business has a huge stake in this.  Reviews can make or break the business(es).

The review carriers carry these reviews in mass.  I've enclosed a graph comparing volume of reviews on yelp to one older review site.  I bet yahoo's "growth" in reviews was similar to citysearch compared to yelp--dismal.

But the review sites carry them in mass.  The review sites don't care about any one review and/or the volume of reviews for any one business.

Its a shame, imho, that the players who have the least impact in this relationship (the review sites) have the power to show or not show reviews.

[dcs]

Although not necessarily a place for quality reviews, Yelp shows some capacity for comic relief.

[PappyVanWise]

Someone in Richmond, albeit a restaurant owner, is trying to use Yelp as a force of good. Yelp for Good

"We all know the public can be too-quick-to-judge when writing online reviews about businesses "“ especially when anonymous. I've been guilty myself. Some even call out individuals by name in their criticism. As a business owner, negative reviews are very troubling, cause arguments among staff and partners, and while they can alert us to trends that we need to be addressing, this is not the constructive way to receive that feedback. Positive reviews on the other hand are a huge encouragement to everyone in the business.

For the most part, small businesses are solely on the receiving end of these reviews and rants and it makes a big difference. In 2011 Harvard Business School studied independent restaurant revenue based on Yelp star ratings[1]. They found that a 1-star difference in the star rating corresponded to a 5-9% difference in revenue. This only affected independent, local restaurants and did not affect regional or national chains. In a restaurant industry that often survives on 10% margins from the start, this is a big deal!"

[DonRocks]

Someone in Richmond, albeit a restaurant owner, is trying to use Yelp as a force of good. Yelp for Good

This is *exactly* what I'm trying to do with the Professionals and Businesses forum. Could someone write this dude and tell him to write his reviews there? I'll be happy to start a Richmond index.

I argue that each individual review written on our site has more clout than each individual review written on Yelp because a separate Google hit is created for the professional or business, and that means a *lot*. And the smaller the business, the greater the impact. As a couple of examples, Google Valenti Woodwind Repair or Peggy Newhall.

[PappyVanWise]

This is *exactly* what I'm trying to do with the Professionals and Businesses forum. Could someone write this dude and tell him to write his reviews there? I'll be happy to start a Richmond index.

I tweeted him a link to your post, hopefully he checks it out.

[DonRocks]

"Lawsuit Says Yelp Made Millions Forcing Businesses To Hide Bad Reviews" by Kevin Montgomery on valleywag.gawker.com

Supporting Yelp instead of donrockwell.com is like supporting The Cheesecake Factory instead of Palena. If we fail, the masses get what they deserve - which is ... absolutely nothing.

[DaveO]

My attitude toward Yelp has changed over time.  It is primarily shaped by its utility or disservice to small business operators.  Additionally I view it as a customer/searcher user.  I'll speak to that at the end.

From a business perspective my experience over the past 5 or 6 years during which we have had to deal with yelp.

A).  I've probably taken about 15-20 sales calls over the years for several different businesses.   We have not purchased yelp advertising...yet.

B ).  We were never "strong-armed" or took a threatening call.  I know "strong arm".   OTOH, I don't doubt other businesses were.  There have been far too many reports of this from too many businesses all across the nation.

C)  The "tone" of the sales calls has changed over time.  Initially they were "tough" type callls.  But never strong armed.  Over the last 2 years or so they have been "gentler"

D.  We have had problems with yelp.

     1.  For years it showed a "fake planted review by a competitor" that struck at the very viability of one of our smbs.  That review went up at the same time that 2 others went up, all 3 in the same time period, all 3 very focused on the same theme, each planted in a different review venue. Yahoo took the review down.  It took a lot of interaction and sending them some internal data.   Google was a complete waste to deal with.  They don't respond.  They are like a big black box.   Yelp kept interacting with us and simply wouldn't change.  It was emotionally more frustrating than google.  Google was sort of "royally remote".   Yelp responded but they didn't change the status.

