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Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

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Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#121

Post by ddingus »

fairity wrote: post #37
colpabar wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have personally never seen much value in Yelp. Most people use Google as a starting point when searching anything, and the Yelp page that is returned is not very helpful to me. At best, it contains menus, pictures, hours, phone number, and reviews. At worst, it has none of those and is effectively an ad for the Yelp app. Either way, Google shows me all of that before I click anything else. Google absolutely tries t…

> The Yelp page that is returned is not very helpful to me. At best, it contains menus, pictures, hours, phone number, and reviews. Menus, pictures of food, and honest reviews aren't helpful to you? I think most people get a lot of value out of Yelp. Yelp's review system is among the hardest to game, so it has the most trustworthy reviews for service-based businesses. That said, that's largely besides the point of th…

Two things:

Hardest to game is like lesser evils. Lesser evils remain evil, as hard games remain played.

I personally value direct interactions with people I do business with more than ever in my life. Too many middle companies all working some angle to make more than the value they may actually deliver.

Well, a few things:

Trust in all this kind of service is reaching a low ebb. We keep finding incidents where the behavior is not as represented.

Frankly, the money might be too good.

And that's fine. Is what it is, people do what they do

I am stepping back, reevaluating these kinds of value propositions, and recommending peers do the same.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#122

Post by tartoran »

milesskorpen wrote: post #117
tartoran wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If users would hit yelp.com and searched for a restaurant and somehow google intercepted that then they'd be a parasite. The way I see it it is a symbiotic somewhat relationship, at least in theory. Yelp is a parasite on businesses though, they attempt to extort money and give no value in exchange, often times unsuccessfully. Here's an older anecdote I posted about yelp [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=247909…

While there are definitely anecdotes about this kind of behavior, I have yet to see evidence of systemic or corporate-sponsored effort to do this. I believe this is more a question of possibly poorly-incentivized sales people rather than an intentional strategy on behalf of Yelp. I think this is backed up by a number of lawsuits that haven't gone anywhere. I might be mistaken; if there is a source showing this is rea…

I'm in no way defending anything google here, I was just stating that Yelp if as bad is not worse than google (as they are more desperate for revenue). And I have no incentive to lie, the anecdote was something that happened to a close friend of mine and know what kind of distress it caused. I have no idea if their corporate strategy is to " extort ", but from noticing other incidents they're not too far off. Their actions like the actions of other big corps are absolutely abusive.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#123

Post by heavyset_go »

bichiliad wrote: post #112

I think that this practice of Yelp is pretty malicious. I did have a shower thought the other day, though: Individual restaurants often run their own websites. Plenty of those offer a phone number for you to call them through, and they frequently encourage you to do so because it saves them on order fees typically accrued by Yelp, GrubHub, Seamless, or any other order system. In order for that site to show up first i…

> In general, restaurant websites appear higher than their online ordered alternatives, but what's to stop Seamless (for example) from winning the SEO race against a non-trivial chunk of small restaurant websites? This would mean that there are plenty of cases in which you search for a restaurant and end up on Seamless, even though that's not the "right" search result.

This already happens. These platforms go as far as posing as the businesses themselves, using the businesses' names and sometimes even stealing assets from the restaurants' real sites, like the logos or location pictures.

Slice did this to a local pizzeria that opened right before the pandemic hit and has been struggling. It's just so scummy, but the platforms are betting that small businesses don't have the resources to fight them, and they're right.

If I posed as say, Best Buy or Domino's, and created fake websites using their assets, not only would I be dragged into court on civil suits, but I'd be raided by the FBI for trademark and copyright infringement.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#124

Post by addicted »

bichiliad wrote: post #112

I think that this practice of Yelp is pretty malicious. I did have a shower thought the other day, though: Individual restaurants often run their own websites. Plenty of those offer a phone number for you to call them through, and they frequently encourage you to do so because it saves them on order fees typically accrued by Yelp, GrubHub, Seamless, or any other order system. In order for that site to show up first i…

Yelp is winning the SEO race.

When searching for restaurants that I know of, I find the Grubhub/Yelp websites appear well before the actual restaurant's website. I dont know if Yelp does this, but Grubhub has the insidious practice of creating fake websites for restaurants without ever requesting permission to do so.

