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Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

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Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#241

Post by m463 »

1024core wrote: post #24

> Dean began documenting her findings, starting with serial offenders from the Facebook groups. In a list of 17 people who reviewed SavantCare on Yelp, she found what she called “a suspicious pattern”: 10 of them had reviewed the same dentist’s office in Los Angeles, nine had raved about the same California wedding DJ company and five claimed to have visited the same Mountain View tattoo parlor. Five of the accounts,…

I think follow the money.

Yelp makes 96% of its revenue on advertising.

They probably make more money if reviews for a restaurant are in question. If someone spends 20 minutes clicking around on a list of restaurants to read the reviews and see if some seems genuine or fake... yelp makes lots of money.

If yelp reviews were 100% trusted, everyone would just click once, and then go to the highest rated restaurant.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#242

Post by nvader »

chinchilla2020 wrote: post #210
telchior wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I despise Google Maps for this. I can know that a restaurant exists, zoom in on its block, search 'restaurants' -- nothing. It'll zoom out the map and show other stuff. Worse, I can max my zoom and hunt for it on the map and it will outright show a blank space. Only searching for the restaurant's actual name will bring it up. But there's not really any alternative. Apple Maps can't show me things because it's missing…

Internet search in general has severely declined in 2023. I was trying to figure out the syntax for putting a URL in slack the other day and couldn't find a proper article anywhere in the top 10 results. I think they are trying to integrate their bard UI into search and it is killing the results. At this point, I use google to search reddit in order to find organic results. Unfortunately, that will probably be taken…

I have some bad news for you...

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#243

Post by philsnow »

Fogest wrote: post #226
chinchilla2020 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It gets worse. People have been 'following' the ratings when they rate foods. A popular local restaurant came under new management and their food is now atrocious. We actually threw their food in the garbage after getting takeout there a month ago. Meanwhile, tourists are still leaving thousands of rave reviews on their google maps page. Noticeably, you will see one or two bad reviews every 50 reviews or so, where a…

Yep, a local pub used to give large portion sizes on in person or takeout orders. Then one day we ordered and it was like half the size as normal but of course the same price. Thought it was maybe just a fluke so we gave them a second chance. Unfortunately the portions will still the same smaller size. I proceeded to update my review to indicate the change in portion sizes with the same price. However I noticed many…

> This is when you almost wish Google maps would put your location history to use. It sees you visit the place frequently and thus if you stop visiting and leave a negative review it should weigh that review higher and give it more visibility.

But how would that make Google more money, this quarter?

I could imagine an argument that, over a long enough time period, (re)gaining user trust would lead to an increase in ads revenue, but at best that long-term increase goes into the promo packet of the T9 leading "Geo/Commerce" or whatever the product area that contains Maps is these days.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#244

Post by aci_12 »

m463 wrote: post #241
1024core wrote: post #24

> Dean began documenting her findings, starting with serial offenders from the Facebook groups. In a list of 17 people who reviewed SavantCare on Yelp, she found what she called “a suspicious pattern”: 10 of them had reviewed the same dentist’s office in Los Angeles, nine had raved about the same California wedding DJ company and five claimed to have visited the same Mountain View tattoo parlor. Five of the accounts,…

I think follow the money. Yelp makes 96% of its revenue on advertising. They probably make more money if reviews for a restaurant are in question. If someone spends 20 minutes clicking around on a list of restaurants to read the reviews and see if some seems genuine or fake... yelp makes lots of money. If yelp reviews were 100% trusted, everyone would just click once, and then go to the highest rated restaurant.

> Yelp makes 96% of its revenue on advertising.

Think that's the root of the issue. A review system should not be in the business of advertisement or any kind which could change the review ranks

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#245

Post by m463 »

Graziano_M wrote: post #212

Seeing the 'Moving company from Florida' triggered me. I was scammed by a moving company from Florida in 2020, and I did a deep dive to look into them and I found huge networks of moving companies, scammers, & reviewers, all in cahoots. I actually managed to get one company's fake reviews removed from google maps, bringing them from a 4.8+ to a 1.x overnight. Within a few months they were back to > 4, but the owners…

Same with tow trucks. Trying to find a tow truck on your own is a HUGE mess. Finding a tow company in the area invariably leads to some sort of "virtual tow truck call center" that takes a bunch of money and subcontracts out to actual tow truck drivers.

My solution was to pay for the roadside assistance via my car insurance and call them to sort things out.

Now emergency plumbers - same mess, but I haven't figured out a solution for that.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#246

Post by gnicholas »

sophacles wrote: post #191
floren wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a broader internet problem in general - "trending" algorithmic reinforcement stuff will push everyone towards the ONE TRUE BEST HOTTEST MOST POPULAR bbq/ramen/whatver place, when probably there's half a dozen other options within 10% of taste and quality, that some people very well could legitimately like better if they heard about them too. Instagram doesn't help -- gotta get a shot of me eating noodles at th…

Back in my bar-tending days we always told the door staff (bouncers) to slow down when checking IDs early in the evening, just to get a line going. It works surprisingly well for drawing in more customers. Totally tangential but follow-ups on that psychology: * some people would walk in and see the still mostly-empty bar and get fed up that they waited in line for "nothing". This was surprisingly few people though. *…

I recently went to a dessert shop in Palo Alto that seemed to be rate-limiting their orders so they could get a crowd formed. Once there were 2-3 people waiting, the line would invariably blossom to 5-10, and then stay high for a while. I can't be sure it was on purpose, but the thought definitely crossed my mind...

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#247

Post by sss111 »

titzer wrote: post #188
telchior wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I despise Google Maps for this. I can know that a restaurant exists, zoom in on its block, search 'restaurants' -- nothing. It'll zoom out the map and show other stuff. Worse, I can max my zoom and hunt for it on the map and it will outright show a blank space. Only searching for the restaurant's actual name will bring it up. But there's not really any alternative. Apple Maps can't show me things because it's missing…

Just wait until they control AR/XR. You'll see only what they want you to see. Search-based interfaces with ranking, controlled by someone else, are all screaming to be gamed and monetized. We should hate this but we don't.

this reads like that black mirror episode "entire history of you"

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#249

Post by grayfaced »

arbuge wrote: post #33

While on the subject, are there any review sites anywhere, not just for locations but also of products, that can be trusted? It seems to me that all of them can be and actively are gamed. Googling using the extension site:reddit.com caught on for a reason.

Most review sites have a profit incentive that doesn't care about the quality of review. But I'll call out a couple that put in effort to be trusted.

Consumer Reports does independent testing with their established criteria. But it's a paid service and doesn't do user submitted reviews.

Steam gets gamed with review bombs but provides plenty of transparency and data for people to make informed decisions. They identify recent review biases and show spikes in volume. Importantly Steam has a generous refund policy with little friction, so they have a profit incentive to match you to a game you want to keep.

Re: Bay Area woman is on a crusade to prove Yelp reviews can’t be trusted

#250

Post by stevenwliao »

chasebank wrote: post #42
arbuge wrote: post #33

While on the subject, are there any review sites anywhere, not just for locations but also of products, that can be trusted? It seems to me that all of them can be and actively are gamed. Googling using the extension site:reddit.com caught on for a reason.

Not that I'm aware of. Reddit/HN has been compromised for years but I guess it's better than the alternatives. Whoever solves trustworthy, honest reviews will be a very, very rich person.

We will never have completely trustworthy user reviews. Reddit/HN quality is probably about as good as it gets.

Many small businesses get their viral loop started from glowing reviews from family and friends. That sort of growth hack will never disappear, and the subtle cases will be undetectable. I decline to write such reviews, but others won't.

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