Help! Yelp!

So a friend of mine runs a business and asked me for some help with his Yelp page. When I went to check it out, I found that of his 7 reviews, all but one of them had been filtered. Essentially, all of his good reviews were filtered and the only one left was a scathing 1 star review. The kicker being that my buddy's business has absolutely no record of that person ever having been a customer...

I thought if nothing else, I'd give my buddy a good review (I am a customer of his too) and at least bump him up to 3 stars while I investigated some more. When I checked it this morning, my review had been filtered as well even though none of my other reviews (more than a dozen) have otherwise been filtered.

So, what the hell is this guy doing? How is he managing to filter all of the good reviews? Or is it just yelp screwing my friend over? And even more importantly, how do I fight back?:fight:

dobsonfly,

Unfortunately it seems that you are at Yelp's mercy when it comes to what they choose to leave out or include on a business's profile. Not sure if you have seen this already but here is a pretty good post on how the whole thing works,

http://localvox.com/how-to-avoid-the-yelp-review-filter-and-get-more-positive-reviews/

So if the reviews that got filtered fit the criteria in that post, there's your answer for why they were nixed. I think the only solution to this problem (as with any online reputation problem) is to drown out the bad information with good. Try starting some kind of campaign to get people to leave detailed and honest reviews on Yelp.

I don't know what your friend's business is all about but try and identify key points where he could communicate with customers about leaving reviews. For example on receipts, invoices, emails, marketing materials, through social media or even signs in the business encouraging people to leave reviews.

Hope that helps,

Shawn

Hey Shawn,

Obviously I'll need to communicate with him on a strategy of how to encourage good reviews, especially since this is his busy season. This guy isn't actually a client and my real concern at this point is how Yelp works so I can more effectively help actual clients.

I had already checked out that article to try and get an idea of what gets filtered. My biggest concern was that this guy was doing something fishy to get the reviews filtered. My Yelp account has full information, is local, includes a picture, is linked to facebook, has multiple reviews, and wrote a longer review of this business.

I'm almost tempted to create a second yelp account through an alternate IP and leave a 4 star review for this business just to see if it gets filtered.

Another forum post suggested that if I was going to post additional "fake" reviews, that I follow the steps of
1. Post a long review of target business and several other businesses.
2. Have other IPs click the review as "useful"

I would have another IP go through and click my original review as "useful" but you can't once they have been filtered.

I know Yelp reviews are pricey for this kind of reason....

Currently I'm going through the Yelp filters, and this information has been helpful. What are the best (current) resources for learning about the Yelp filters, so I can help my client? I would be interested in purchasing/ trading reviews as well.

dobsonFly said:

So a friend of mine runs a business and asked me for some help with his Yelp page. When I went to check it out, I found that of his 7 reviews, all but one of them had been filtered. Essentially, all of his good reviews were filtered and the only one left was a scathing 1 star review. The kicker being that my buddy's business has absolutely no record of that person ever having been a customer...

I thought if nothing else, I'd give my buddy a good review (I am a customer of his too) and at least bump him up to 3 stars while I investigated some more. When I checked it this morning, my review had been filtered as well even though none of my other reviews (more than a dozen) have otherwise been filtered.

So, what the hell is this guy doing? How is he managing to filter all of the good reviews? Or is it just yelp screwing my friend over? And even more importantly, how do I fight back?:fight:

Click to expand...

We can trade reviews. Skype me live:s1d3x or [email protected]

if you have a legit real yelp account and want to trade one review let us know - we will ask to see your account so no fakers, wannabees or misleaders PM us

What type business? Some businesses on yelp are considered high touch and will filter a good portion of 5-star reviews, thats just part of there algo. Also was the business offered adveritising from yelp directly? In my 3 years provided review services, many business owners told me they experienced negative effects (like dropped rankings due to good reviews filtering) after declining persistent offers for advertising or stopping them altogether. I'd happy to offer advice here so everyone can benefit.

I have never had them filter based on ads, it is usually just because your status changes with Yelp and they reexamine your review profile. They have a few tiers of algo based on your account. If they have caught you placing false reviews or even worse banned reviews they will filter your reviews at a higher rate with less forgiveness. Their filter has different stages just like Google and that is why a review can stick for 3 days get removed at 7 or stick for 7 and get removed at 30days and then if your profile of reviews changes or the account posting changes their profile of reviews and other factors the review can come back (a bit rare though it comes back and stays back) or get filtered.

It has nothing to do with the category except if the poster has what Yelp views as an affiliation with a category (higher rate reporting others, posts, a business, a friend in that category, etc). Some categories "feel" harder to post on a page because they do not have as many reviews and a broader review profile making it easier to post on (say you get three filtered and three showing that is going to be a harder page to post on). This is due to less activity for that category overall on Yelp.

Yelp does not punish businesses or those that start stop or refuse advertising. What happens usually is something on your profile changes by you or Yelp and the aglo sees this and scans the pages reviews. The algo is reactionary not proactive it works off of signals.

That is my experience with Yelp in the last 5 years and managing 7 business pages and creating 3 more dummy ones to experiment with.

I would be interested in trading reviews if you're still interested.

chuladi said:

There are a few techniques you can use to kick a review out of the filter. I have an ebook I'd share if you want to PM your email address. With your own profile, try logging in from a mobile phone or from a computer in a different location and writing a review like that. Or uploading a photo of that business. There are a few things you can do to kick a review out of the filter.

It also helps if it is NOT a five star review.

Also, PM if you are interested in trading yelp reviews.

(PS, I don't know why my post formatted like that)

Click to expand...

I am interested in exchanging reviews. How do we go about doing that?

I am interested in exchanging reviews how do we go about doing that?