So it sucked.  We had this highly visible review that slammed our business on false claims.  It was very visible.  The business, unlike restaurants doesn't gather a lot of reviews easily.  So it stood out.

    2.  During the period that review was showing among very few others, yelp started recalling the business trying to get advertising.  I was irate.  I kept pointing to that faked review.  I sent yelp internal private data that refuted the claim.  Those fooking yelpers wouldn't change.  Needless to say we didn't buy any advertising.

    3.  yelp salespeople kept calling.  I kept ranting.  Some months later the "faked review" went "filtered"   The reviewer, had initially written 3 reviews and then never added another.  After about 5 years, and no reviews, and our voluminous complaints and refusals to buy advertising....the review got filtered.  Did anyone explain it, or their algorithm mechanisms???   NO.  But I don't give a sh** .  None of these web businesses are ever going to "explain" their algos.

    4.  Way back in the last 1.5 -- 2 years I told yelp we wouldn't advertise based on how they proposed to do it with us.  I kept offering a suggestion that "might" get us to advertise.  They were like the sphinx.  They couldn't respond to anything creative.

    5.  Meanwhile of our smb's that show on yelp the dc bar school is a frustrating example.  Bartending Schools don't naturally accumulate reviews as do restaurants.  Most businesses don't naturally accumulate reviews.  The dc bar school now has about 6 yelp reviews that show and about 25 that are filtered.

   6.  But the 6 that show are incredibly helpful.  We acknowledge that.  Small businesses that give good services and get good reviews benefit from having them show on the web.

What we have learned is that regardless of the web "vehicle" its important to learn how to "use" the vehicle to benefit a business or restaurant.    By example a week or two ago I posted an "update" in a web forum about something going on w/ Living Social and probably Groupon.   Tons of businesses have used them.  Tons of businesses have had problems with them.

One very SMART person wrote an excellent piece on how to use them to the advantage of the business.  That was great.  It was a problem solving piece.  That is much better than complaining.

People Love to Write Restaurant Reviews

Of all businesses that are reviewed on the web restaurants by far gather the most reviews; About 46% of all reviews per recent surveys.  That is a lot.  In the US there are about 20+ million small businesses (maybe 30 million) and a total of about 1 million restaurants including all the fast food joints.  In other words 5% (or less) of all the businesses gather 46% of all the reviews.   Restaurants are review magnets.

Some reasons to value Yelp as a business person

From a business perspective Yelp is a counter balance to some other web entities.  The largest is google.  Google is a monster monopoly of search.  Of real searches it probably captures 80% of all searches in the US.  (Reportedly 90% of all searches in Europe).  It rules search.

When google "burps"   business sites are "jerked around".

My perspective is that restaurateurs don't pay much attention to google traffic.  Its a LOT.  I've attached a screen shot of searches in Google pulled from Google Trends that compares the following terms:

Restaurants DC

Pizza DC

Seafood DC

Chinese Restaurants DC

Bartending School DC.

We know exactly how many people search for bar schools.  Its a tiny niche.  But its larger than some services and businesses and much smaller than others.   Restaurants are the most searched for local business type in google.  By far.

I've added two graphs from google trends to show this.  One compares the terms for restaurants, pizza, seafood, chinese food and bartending school.

The other compares restaurants DC to plumbers dc, nail salons dc, hair dressers dc, lawyers dc etc.

Restaurant searches are voluminous in google.  What is interesting is that on July 26 Google made a significant change on their local algo's.  It affected all businesses in terms of visibility.  I've been doing a little research on this and have looked at a good number of restaurant site rankings.  A lot of businesses went UP in the rankings and a lot went down.  It has to have a big impact on visibility and ultimately visits to your business.

