(yelp reviews are...) pretty well moderated by admins and the community alike.
Hell, they throw up 'flags' for actual legit reviews all the time too.
Well which is it. Is Yelp "well moderated" or do they delete reviews for reasons that have nothing to do with whether or not they are fake? Or, are you one of those people that believe the definition of the words "moderated", "deleted", "erased" and "censored" is pretty much the same for all of them.
Just ask your customers to review your site, they usually will if you ask.
Some people think (and I'm one) that when a customer hands someone money in exchange for a service or product, that's enough. They shouldn't have to do any more, which includes having to listen to some business owner beg for reviews. Just because a transaction is friendly, that doesn't mean they are friends. And, as a business owner, I do not think my customers should have to do anything other than pay me for my services. Besides that, what's the difference between me asking a "real" customer to review my business and me asking a friend to review my business.
Does the fact that they are a friend make their opinion of my business any less legitimate? Clearly not. They have every right to review my business. But what if they ask me what to say? Are they (in your and Yelps feeble universe) somehow morally prohibited from writing a review after I tell them what I'd like them to say? Or, can they write a review, but only words that I DIDN'T say, because if they wrote words that I said, then that would somehow be wrong.
And how would you (or Yelp) enforce that anyways? Should people have to take a polygraph test, and pass all of Yelp's (and your) standards before they can post what you think is a legitimate review? What's the difference between a friend writing a review and a non-friend writing a review.
Answer: None. There is no difference. And, for $25.00 you can find a friend to write a review of your business.
I wouldn't fake Yelp reviews.
Really? If you needed that business to survive so that you could feed your family, pay the mortgage, keep the lights on and continue to support the burden of the comforts of the underclass, would you fake a review? Or would you let your competitors fake the reviews, run you out of business and put your family on the street?
Yelp sets up a bullshit system of rating a business, where just anyone can say just anything about a business, whether it's true or not, and there's nothing that an innocent and faultless business can do. But, let that same business post something honest about themselves, and Yelp gets their underwear all firmly wadded-up deep inside the crack of it's ass, and acts like the review faker is some kind of right-wing terrorist about to steal babies from their cribs and turn their puppies into sausage.
Yelp reviews are no different than that "mugshot.com". They post crap about business and there's nothing a business can do but try to post the opposite image. I think this whole notion of the "morality" of Yelp to be pure, 100% bullshit. Yelp makes it's money by providing a public forum for idiots and dishonest crooks to besmirch honest businesses. Seriously. What kind of idiot has the time to write a non-biased review for a business they have no connection to?
Answer: No one. No normal person has the time to review how clean the bathroom was in the Exxon station the last time they took a dump there.
I think theres so many different things that yelp uses to figure out if you are legit or not but aged accounts are usually the ones that work best.