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#125

Post by judge2020 »

ir77 wrote: post #81

as much as i like apple, one thing i absolutely hate is that searching for anything in apple maps brings up yelp suggestions for restaurant: 1) not only are you faced with downloadin the yelp app to look at more pictures which are present on the first page but 2) after reading articles like these i'm in concern that instead of supporting my local mom and pop restaurants i'm now being routed intentionally through god…

Apple is on their way to replace Yelp thankfully: https://9to5mac.com/2020/08/26/apple-maps-reviews-inhouse/

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#126

Post by proverbialbunny »

gkoberger wrote: post #102
proverbialbunny wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! (And thanks for the info of a mobile map!) One more question: Does it have a sort by ranking? I can't seem to find it on the desktop site. I may need to run it in Chrome. On Firefox it may not be displaying properly. I know it sounds silly, but I really do need a sort by rating. This is still far better than nothing. Thank you. ^_^

I haven’t checked the website, but I confirmed the app has it as an option!

It does on the mobile app, nice. Thanks.

I decided to test it and started with pupusaria (there are tons of them walking distance to here) and sadly it found none.

I then decided to try mexican food, the next most common restaurant out here, and I got Sonic's Drive in, McDonald's, and Subway. ... And I'm in the SF/Bay Area, so it should be easy. ... D:

One day Yelp will die, but for now it's a necessary evil. :(

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#127

Post by mywittyname »

gwilikers wrote: post #93
mywittyname wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you use Yelp? I've never needed it because every restaurant that I go to is on Google or maintains their own website. It's been known for years now that the reviews on Yelp are largely fake and they hide legit ones, so it's nearly useless for that as well. At least with Google Maps reviews, I can click on the reviewer and see the other places they've been.

> the reviews on Yelp are largely fake Do you have a source for this?

There are a mountain of lawsuits with Yelp over fake reviews.

This is a decent post, as it lists the outcome of a long-standing lawsuit (Yelp won) but also links out to several other lawsuits filed over the years about fake reviews on the site.

https://blog.ericgoldman.org/archives/2020/03/yelp-finally-d...

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#128

Post by lozaning »

kjs3 wrote: post #116
tb303 wrote: post #111

I mean this with no snark at all: Yelp has been screwing over not just restaurants, but small businesses in general, since the moment their first sales representative had a friend leave a negative review to someone who didn't pay up. Mafia tactics are core to their business.

Yeah...I never use Yelp, because it's so obviously gamed and I know I'm getting bad info at every turn. And that's without talking to small businesses owners in my area, all of which have a tale of shady Yelp practices.

And if that isn't enough of a reason to not use them, surely their gimping of their website on mobile should be. I DONT WANT TO DOWNLOAD YOUR APP!

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#129

Post by BlueTemplar »

bichiliad wrote: post #112

I think that this practice of Yelp is pretty malicious. I did have a shower thought the other day, though: Individual restaurants often run their own websites. Plenty of those offer a phone number for you to call them through, and they frequently encourage you to do so because it saves them on order fees typically accrued by Yelp, GrubHub, Seamless, or any other order system. In order for that site to show up first i…

Literally, in TFA :

> In June, H. Claire Brown at The New Food Economy reported that the food delivery platform Grubhub has been creating thousands of websites in restaurants’ names, sometimes surpassing the restaurant’s own website in search engine visibility, in order to drive more online orders and commissions for Grubhub. The piece sparked a backlash from conscientious customers pledging to order directly in the future in order to protect their favorite restaurants’ profits. Natt Garun, a Verge writer whose parents own a restaurant, wrote a guide to finding a restaurant’s real contact information and avoid Grubhub’s fees to businesses. This involves dodging Grubhub-owned properties (Seamless, AllMenus, LevelUp, Tapingo, MenuPages, and Eat24) as well as the Grubhub-created websites and the Yelp app.

https://newfoodeconomy.org/grubhub-domain-purchases-thousand...

Re: Yelp Is Replacing Restaurants’ Phone Numbers So Grubhub Can Take a Cut (2019)

#130

Post by syshum »

tb303 wrote: post #111

I mean this with no snark at all: Yelp has been screwing over not just restaurants, but small businesses in general, since the moment their first sales representative had a friend leave a negative review to someone who didn't pay up. Mafia tactics are core to their business.

I am honestly surprised people still us Yelp, I have yet to find them useful at all
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