Yelp is a Counter Balance to Google

From a business perspective the reason I value yelp is that it is a counter balance to Google.  If google makes a change or penalizes one's website it can be brutal.  Yelp serves as a counter balance.  I'm not the only who thinks that way.  Consider: Bing, Yahoo, and Apple Maps all use Yelp reviews in their local search.  Yahoo and Bing used to use their own reviews.  Now they have defaulted to Yelp.  All of them use Yelp.  Apple Maps, because of the wide distribution of IPhones and Itablets might be the single largest "potential" entity to currently challenge Google's monopoly on search...but at best it might capture 10,15,20 % of searches for local entities on mobile.

So I simply view yelp as a counter balance to the monopoly.  From that point on its my job to figure out how to use it to our advantage.  Ignore the problems.  Try and find solutions.

I read the above claim.  I think there are 3 big parts to it.

A.  There is a claim about the harmful effects of Yelp's algo.

B.  There is a claim about insider trading on the stock

C.  There are claims about the volume of complaints about yelp.

I don't know what is going to occur.  Let the courts decide.  My gut is they aren't going to lose on their algo.  All web engines have secret algo's.  If the court decides to reveal yelp's algo it will have to do so with google, bing, linkedin and every other big business on the web.

Yelp From a User Perspective

Yelp is no DR.com.  It has neither the expertise, quality of knowledge, writing skills, in depth discussions or any elements of interest that exist on dr.com.  DR.com is a place for expertise.  Yelp is for the masses.   But DR.com is not yelp.  Its not a large, gynormous open source entity that is visited by the masses.  It doesn't cover as many possibilities.  Its audience and contributors are infinitely smaller in number than the volume of people who contribute on Yelp.  Also, for its own organization I prefer directory type sites, such as yelp to navigate through certain types of choices.

By example I was recently looking into a restaurant.  It wasn't covered in DR.com.  It was covered in yelp with over 120 reviews.  4 and 5 star reviews were roughly 3 times as many as 1&2 star reviews.  Most of the low ranked reviews corresponded to when the restaurant opened.

One of the 4/5 star reviews rated it very highly compared to LongHorne Steak.  I discounted that review.  LOL  (what can I say)

All in all, I'm not "anti-Yelp".  It is what it is.  As a business person I have to figure out how to take advantage of it.  As a reader....I'd rather go to dr.com by a mile.

If Yelp had "strong-armed" us at the beginning or at any time, my perspective would be different.  They never did.  I'm sure they did to others.  I've never experienced it.

[deangold]

As an interesting exercise... check out the difference between the Yelp Sort and the Most Recent sort when looking at the reviews. The impression you get can be very different.  

[DaveO]

As an interesting exercise... check out the difference between the Yelp Sort and the Most Recent sort when looking at the reviews. The impression you get can be very different.  

I just looked at your yelp reviews both ways.  You have overall great ratings.  You have tons more great reviews than a couple of bad ones.  (like everyone)

The "yelp" method skewed the few bad one's toward the top.  When I look by date and most recent, Positive reviews are highlighted.

If I were in your shoes I wouldn't have written what I posted above.  I'd revert to my native Jersey language and spew off invectives.

So what is with their algo's??   Have you done a study of 20 random restaurants?   Is their situation similar to yours?

I have spent endless hours trying to "re-engineer different algo impacts from yelp, google, etc.  Most of them are friggin impossible to figure out.  That's not from just me...its from a lot of people I know who do the same thing.

I'm glad to see you have positive reviews.  Get some more.  I'm sure you will.

Yelp is not an angel.  I still maintain that if you want to use the web to your advantage you have to figure out how to do so.  And its not easy.

BTW:  About a year ago or longer for one of our smb's w/ strong yelp visibility, we were getting a lot of calls from yelp re advertising.  The site had this faked/planted review on the top of all reviews slamming the smb and its credibility.  Those A-holes wanted us to advertise.  I kept giving them holy hell about that stinking faked review.  It was about 4 yrs old and after writing 3 reviews in a short period this (person/fake personna) never yelped again.  I sent info to yelp again insisting the thing was planted and faked.  They gave us the buffalo shuffle.

