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Might be interesting to side note the 81 (yep, eighty-one!!) filtered reviews on their Yelp page. Many of the positive ones look faked, but a few do not. Totally not taking a side, but just questioning - I wonder if Casey would feel the need to sue if Yelp wasn't so aggressive with their filters? I have two clients with 20 total positive (legit) reviews, every single one is filtered. While I don't agree they should sue, and they need to be MUCH better with the ORM - Yelp is partly responsible too.
Review filtering is supposed to only happen when there's manipulation, yeah? Does Yelp also filter some reviews that are legit? If so, for what reason?
It most definitely happens to legit reviews. Yelp is supposedly very unresponsive to this issue unless the business is paying Yelp.
The filters (according to Yelp) are entirely algorithmic. It is thought that all reviews are filtered for a few reasons;
- if the person leaving the review is very new to Yelp, or inactive in the Yelp community. ie: it's a brand new account or they have never reviewed anyone else, they have not participated in the Yelp community in some way (added photos, left comments, etc).
- if lots of reviews come in for one business within a short amount of time, ie: 5 reviews in one or two days. Yelp's reasoning is that these have been solicited somehow and therefore filter them.
- IP address too perhaps. For example, reviews all left from the location of the business its self.
Again, Yelp states these are entirely algorithmic. Whenever a business alerts them to the fact they have real reviews filtered, Yelp is not too likely to do anything about it, unless you pay for their promoted listings.
There's many articles on the issue;
http://pixsym.com/blog/reputation-management/how-yelps-review-filter-plays-games-with-businesss-repu...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2012/08/16/think-yelp-is-unbiased-think-again/
http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/yelps-review-filter-sometimes-does-more-harm-than-good/5705/
It's sad that legit reviews are being manipulated and instead being replaced with reviews by the highest bidder. It feels like Yelp is subtly promoting this. This does not provide an ideal search experience, leaving users feeling that Yelp is untrustworthy just as Dan pointed out (many reviews look faked and untrustworthy).
This is a problem for businesses & companies trying to fix their online reputation using "white hat" tactics and legitimate reviews. Very disappointed with Yelp's algo setup.
The upside to having an algorithmic filtering process means that it isn't hard to get good reviews unfiltered, but it's a shame that we feel compelled to go to those lengths.
They're not just seeking to filter "illegitimate" reviews sadly, they're also filtering reviews from inactive community members. That translates to legitimate reviews from infrequent users getting filtered, and illegitimate (paid, fake, or otherwise illegitimate) reviews from frequent users staying on top.
This system works fine for high volume businesses that customers are passionate about (restaurants, bars, and other "fun" businesses) but for something like car sales, computer repair, or other businesses that are relatively "boring" to the end consumer, Yelp is still way behind in having a good system that effectively rates a business.
Yes, I've seen many legit reviews get filtered. I've had clients that were paying Yelp and even then Yelp wouldn't do anything about the legit filtered reviews. Their algo is very heavy handed. I was even told by a Yelp rep that a filtered review, whether positive or negative, may be filtered initially then unfiltered for some time, then could be filtered again at a later time...a little sketchy.
The 81 filtered reviews are slightly tainted in my opinion because of the 11 removed reviews that all appeared between 12/27/2011 and 1/10/2012. At the very least I would think that the reviews in that time frame would be more suspicious.
I had a similar problem with one of my business listings (come to find out it shouldn't have even been listed because it was B2B but did have a brick and mortar) and positive reviews being filtered out.
The business had 2 locations and Yelp removed one of them on their own (this is when they explained the B2B listing "violation"). It took me a good 3 - 4 months to get the second listing removed simply because I did not want to violated their guidelines.
If it wasn't for Twitter, I don't think I would have gotten any response but finally, did get an email and a contact who explained the situation. I agree with the assumption that Yelp will only "pay attention" if you are not a paying customer. I feel the directory is seriously flawed and wanted to chime in. @Phil - enjoyed reading your post and look forward to seeing what comes out of it.