Good old Yelp

I have an account on  Yelp. I’ve had it for a long time now. Maybe 10 years. My relationship with this website has not been easy.

They hide a lot of the reviews. Only 3 are showing, my average is 3.5. 49 of mine are not showing, 49 reviews with 5 stars. These reviews are from people who  usually have many other reviews posted (someone has 37 other reviews he wrote for Yelp). But their voice is not heard when they talk about me. You’re starting to see how it works?

I talked to other businesses, small mum and pop shop just like me, they have the same remarks: the good reviews disappear, the bad ones always stick. Then Yelp calls. They want money. They propose a service, whatever it is, to “help you get more customer” (emphasis on the quote symbol: “…”). As for the reviews, they are not responsible, they give you words like “Algorithm”. They don’t know how the machine calculates. I beg to differ: the good reviews disappear, the bad ones stick.

The salespeople at yelp are really good. I must say they are extremely convincing, especially if you really don’t want to buy anything of theirs. After all, you tell them, Yelp is there to help the deserving small business. So how come the good reviews disappear and the bad ones stick?

So, like all of the small businesses I talked to, I ended up blocking the Yelp phone number. I’m not interested in their tactics.

And, like most other small businesses, I learnt that the reviews on Yelp do not matter much. People find my business by other means.

I am sure I am not very significant for Yelp. It’s a good thing they are not significant to me. It is dangerous what they are doing: they could destroy someone’s business/life easily.