Then it moved to "filtered" or under current yelp lingo  "reviews not counted" .   After that our conversations were more cordial.

We are actually considering a yelp ad campaign as a test for a limited time .....still to be decided.

[Ilaine]

Sorry, Don, but I use Yelp and Urbanspoon for inspiration when travelling.  I like farm to table restaurants, so that's the Yelp search term I use when looking for a restaurant on the road.  Without it, I would not have found Hamilton's in Charlottesville for Sunday brunch yesterday, which we enjoyed.  I don't typically review restaurants unless I have been there more than once, but Hamilton's was ace.

I also used the same search to suggest Zynodoa in Staunton later this week.

Yes, sales types play ugly sales games on the internet, have done so for as long as I am aware and I doubt anybody can stop it.  But. lookit, I am in my car looking for food hundreds of miles from home.  Who's there for me?  I discount the kids and fools who have no idea how far their dollar should go and have no idea what an actual human being experiences whether owning a restaurant, cooking a meal, or serving it.  Also the brittle types who vow deadly revenge for imagined slights.  Not hard to spot.

And, truth be told, their interface is a lot easier to access from my phone.  Which doesn't make them superior in any way, just easier.  Saved me from a lot of fast food hell.

 

[DonRocks]

Sorry, Don, but I use Yelp and Urbanspoon for inspiration when travelling.  I like farm to table restaurants, so that's the Yelp search term I use when looking for a restaurant on the road.  Without it, I would not have found Hamilton's in Charlottesville for Sunday brunch yesterday, which we enjoyed.  I don't typically review restaurants unless I have been there more than once, but Hamilton's was ace.

By all means, use whatever resource you like - I'm glad you discovered Hamilton's.

Oh, and by the way, here are the top DC restaurants for you.

Enjoy, and let me know if you need to borrow a shovel.

[DaveO]

Sorry, Don, but I use Yelp and Urbanspoon for inspiration when travelling.  I like farm to table restaurants, so that's the Yelp search term I use when looking for a restaurant on the road.  Without it, I would not have found Hamilton's in Charlottesville for Sunday brunch yesterday, which we enjoyed.  I don't typically review restaurants unless I have been there more than once, but Hamilton's was ace.

I also used the same search to suggest Zynodoa in Staunton later this week.

Yes, sales types play ugly sales games on the internet, have done so for as long as I am aware and I doubt anybody can stop it.  But. lookit, I am in my car looking for food hundreds of miles from home.  Who's there for me?  I discount the kids and fools who have no idea how far their dollar should go and have no idea what an actual human being experiences whether owning a restaurant, cooking a meal, or serving it.  Also the brittle types who vow deadly revenge for imagined slights.  Not hard to spot.

And, truth be told, their interface is a lot easier to access from my phone.  Which doesn't make them superior in any way, just easier.  Saved me from a lot of fast food hell.

I would and do what you did above, Ilaine.  When traveling I have no guarantee that the depth of comments on that city or town inside dr.com will be as thorough or comprehensive as what might appear in yelp or in one of the travel sites or bing or google.  In many locations it would be surprising to get the fullness of coverage at dr.com on a distant location that any variety of localized sources could provide.   Its simply reasonable.

Regardless dr.com is not yelp or any other site and they are not dr.com.   I prefer reading and relying upon dr.com because of the depth of commentary, knowledge, expertise, etc.   But it is not as large as the monetized sites.   Each is what it is.  As a user I have to choose what works best for me for each circumstance.

[Ilaine]

My husband drove me around this week, from Fairfax to Richmond to Woodstock, VA and back, for court hearings.  On the way I read my iPad, and Yelp's app is genius.  You can search by location and it will show the results as numbered dots on a map which you can touch and it will open up the page for that dot.  You can drag the map to a new location and search that location as well.  All those clever programmers, programming their little hearts out, bless them.

