Lone Yelp review dogs business owner • Hacker News Board

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#141

Post by yoda_sl » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 2:14 AM UTC

megablast wrote: post #127

yoda_sl wrote: post #91

From personal experience Yelp is a company I do not respect or trust in anything. Yelp absolutely don't care about small business and how their filtering system works. My wife is running a small business and she has been facing exactly the problems described in the article. Real customers posting real reviews but quickly disappearing in the filtered reviews for unknown reasons, some of her customers have been on Yelp…

Yelp are in a hard place, they show negative reviews about peoples businesses. People who work there, or own the business absolutely hate this, because it could cost them there business. Nobody likes having their work threatened. And most people who own businesses think they are doing a good job, and don't like criticism. They take it very personally, and blame Yelp rather than the reviewer.

It looks like either you have never been interacting with a business owner you know and trust, or you are a Yelp employee. Believe me, my wife can handle negative review when they are truthful but when you see a negative reviews that is clearly advocating for a competitors and Yelp doesn't do a thing to remove it, you have to wonder what are they up to. Additionally even without getting all the information about a review that Yelp is getting (IP address, frequency of visits, etc), we saw a few times similar negative review being posted on the same day with similar wordings for 2 newly created accounts. Interesting enough the same day one real customer (with many Yelp reviews) posted a 4 stars reviews... Guess what? Yelp 'algorithm' filtered out the 4 stars reviews and left the 2 one star reviews... Sorry but as an engineer with over 15 years of experience it sounds fishy to me.

Since my wife started her business, she has met various other business owners with similar experience...

Hard to believe that their filtering system is not directed toward the good of Yelp business plan for selling ads.

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#142

Post by pbreit » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 2:33 AM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #67

marquis wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reading this was fascinating and considering the number of unhappy reviewers over happy, their own 3-star rating seems far-fetched.

I'll wager $100 (to charity) that their 3500 ratings equate to a 3 star rating.

You can owe me: http://jamiehdavidson.blogspot.com/2011/09/exploration-of-ye...

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#143

Post by megablast » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 3:31 AM UTC

yoda_sl wrote: post #141

megablast wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yelp are in a hard place, they show negative reviews about peoples businesses. People who work there, or own the business absolutely hate this, because it could cost them there business. Nobody likes having their work threatened. And most people who own businesses think they are doing a good job, and don't like criticism. They take it very personally, and blame Yelp rather than the reviewer.

It looks like either you have never been interacting with a business owner you know and trust, or you are a Yelp employee. Believe me, my wife can handle negative review when they are truthful but when you see a negative reviews that is clearly advocating for a competitors and Yelp doesn't do a thing to remove it, you have to wonder what are they up to. Additionally even without getting all the information about a re…

Someone who sees anyone arguing Yelp's side as an employee sounds a little paranoid. I am inclined not to believe you, and surprised you would put forward that argument. Of course your are expected to think the best about your wife, and how she handles business.

You may even be correct, but you are too biased in this issue to offer an honest and objective opinion, surely you see that?

Now I am not saying Yelp do not do some dodgy filtering, but it would be incredibly stupid of them if they did. I have seen many arguments before, but no actual proof. And this article from the WSJ, after further investigation, indicated that Yelp are not doing anything dodgy. The negative reviews seem to be honest, from a decent reviewer, not a fellow dog trainer.

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#144

Post by josephcooney » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:17 AM UTC

bkbleikamp wrote: post #130

yoda_sl wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard to believe that so many business are complaining about Yelp if nothing was wrong... If what you are saying is true then the only conclusion is that the algorithm used has a major flaw but Yelp doesn't want either to acknowledge it or fix it. I believe that they rather don't want to fix it so it help their true business of selling ads. Anyway Yelp overall business practices and customer/business support is f…

There are significantly more stories of businesses having a great experience with Yelp than a bad one. But it's not exactly a great story for the Chicago Tribune to highlight all of those businesses. What does it say to you that a judge threw the case out?

Really? I've only ever heard bad things. Can you provide examples?

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#145

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:45 AM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #139

bugsy wrote: post #123

#1 Yep, Yelp is still a total scam despite their claims of reform everytime they get publicity about their criminal behavior. For those who ask "What crimes?", among their crimes are extortion and fraud. Deleting genuine positive reviews if you don't pay them, and deleting negative reviews if you do is simply not legitimate: there is no defense for it; the only explanation possible is that it is an extortion racket.…

You make serious allegations not supported by facts. #3 The new reviews were obviously written in response to the article. Three of them actually reference it!

[deleted]

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#146

Post by bugsy » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 4:52 AM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #139

bugsy wrote: post #123

#1 Yep, Yelp is still a total scam despite their claims of reform everytime they get publicity about their criminal behavior. For those who ask "What crimes?", among their crimes are extortion and fraud. Deleting genuine positive reviews if you don't pay them, and deleting negative reviews if you do is simply not legitimate: there is no defense for it; the only explanation possible is that it is an extortion racket.…

You make serious allegations not supported by facts. #3 The new reviews were obviously written in response to the article. Three of them actually reference it!

Plenty of facts there that's why I gave specifics.

I'm curious, how well do you know Yelp's CEO Jeremy Stoppelman? Do you guys meet for coffee, or are you guys just casual acquaintances from your visits to the Yelp offices?

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#147

Post by pbreit » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 5:00 AM UTC

bugsy wrote: post #146

pbreit wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make serious allegations not supported by facts. #3 The new reviews were obviously written in response to the article. Three of them actually reference it!

Plenty of facts there that's why I gave specifics. I'm curious, how well do you know Yelp's CEO Jeremy Stoppelman? Do you guys meet for coffee, or are you guys just casual acquaintances from your visits to the Yelp offices?

Well enough. I presume you will consider me biased but rest assured I have no problem criticizing Yelp when warranted. But much of the criticism in the article and here is pretty weak.

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#148

Post by pbreit » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 7:47 AM UTC

rorrr wrote: post #135

bkbleikamp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure what you mean. Why would filtered reviews distribution match up to the unfiltered reviews? Typically a "fake" review is either going to be someone who is raving about a business to try to boost the rating or someone who for some reason wants to bad mouth the business (e.g. a competitor) so it makes sense that 1 and 5 star ratings are the most filtered.

Read it again. The distribution of filtered reviews doesn't match between average and the one for Yelp itself. Clearly doctored.

The evidence provided does not support your conclusion. For starters, 19 reviews are not nearly enough to make any comparisons.

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#149

Post by pbreit » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 7:56 AM UTC

dannyr wrote: post #105

Check this restaurant out. Some of its highly-rated reviews are filtered. http://www.yelp.com/biz/tsingtao-taste-sunnyvale According to them, Yelp called them if they want to advertise and then they will unfilter those reviews.

The filtered reviews appear to be "drive bys". I would be surprised if that hearsay is correct.

Re: Lone Yelp review dogs business owner

#150

Post by Egregore » Mon, Sep 05, 2011, 10:54 AM UTC

dannyr wrote: post #105

Check this restaurant out. Some of its highly-rated reviews are filtered. http://www.yelp.com/biz/tsingtao-taste-sunnyvale According to them, Yelp called them if they want to advertise and then they will unfilter those reviews.

Hidden reviews were written by users with only 1-2 reviews.