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Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

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Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#291

Post by naravara »

wlesieutre wrote: post #240
Scoundreller wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a matter of time before they acquire the top app or two and block the rest.

IIRC the official app is from them buying AlienBlue, which used to be the best one on iOS. These days it's Apollo. Apollo recently moved some push notification features behind a subscription to cover ongoing costs, separate from their "Pro" one time in-app purchase, so I think Reddit is at least taking a cut from API usage by other clients.

Weirdly, most of the features Apollo puts behind the subscription tier are features I think foster unhealthy engagement with Reddit and I'm just as happy to not have hanging over me.

I'd be happy to pay them, but I actually don't WANT push notifications, posting from the app, or any of the other stuff that encourages websites to pull you in deeper.

And the only reason I even use Apollo is because mobile Reddit is a nightmare UX. Literally a case study in how to make a horrid, horrible experience on the mobile web.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#292

Post by ilikehurdles »

dunpeal wrote: post #260
timr wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked directly on the code that would have done the things you're asserting to be true. There's no code to support it, and in fact, there are tools in place to prevent what you're claiming. If there were some top-secret internal conspiracy to use the other tools on the site to do what you're claiming, you have to be especially credulous to believe that I -- or people just like me -- wouldn't have noticed it. Unles…

The typical criticism of Yelp was that you could get negative reviews of your business removed if you paid them. I'm not sure how as a coder you'd be able to guarantee that's never been done, except if your code guaranteed that no review could ever be removed by a human moderator, which I'm sure is not the case.

There. is. no. evidence. of. this.

I'm not sure how otherwise skeptical techy people imagine a conspiracy into reality with nothing to back it up. Don't you think that of the thousands of people who have worked at yelp, that one of them would have spread news about it with their peers?

The "shakedowns", floods of negative reviews, sudden filtering, etc. Every single instance is some anecdotal story online, and has never been backed up in court, by investigative journalism, a scientific study, any kind of material evidence.

The barrier to entry to create a business listing, get reviews, get a sales call from yelp, and study the change in review is really, really low -- and yet you'd think we'd have more proof to go on than comments on hackernews and reddit if yelp were as shady as is claimed.

There are third party services that are effectively shakedowns -- similar to what shady SEO people do to spam whois contacts -- they threaten you with worse rankings if you don't pay up. These things have no connection to yelp itself.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#293

Post by adrr »

allochthon wrote: post #86

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 sel…

Yelp suffers the same issues that Amazon reviews has. General public is easily influenced to give high scores to mediocre food/products. I'd rather have reviews from trusted reviewers or a Netflix type scoring system that matches my picks with other people who have the same taste.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#294

Post by bootaccount »

huehehue wrote: post #207
jkchu wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but is Yelp really being slimy by pushing users to download their app? Seems to me it's more that they are being too cheap/lazy to properly maintain both a mobile app and a mobile site. Certainly not behavior that benefits their users, but I feel slimy implies that they are doing something dishonest.

Here's a screenshot of the mobile site: https://i.imgur.com/WDDnKJk.png In the top left, there's an "open in app" button. It's not very intrusive, it's just sitting there in the header to remind you that there's an app. The rest of the website looks usable, right? Nope. Click on "open in app": redirected to app store Click on user's avatar: redirected to app store Click on "read more": redirected to app store Click o…

they're using app.adjust.com to force the user to get the app and track the behavior -- using Firefox and something like uBlock will prevent the behavior and block the redirect attempt

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#295

Post by nhauz »

chrissnell wrote: post #193
Scoundreller wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!!!

I actually wrote some ad blocking rules to remove all of these Reddit annoyances. I've been meaning to submit them to one of the mobile-focused Adblock lists. Here are the elements that you need to hide. I like 1 BlockerX for this: .snackbar .xpromopopup .topbutton .xpromopill

Wish I could add those to mobile Safari :P

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#296

Post by huehehue »

bootaccount wrote: post #294
huehehue wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a screenshot of the mobile site: https://i.imgur.com/WDDnKJk.png In the top left, there's an "open in app" button. It's not very intrusive, it's just sitting there in the header to remind you that there's an app. The rest of the website looks usable, right? Nope. Click on "open in app": redirected to app store Click on user's avatar: redirected to app store Click on "read more": redirected to app store Click o…

they're using app.adjust.com to force the user to get the app and track the behavior -- using Firefox and something like uBlock will prevent the behavior and block the redirect attempt

I'm using Firefox and uBlock Origin, it still kicks you to uBlock's warning/whitelist page.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#297

Post by vatueil »

conductr wrote: post #282
huehehue wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a screenshot of the mobile site: https://i.imgur.com/WDDnKJk.png In the top left, there's an "open in app" button. It's not very intrusive, it's just sitting there in the header to remind you that there's an app. The rest of the website looks usable, right? Nope. Click on "open in app": redirected to app store Click on user's avatar: redirected to app store Click on "read more": redirected to app store Click o…

I don’t understand Why doesn’t google penalize them? They used to be pretty hard on links doing something other than what is expected. Maybe not anymore..

Isn't Yelp one of the main forces behind the slew of complaints against Google? That must tie Google's hands to some extent.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#298

Post by lucasverra »

apl002 wrote: post #263
rchaud wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you're replying to, but here goes: It's not 2011 anymore, back when the mobile web was trash because companies maintained both a desktop site and a severly gimped "m.desktop.com" site. Back then you pretty much had to have apps if you wanted to capture the mobile market. Today, we have mature Add to Home Screen capability, GPS support, push notifications, widespread support for CSS3 hardware accele…

you can add push notification from mobile web? I suppose i see the attempts for me to enable desktop notifications but ive never seen them on mobile web before. Feels weird to applaud add to home screen but not want the app. Also im on wifi so often that i guess 50mb to download an app is a non issue for me. I am biased because I build native apps vs web apps but ive always preferred a rich native experience and desi…

No, IOS does not allow notification in browser [1].

>Note: This document pertains to OS X only. Notifications for websites do not appear on iOS.

[1] : https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Ne...

P.S: not assuming IOS is mobile, yes assuming significant amount of mobile economy is IOS browsers

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#299

Post by 1024core »

vikingcaffiene wrote: post #210

Good. Yelp is utter trash. They've shaken down several friends of mine who own and run restaurants. Either you pay for their premium services or a bunch of 1 star reviews start magically appearing on your business Its a well known racket and they should be run out of town on a rail for it. On a more personal note, they also refused to adequately protect my wife when we encountered and reported an unscrupulous vendor…

I hear what you're saying. But bear in mind that there's an entire "SEO" industry out there, which tries to shake down businesses by either promising to improve their search rankings, or threatening to tank their search rankings.

So I'm sure your friends got a bunch of calls about this. But are you (or they) sure it was Yelp, though? Often it's some scammers in foreign countries like India.

Re: Yelp craters 30% as advertisers abandon the site

#300

Post by timr »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #292
dunpeal wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The typical criticism of Yelp was that you could get negative reviews of your business removed if you paid them. I'm not sure how as a coder you'd be able to guarantee that's never been done, except if your code guaranteed that no review could ever be removed by a human moderator, which I'm sure is not the case.

There. is. no. evidence. of. this. I'm not sure how otherwise skeptical techy people imagine a conspiracy into reality with nothing to back it up. Don't you think that of the thousands of people who have worked at yelp, that one of them would have spread news about it with their peers? The "shakedowns", floods of negative reviews, sudden filtering, etc. Every single instance is some anecdotal story online, and has ne…

Thank you. It's pathetic how far the conversation on HN has fallen.
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