But the beauty of donrockwell.com is depth and trust.  Yelp is shallow and iffy, donrockwell.com is deep, thoughtful, and trustworthy.

[DonRocks]

Yelp is shallow and iffy, donrockwell.com is deep, thoughtful, and trustworthy. 

I genuinely appreciate that comment very much, Ilaine - the problem is that posting it here does very little except make me feel good.

Regard this little marketing exercise funded by Yelp.

I'm curious to see if reviewtrackers.com approves this comment, and/or if they produce an unbiased reply. If they don't, then it's quite likely that they aren't an independent website and/or they accept payment for running articles and/or they are designed with a business plan of being bought out. Sorry for all the and/ors.

(BTW, I have *no reason* to believe that Review Trackers isn't a perfectly upstanding, completely unbiased, company - I'm just now finding out about them, and haven't done any research at all.)

Don Rockwell

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Ask Nielsen if they included our website in their study. There are two possibilities: 1) They didn't 2) The study was prejudiced to the point of being invalid.

[DaveO]

I genuinely appreciate that comment very much, Ilaine - the problem is that posting it here does very little except make me feel good.

Regard this little marketing exercise funded by Yelp.

I'm curious to see if reviewtrackers.com approves this comment, and/or if they produce an unbiased reply. If they don't, then it's quite likely that they aren't an independent website and/or they accept payment for running articles and/or they are designed with a business plan of being bought out. Sorry for all the and/ors.

(BTW, I have *no reason* to believe that Review Trackers isn't a perfectly upstanding, completely unbiased, company - I'm just now finding out about them, and haven't done any research at all.)

Don Rockwell

Your comment is awaiting moderation.

Ask Nielsen if they included our website in their study. There are two possibilities: 1) They didn't 2) The study was prejudiced to the point of being invalid.

Any time a business funds a study, wherein the research finds that the funding source is "most important", "most vital" etc. it's simply outright stupid and open to question.  That goes without saying with regard to the study that yelp funded.  Certainly most who read through these types of things and who have depth on the topic realize that.  OTOH as a piece of PR, I guess a PR effort of that ilk must have "some" impact somewhere.  IMHO its blatantly stupid.

As to the reviewtrackers software.  I'm familiar with those types of "things" on the web.  There are a growing volume of software applications for sale wherein the developers sell a package to a business or its marketing folks wherein they allow for the recipient to capture and record all sorts of references and mentions on the web.  They track social media references, reviews, etc etc.

I think the threads in dr.com are different from "reviews".  They are discussions.  They reflect ruminations over time.  There are threads here that are virtually a decade old reflecting on various restaurants.  Its a different animal.

[johnb]

I think it's important to divide Yelp and Urbanspoon, and perhaps others, into their two separate parts.  There is the review function, and the search function.  Best not to conflate them.

I think most of us agree the reviews found on these sites need to be taken, at a minimum, with a large grain of salt.  But this does not take anything away from their usefulness as a search mechanism when one is away from home.

When one is in a place with which he is not familiar, and wants to find a decent place to eat,  the search function makes these sites (or in this case apps) very useful.   Illaine is right.  Even in small towns in the middle of nowhere, one can generally very quickly learn what restaurants exist locally, and by doing some quick "reading between the lines" one can likely narrow down the options to find something that is good if such exists at all, including a map, directions, hours of operations, etc.  Want to call the place?  Just tap the phone number.  How to get there?  Tap.  Can't beat it.

My favorite personal example occurred a few years ago (I believe I related this tale upthread).  I was in Coral Gables Florida, had finished my meeting and was hungry, but had to get on the road.  Had never been there before.   I was stopped at a stoplight.  I got out my phone, brought up the Yelp app, tapped "nearby", and got a list including what turned out to be the best dim sum place in South Florida.  Another tap and I had directions (it was within several hundred yards).   All of this in the time I waited for the red light.  Had an excellent lunch.  Much as I love and trust DR.com, and even Chowhound in a pinch, there's just no way you could do that on those sites.

