Getting negative reviews on Yelp can be very bad for small local businesses and can cost the business owner a lot of income.
Yelp, a social networking review website launched in 2004, really took off in 2009. Its main business model is based on user-generated reviews for local businesses.
Yelp uses a 5-star rating system and has mechanisms to stop spammers from posting false reports or business owners from creating 5-star reports for themselves. You may often see that there are filtered reports on Yelp that do not show up but that can still be reviewed by clicking a link on the bottom of the page. The score from the filtered reports will not add up in your overall rating.
Based on some research and experimentation we have done, the filtered reviews are often applicable to users who have new accounts and are not very active. For example, lack of friends and a profile picture are some reasons the review may get filtered.
However, it has also been said that Yelp purposely displays more negative reviews unless you pay to become an advertiser on the website. Many business owners claim that they have even been told by Yelp sales people that unless they advertise with them, their positive reviews will be removed. Although we do not know anyone who has experienced this issue, we do know that in 2010, Yelp was hit with a class action lawsuit from business owners claiming extortion, and that Yelp demanded $300 a month or more for the removal or modification of negative listings. Here are more details on the lawsuit: http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/yelp-class-action-lawsuit/ and http://yelplawsuit.com/
There is also a forum called Yelp Sucks that has posts from users with similar issues.
While there is no way to remove negative listings from Yelp, there is a way to bring your overall rating up. This is where we come in. Submit Express has done extensive research and has helped several companies improve their Yelp ratings. Submit Express will consult with your company to come up with ways to encourage your customers to post positive reviews for you. In addition, we employ several other tactics that will help to improve your negative ratings on Yelp.
If you have negative reviews on Yelp, contact us today to see what we can do for you.
We also provide:
Our president, Pierre Zarokian, is an expert on reputation management. He has spoken on the subject numerous times at different conferences such as Webmaster World, Affiliate Convention and Monitoring Social Media. You could read one of his presentations about reputation management here.
For more details or to engage in this service, please contact us.
