Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#181

Post by ionised » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 3:51 PM UTC

millisecond wrote: post #131

guessbest wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me Google is the best search on technical issues and research. When it comes down to touchy political and social issues, Bing and DuckDuckGo beat Google every time. In fact I don't even use Google to look up things I see in the news. It is always skewed. I completely avoid Google News.

Honest question, how is it skewed? Not a fan of google news myself for other reasons but never felt they forced a PoV.

They filter and service your results based on what they think you want to see.

Filter bubbling.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#182

Post by ionised » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 3:54 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #84

quickben wrote: post #2

I'm under the impression that only EU slaps antitrust charges lately.

It seems political. The EU is taking on a lot of US companies with antitrust complaints but few EU companies.

That's a US-centric viewpoint, and the same could be said about the US and its attitude towards for example, European banks.

It's a pointless argument and only serves to distract from the actual issues relating to Google's operation.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#183

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 4:19 PM UTC

annexrichmond wrote: post #97

kailuowang wrote: post #45

I found that Yelp's reviews very unreliable. My business owner friends told me that they are constantly harassed by yelp's sales representatives to buy the right to "clean up" their reviews. I don't see how yelp can continue trash their brand like this and blaming Google for their low performance.

> I found that Yelp's reviews very unreliable. followed by hearsay about your friends who told you about what a Yelp sales rep said. How is this an argument for Google's business practices?

[deleted]

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#184

Post by JCzynski » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:16 PM UTC

timr wrote: post #68

parthdesai wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Mr. Stoppelman feels he has no choice. Like a lot of small internet companies, Yelp lives in a world where one company, Google, accounts for an outsize share of its business, and could destroy it at any time." Ah the irony. Yelp is the same website that bullied small businesses to pay for positive reviews[1]. [1] http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/yelp-accused-of-bullying-bus...

"Ah the irony. Yelp is the same website that bullied small businesses to pay for positive reviews" No, Yelp is accused of this. Nobody has ever shown it to be true. (I can also tell you, as someone who worked there, that it definitely is not true, but you don't have to take my word for it. You just have to not confuse accusations with facts.)

As someone who also worked there, the official company line internally is a suspiciously specific denial that does not actually deny the main accusations I had heard previously. I consider it just as plausible that Yelp squelches negative reviews when paid as I did before.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#185

Post by JCzynski » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

bhldr wrote: post #65

kailuowang wrote: post #45

I found that Yelp's reviews very unreliable. My business owner friends told me that they are constantly harassed by yelp's sales representatives to buy the right to "clean up" their reviews. I don't see how yelp can continue trash their brand like this and blaming Google for their low performance.

Cleaning up reviews is actually not a Yelp feature. Paid or unpaid.

False. Squelching reviews that are "not relevant" or otherwise flagged, making them not show up unless the list of reviews is expanded to include the described-as-low-quality reviews, and IIRC not being included in the star-rating calculation, is SOP at Yelp.

It's done algorithmically by default, but there are people whose job it is to track places where the algorithms have gone wrong, and while ostensibly their latitude for independent decision is narrow it's actually pretty broad. Also that set of decisions is kept in a separate DB most programmers can't view or interact with, but which the customer support team could easily point the flaggers to.

Source: Worked there briefly.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#186

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:23 PM UTC

mrunkel wrote: post #13

I find all this hand wringing over Google to be so tiring. Google is doing what is best for it's customers. Be that advertisers and/or searchers. If they stop doing that, they'll lose their market dominance. Last I checked, nobody is forced to use google to search for things, nobody if forced (except for perhaps android users) to use Chrome. I'm not a laissez-faire capitalist by any means, but I don't see that Google…

The problem is that Google does what customers want selectively. For example, I don't think I want my search results to be as dominated by ads as they are today.

Once the competition is beaten, they may change their priorities from giving the customer and the partners what they want, to doing what is best for Google. Compare youtube of five years ago to now. There are many more ads and many more restrictions on how partners can place ads. If youtube had started with those rules and that much advertising I think it would have been less successful.

There is a pattern for all internet companies where they say to users and partners: look how great our platform is. And then when they achieve dominance they change the rules. The best protection is competition.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#187

Post by JCzynski » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 5:25 PM UTC

wannabe_miner wrote: post #4

Unrelated but related, what is it like to work at Yelp? I was recently contacted by them for a position but it didn't inspire confidence. The mention of a "shoestring operation" in this article is making me believe I made the right choice.

Not good. The codebase is a terrible monolith using frameworks long-dead everywhere else, there's poor coordination.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#188

Post by Canning » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 6:41 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #64

notatoad wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's displaying ads above the search results. That's what google does. It's their whole business. It's not pushing their own review services over yelp, it's advertising alongside search results.

What about when they put a Chrome ad even if you are not searching for replacing your browser? So the main point with the EU antitrust is not about yelp but about Google putting it's own stuff on top , not about the ads.

This one should stand out to most people so it's no surprise to me that EU took note as well.

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#189

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 11:33 PM UTC

JCzynski wrote: post #184

timr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ah the irony. Yelp is the same website that bullied small businesses to pay for positive reviews" No, Yelp is accused of this. Nobody has ever shown it to be true. (I can also tell you, as someone who worked there, that it definitely is not true, but you don't have to take my word for it. You just have to not confuse accusations with facts.)

As someone who also worked there, the official company line internally is a suspiciously specific denial that does not actually deny the main accusations I had heard previously. I consider it just as plausible that Yelp squelches negative reviews when paid as I did before.

[deleted]

Re: Yelp’s Six-Year Conflict with Google

#190

Post by timr » Wed, Jul 05, 2017, 11:35 PM UTC

tyingq wrote: post #93

timr wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Ah the irony. Yelp is the same website that bullied small businesses to pay for positive reviews" No, Yelp is accused of this. Nobody has ever shown it to be true. (I can also tell you, as someone who worked there, that it definitely is not true, but you don't have to take my word for it. You just have to not confuse accusations with facts.)

I can see both being true. Assuming the sales staff are on commission, there's a strong possibility some asshattery happened. Perhaps you didn't run into any unethical sales staff.

I ran into plenty of idiots in sales. I don't assume anything about what salespeople say...but I know for a fact that salespeople at Yelp have no ability to affect reviews.