Yelp
They called our company to advertise with them. When we declined, they removed all 5 stars and created a fake bad reiview to hurt our business. I filed with the BBB and also the FTC. FTC is less th

We believe that Yelps system to filter out reviews on businesses hinges on whether the business advertises through them. We were recently contacted by Yelp to promote our business and advertise with them. Since we do not advertise with Yelp, we noticed that all of our 5 stars reviews were being filtered out. We wrote to them to inquire about the only negative review that we have and ask that they investigate it since it was a review from a questionable, legitimate client. We expressed our concerns about the truthfulness of this review and had even replied to this reviewer to contact our office to resolve any issues. We have received no reply from this reviewer, therefore we believe it may be competitor slander and not a true client. We could also not find this reviewer in our records of clients. We have flagged this questionable review and asked that Yelp investigate, and after a week, we have received no response. We then e-mailed Yelp to inquire about the questionable review and we still have not received a response from them. However, Yelps advertising department has called us 5 times asking us to advertise with them so that we can get our company to a top spot. We logged into Yelp and now found that all of our 5 Star ratings, were filtered out. Since we cannot get a hold of anyone at Yelp, we expressed our concerns with the advertising person from Yelp. She told us that it is not her department but that Yelp has an algorithm that filters out certain reviews. We don't understand the algorithm of Yelp's filtering process and hope that Yelp keeps true to how they filter reviews and not be favorable to paying clients who advertise with them. We have been in the business for over 20 years and have an "A" rating with the BBB. Now when a potential client finds us through Yelp, it shows that we have 1 negative review and instead a similar firm is placed above our business. When you look at the paid sponsor, their negative reviews are filtered out and they get a high rating. Yelp is a fraud and need to be exposed. Please don't whine, call and report to the BBB and better yet call FTC and report it. FTC 1-877-382-4357

Also do this.

Yelp filter Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Fri-10-14 00:08. ANNOUNCEMENT: We have recently implemented a system to outsmart yelp from hiding our filtered reviews: Step 1- first of all, if youre advertising with yelp, we suggest that you stop doing so and shift that money to optimize your own web site insteadStep 2- Have a graphic designer make a yelp badge that is placed on your web site. It should say we have filtered and unfiltered reviews on yelp. (felix, use the graphic i gave u) Step 3- when a visitor clicks on the badge, it will go to another page ON YOUR OWN WEB SITE (instead of going to yelps. (why help them get traffic and rank higher anyways)? Step 4- On this page have your graphic designer get a screen capture (picture) of all your filtered and unfiltered reviews and have them pasted together onto one page. (felix, we can do screen scapture) Now, all your reviews (filtered or not) will be visible to all your web site visitors. 5- put a note on the top that says, for your convenience we have placed all our filtered and unfiltered reviews on one page to see. If youd like to go to our live yelp page, click here Make the whole page clickable to your live yelp page so no-one will think youre trying to hide something or trying to be dishonest Advantages of doing this: 1- Your visitors will stay on your web site instead of being directed to yelps2- Your visitor cant click on your competitors 3- No more being a slave to yelps algorithm4- Yelp would not benefit from getting traffic from you and higher rankings on google 5- This project cost us less than $150 to implement Just be sure to shift that $300 per month on yelp advertising and put it into KEYWORDS that people will search for. Please pass this along

Company: Yelp
Country: USA
Site: yelp.com

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