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

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

#91

I've found Google Maps review quality and quantity improved over the last few years so it's rare that I'd even open Yelp in recent months. With this, I'm deleting my Yelp app.

Google Maps is also shoving Grubhub down our throats. Every time I try to call a restaurant's phone numer in the new Maps app, I end up accidentally opening a Grubhub tab in Chrome.

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

#92

I've found Google Maps review quality and quantity improved over the last few years so it's rare that I'd even open Yelp in recent months. With this, I'm deleting my Yelp app.

I wonder sometimes if Google Maps does better than Yelp because it tracks where people actually eat, not where they say they eat.

and if they search for digestion medicine after they eat.

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

#93
post #81
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work for advertises pretty heavily on Yelp for our 150 locations, and the main perk isn't better ratings but having your bad reviews hidden behind a different sorting system. If you go on any Yelp business page today you will see that it isn't sorted by Date, it's sorted by "Yelp Sort". So if my business doesn't advertise on Yelp then maybe bad reviews will be on the first page of a Yelp Sorted ranking.…

Is the extortion scheme as simple as that? Paying businesses get "Yelp Sort", non-payers get "Default Sort"? If so, that answers a lot of questions.

No. I believe every page defaults to the same sort.

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

#94
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Does-Yelp-extort-small-... I've kind of gotten tired of diving into the whole "yelp extorted my brother's cousin's friend's coworker's business for better ratings" anecdotal story schtick so I'm just going to link the above -- or are you suggesting they're getting away with lying on official communication? If yelp is altering reviews for paying clients, please show the evidence as…

Except in this case there's a million anecdotal stories about Yelp doing this. I've been in the restaurant industry a long time, I've taken calls from Yelp sales agents, they're shit. And their sales pitch basically is extortion (pay us to hide your bad reviews, or else). I've seen owners straight up tell them to fuck off. Thankfully they have zero traction here; my last place had a 4.5 rating on Google with 250+ rev…

JFYI:

http://www.bottobistro.com/YELP.html

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

#95
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.yelp-support.com/article/Does-Yelp-extort-small-... I've kind of gotten tired of diving into the whole "yelp extorted my brother's cousin's friend's coworker's business for better ratings" anecdotal story schtick so I'm just going to link the above -- or are you suggesting they're getting away with lying on official communication? If yelp is altering reviews for paying clients, please show the evidence as…

I think the challenge with finding firsthand reports on HN is that the owners of small brick-and-mortar businesses that Yelp is alleged to exploit are not well represented in this community. Having said that, I have firsthand experience in having my own review of such a business censored: 6 months ago I wrote a review for the RazzleDazzle Barber Shop in Riverview, FL. Great little shop, I was surprised that it had ze…

Curious! I'm looking at it and don't see a duplicate review in the "not recommended" section. I do see one trend which matches my experience with "not recommended" that I mentioned in another comment: 10 out of 13 reviewers have no connections on yelp. It seems like the account's social network is one heavy factor in deciding whether to recommend a review or not.

There is one curious review that shows up in the normal sort that looks like a "follow up" review despite both version of it being identical.

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

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs FTW yet again. I thought he was wrong about Dropbox for the longest time. But their latest attempts at "productizing" their service (Adobe / Zoom / Slack / Atlassian / Google Docs / Office integrations, "social" features, etc. etc.) have convinced me that simple file sync, which is all I ever wanted from them, is not enough to sustain a company. Meanwhile the shareholder-induced march downwards continues.

Box.com seems fine. Dropbox just aimed a little big.

My institution has Box, which I like, but no Linux desktop apps is annoying.

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

#97
post #4
post #2

I had to install their app to get in line at a local restaurant. Immediately uninstalled. I don't see why people use Yelp other than the fact that they have a mindshare dominance on ratings. User generated/internet 2.0 style food ratings are basically useless anyway, add in all of the other shady stuff Yelp does and you have a hard pass from me.

I use Yelp since its significantly harder to fake reviews on it than it is on Google. That, and the community culture is centered on high-quality reviews.

Why is it harder to fake reviews on Yelp?

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

#98
post #81
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company I work for advertises pretty heavily on Yelp for our 150 locations, and the main perk isn't better ratings but having your bad reviews hidden behind a different sorting system. If you go on any Yelp business page today you will see that it isn't sorted by Date, it's sorted by "Yelp Sort". So if my business doesn't advertise on Yelp then maybe bad reviews will be on the first page of a Yelp Sorted ranking.…

Is the extortion scheme as simple as that? Paying businesses get "Yelp Sort", non-payers get "Default Sort"? If so, that answers a lot of questions.

That's not far off of how (Yelp's partner) Grubhub operates, where the default sort for restaurants is in descending order of the cut they give Grubhub.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs FTW yet again. I thought he was wrong about Dropbox for the longest time. But their latest attempts at "productizing" their service (Adobe / Zoom / Slack / Atlassian / Google Docs / Office integrations, "social" features, etc. etc.) have convinced me that simple file sync, which is all I ever wanted from them, is not enough to sustain a company. Meanwhile the shareholder-induced march downwards continues.

Box.com seems fine. Dropbox just aimed a little big.

For box the file sync was the feature, not the product.

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

#100
post #38

Are there alternatives to Yelp? Are people using Foursquare or Google Maps?

Pretty much. I've never used Yelp nuch. I guess they never focused much on the world outside the US. I just checked my area in Berlin (which has loads of really nice places) and they have almost nothing for this area which means their data for Berlin is 95% incomplete. For reference, several of the top places for Berlin on Foursquare are in the same area. Yelp seems to have none of those.

From working on POI data in Nokia Maps back in the day, I remember that this is a tough market. A lot of sites from back in the day no longer exist. Yelp apparently bought qype at some point which used to have pretty decent coverage. I actually worked with their data at Nokia so I know. It seems all of that is missing in action in Berlin (where they used to have most restaurants covered). I guess that was more of an acquihire/competetitor eliminating move. Either way, their data was pretty bad as I recall but not this bad.

Google Maps typically has most places, even the really obscure/shitty ones. Foursquare is a bit less predictable depending on how many users they have locally but it's typically great in popular areas. Both have invested in great user feedback mechanisms to improve the accuracy of their data. E.g. knowing when a new place opens and an old one disappears or changes name is key. Between those two, you get a decent impression what is good in an area. The reviews in Google Maps are usually pretty helpful and I see little evidence of cheating (though that obviously happens).

I guess what happened is that Yelp used to be a cool hop user driven review website and then VC money took over and now the users are the product that they sell to their customers the restaurants.

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