[DaveO]

I think it's important to divide Yelp and Urbanspoon, and perhaps others, into their two separate parts.  There is the review function, and the search function.  Best not to conflate them.

I think most of us agree the reviews found on these sites need to be taken, at a minimum, with a large grain of salt.  But this does not take anything away from their usefulness as a search mechanism when one is away from home.

When one is in a place with which he is not familiar, and wants to find a decent place to eat,  the search function makes these sites (or in this case apps) very useful.   Illaine is right.  Even in small towns in the middle of nowhere, one can generally very quickly learn what restaurants exist locally, and by doing some quick "reading between the lines" one can likely narrow down the options to find something that is good if such exists at all, including a map, directions, hours of operations, etc.  Want to call the place?  Just tap the phone number.  How to get there?  Tap.  Can't beat it.

My favorite personal example occurred a few years ago (I believe I related this tale upthread).  I was in Coral Gables Florida, had finished my meeting and was hungry, but had to get on the road.  Had never been there before.   I was stopped at a stoplight.  I got out my phone, brought up the Yelp app, tapped "nearby", and got a list including what turned out to be the best dim sum place in South Florida.  Another tap and I had directions (it was within several hundred yards).   All of this in the time I waited for the red light.  Had an excellent lunch.  Much as I love and trust DR.com, and even Chowhound in a pinch, there's just no way you could do that on those sites.

I think that is very perceptive, well written, and accurate.  Sites such as UrbanSpoon and Yelp are both review sites and Web Directories.  As Web directories they do an excellent job.  They organize data, make it easily accessible, enable it to be resorted in a variety of ways and re present the data.

I looked at two "grandaddy" web directories to compare; superpages and yp dot com.   By comparison they stink.  They were up years before urbanspoon and yelp, had lots more money to do a good job on the organization and programming end...and they didn't.

Forums, such as this one, don't present the same opportunity for organizing data.  Plus it takes a lot of money for skilled programmers to present the data in a functional attractive usable way.

Meanwhile, discussions as exist in forums don't exist elsewhere.  Therein lies an advantage to dr.com

[DaveO]

I went back and read comments from restaurant operators and personnel from 2009 and 2010.  Many many statements that seriously indite Yelp for arm twisting and Mafia like efforts in their pursuit of advertising.

I believe the comments.  There were comments like that across the country from countless small businesses.  For various possibilities our smb's never faced those issues with yelp back in those days.   More recently in the past almost 2 years we have taken a lot of yelp sales calls.  We haven't faced the arm twisting tactics.   Again there are circumstances with regard to our smb's and their body of yelp reviews that might have limited the opportunity for yelp to try and twist our arms.   Also it was reported that once yelp went public it changed its tactics somewhat.

Upthread from 2009 one of the early commentators suggested trying to "work Yelp".   Who knows maybe that person was a "yelp plant"  Maybe not.

I'm personally of that opinion these days.   However cr@ppy these various web sites are and however powerful they might be the smarter operators simply try and figure out how to "make those websites" work for your business.   Its difficult.  It is the way I'd try and approach it these days, though.

[SRJ]

U.S Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit:

"nless a person has a preexisting right to be free of the threatened economic harm, threatening economic harm to induce a person to pay for a legitimate service is not extortion."

 

With regard to the allegation that Yelp commits extortion by removing positive reviews: "By withholding the benefit of these positive reviews, Yelp is withholding a benefit that Yelp makes possible and maintains. It has no obligation to do so, however." Purchasing advertising with Yelp does not establish a right to have positive reviews appear.

 

With regard to the re-posting of negative reviews or the placement of negative reviews at the top of a business owner's Yelp page: "t is not unlawful for Yelp to post and sequence the reviews. As Yelp has the right to charge for legitimate advertising services, the threat of economic harm that Yelp leveraged is, at most, hard bargaining."

 

http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2014/09/02/11-17676.pdf