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Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

cnbc.com

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Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#81

Post by ransom1538 »

mlrtime wrote: post #9

I don't have any sympathy for a site that purposely cripples the web mobile site to force you to install their app. They lock you out of pictures after around 20 so you have to go to desktop or install their crappy app. Yelp will not be missed.

"I don't have any sympathy for a site that purposely cripples the web mobile site to force you to install their app."

They did this in response to Google. Their clicks from the google search results has been down for years [1]. What should they have done?

[1] https://www.seroundtable.com/yelp-ceo-on-google-interstitial...

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#82

Post by ghostly_s »

ghaff wrote: post #18
duxup wrote: post #4

I abandoned Yelp as a user pretty quick as it was just too much to filter through so many reviews by people who 1) Had some one off bad experience that is probably not representative of anything. 2) Wished that place they reviewed was like some other place that is kinda the same but ... it's twice the price so why are you comparing?

It's not great but TBH I still find it to be better than nothing. You've pretty much described every review site on the Internet. "My hotel room in Manhattan was small." You don't say. I still prefer Zagat (though it's not what it was when it was pretty much limited to foodies) where it's available. But if I'm in an area I don't know well I still will take Yelp over picking a restaurant on total whim or because it ha…

The idea that I would take some random stranger's advice because they earned some 'Yelp Stars' or whatever by wasting a bunch of their time on the site trying to feel important is ridiculous. I stopped looking at these pretty quick after I realized what a time-sink it was that did not seem to result in me patronizing any better places than I was before. (And the fact that Yelp seems to go out of there way to prevent me from surfacing details I might actually be curious about from reviews). It seems they are much more interested in optimizing the site to encourage people to write reviews rather than make those reviews useful to those who might be reading them. Why are they creating a situation where 500 people are writing 500-word reviews that no one will ever read? When the most sophisticated aggregation of this they seem capable of doing is "4 people mentioned the cashew chicken! [What they had to say about the cashew chicken, well good luck figuring that out]."

The only model of crowd-sourced reviews that interests me at this point would be one that normalizes ratings against an individual's biases (so someone who gives every place 2 stars is not skewing the average) and models preferences to give personalized recommendations (since you like establishments X and Y, you might like establishment Z that other similar users have rated highly). AFAIK Yelp isn't doing any of this.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#83

Post by Finnucane »

meritt wrote: post #19
faitswulff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use instead?

Restaurants: Tripadvisor, Google, Zagat Service Providers: Homeadvisor, Angie's List

Angie's List is less useful than it should be. It seems that the reviews are largely promotion-driven (i.e., vendors that offer coupons get reviews, others get no reviews).

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#84

Post by Ibethewalrus »

stephencoyner wrote: post #20
faitswulff wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use instead?

Google maps reviews is just as good if not better in some ways IMO. That's what I use as an alternative.

Nope, it’s gamed. Reviews are useless. Had a terrible experience with a business.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#85

Post by ilikehurdles »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #61
Upvoter33 wrote: post #37

In contrast to many posters here, I really like Yelp (as a user, at least, never been a restaurant owner). I sort by number of reviews and find places that are highly rated (4 stars or so) and almost always this has worked well. Other services I've tried are not nearly as easy to use or reliable.

What other services have you tried. Where in the World are you.

For what it's worth, I've tried Google (absolute and total bottom of the barrel trash level reviews in my opinion -- cannot say enough bad things about that review quality) and Tripadvisor (not bad, better for lodging and sights than food). I do like Eater but it's a different service and not user-driven.

I'm in the US. Have been all over the place, all over both coasts, texas, and colorado.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#86

Post by allochthon »

I can't relate to the negativity I see here. I like Yelp quite a lot. There have been a number occasions where I've found an excellent local restaurant that I wouldn't have otherwise found.

Admittedly, you have to know what you're doing. If you're in a food desert, like some parts of the US, you'll need to take those 4 and 4.5 star restaurant profiles with a grain of salt. What I would really like: the ability to select other users whose tastes are similar to mine that Yelp would then use to influence the ratings I see. This might also protect against paid spam reviews and over-picky reviewers.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#87

Post by Glyptodon »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #70
Glyptodon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if this is accurate, but I have the sense that Trip Advisor is kind of taking over the space, at least for food and cultural stuff.

I find TripAdvisor extremely inflated and I somehow always end up at tourist traps using it when I'm countries where yelp isn't available. It's more useful for finding out about sights but I avoid it for food and services.

I'm not intending to say that it's good, just that it seems a lot more widely used than Yelp lately.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#90

Post by ilikehurdles »

Glyptodon wrote: post #87
ilikehurdles wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find TripAdvisor extremely inflated and I somehow always end up at tourist traps using it when I'm countries where yelp isn't available. It's more useful for finding out about sights but I avoid it for food and services.

I'm not intending to say that it's good, just that it seems a lot more widely used than Yelp lately.

It does depend on where in the world you are too.
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