If your business model is essentially extortion, you have to wonder about long-term viability.
The actual mob still seems to be doing well.
they've just moved to legit businesses.
Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
101–110 of 464 posts
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#102I 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.
Mobile browsers should differentiate the style of links with URLs that resolve to apps. I am tired of tapping links expecting to remain in Safari and having useless “open in app?” prompts instead. I’m not IN an app, I’m in a browser; I want to use the browser. And when cancelling the prompt gets you nothing, it really feels like Yelp is screaming “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”.
Reddit keeps asking me if I want to download their app or Open in Safari... regardless of which browser I’m using.
Not every iOS user is using Safari!!!!
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#103I 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?
I absolutely loathe yelp reviews. Far too many people trying to act like professional reviewers spending 500 words on setting the scene of the restaurant only to end up on 2/5 stars because of something ridiculous like bad lighting. This is all within given context, but there's been so many reviews for smaller divey type places that get people slamming it over stuff only to end up with a single line of "food wasn't b…
Those are the good reviews, they give details about what to expect. I have no problem with good food, bad service places.
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#104I 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 disagree, what I wonder about is how management sees this as a better alternative than serving their customers. I expect it is a "damned if you do damned if you don't" type situation. They are at a tremendous disadvantage as a 'web' experience because you're getting there through Google, Facebook, or Bing rather than landing directly on their page so they have already paid that platform to put you in front. T…
So at some point I presume the go full "Yellow Pages" and just charge venues a monthly fee to appear at all in their pages. That works if they are generating significant foot traffic into the venue but fails if they can't connect the app/website use with the visit.
I think it's useful at this point to ask why various directories had value during their heyday. The "Yellow Pages" had value, simply because there wasn't as comprehensive a localized listing otherwise. Yelp had value at first, because the reviews and ratings combined with the location search were super useful. Unfortunately, too many people realized how valuable this was and the gaming of the system on all sides started, greatly reducing the usefulness of the Yelp directory.
Google might be able to create a such directory based solely on traffic and AI identification of the type of business? Could AI identify long lines outside of restaurants? Maybe Google should buy Yelp, which would solve the "pay Google up front" conundrum. Whatever IP Yelp has which killed the "near" searches on Google would also cease to be an impediment to Google.
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Google maps reviews is just as good if not better in some ways IMO. That's what I use as an alternative.
This is really really not true. I did a local comparison any Google map reviews were REALLY REALLY bad whereas Yelp knew what the good restaurants were. Not even close, at least in my area.
Yelp is bullshit because you can’t downrate clearly wrong, fake, or useless “reviews.”
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
If a place has 700 reviews and a 4.5 star rating that's good signal that it's good, regardless of how many words are put into the 3 reviews you see on the front page.
If a place has 5 reviews and a 3 star rating that doesn't mean anything to me. Maybe it's great maybe it sucks, but I'm not turned off by it. It's just basic stats. If you're trusting one good 500-word yelp-elite review on a listing with 2000 2-star reviews, frankly you're doing it wrong.
Sometimes long reviews offer good things to search for -- for example someone might talk about a patio or happy hour that isn't identified on the site or yelp listing. I've used them for that purpose a few times.
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#107I 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.
What do you use instead?
I use TripAdvisor. Much less mean and agressive in terms of review quality as what I have experienced with Yelp.
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
This might not be helpful, but I decided to rely on serendipity. Sometimes I feel like we think too much about finding the best of the 'best' and we rely on expert opinions of the crowd instead of taking a chance ourselves and trying out new things.
my personal method when out and about is "ask a stranger," with using my hand computer as a backup. i delight in answering these questions as well, so i'm inclined to believe people generally don't mind.
I travel a lot and talk to a lot of people and I can tell you from my experience that a lot of people don't know the best restaurants in their town. Most people haven't eaten at all of them to make the comparison. The best way to find out is to have some way to ask a bunch of people then compare their collective results and see what everyone's experience adds up to. That quickly starts looking a lot like Yelp.
Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site
#109I 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.
Mobile browsers should differentiate the style of links with URLs that resolve to apps. I am tired of tapping links expecting to remain in Safari and having useless “open in app?” prompts instead. I’m not IN an app, I’m in a browser; I want to use the browser. And when cancelling the prompt gets you nothing, it really feels like Yelp is screaming “NO SOUP FOR YOU!”.
Do you not get to pick? Android gives you a popup (e.g. Yelp app or Chrome) with an option to save your answer.