Why Yelp is Like a Schoolyard Bully
Date: September 30, 2014Category: Author: Lori Shepherd
Yelp transferred to your school in 2004. He seemed nice enough at first. He claimed he could rid the school of fraudulent reviews and keep online reviews the trusted practice it was always meant to be. He came onto the schoolyard one day at recess, assessed the campus and decided who he would make trust him. These were the Yelp reviewers. The bully gave them a nice place to share reviews and feel safe about the reviews they were placing. He then turned his attention to you, saying you could have control over your business page, saying “This way we can all work together to maintain the integrity of these reviews” he said. You thought, “Why not? This seems like a good idea.”
After he lured you in, you started noticing things. Things like reviews disappearing from your page, and some of his muscle started coming around saying you should boost your visibility and buy some advertising. After you refused, you felt like your page was vulnerable. You then received letters asking you to quit the ways you were asking for reviews and found yourself looking over your shoulder. Finally, you were threatened that your page could be suspended.
You noticed that other businesses weren’t being bullied by Yelp. They had great reputations and a lot of reviewers recommending their businesses. But you kept falling flat, despite attempts to play by the rules and make your page better. After some failed attempts you decided to dig into the dark underbelly of the cruel, cruel schoolyard and change your outcome.
Yelp claims to combat fraudulent reviews by filtering them based on the perceived legitimacy of the account. In other words, Yelp “recommends” certain reviews from established accounts and not others. If Yelp does not recommend a review, it is still available on the site but is not factored into a business’s overall rating and the link to them is harder to find. This has long angered the many business owners that hang out by the monkey bars. They have several positive reviews that Yelp does not publish because Yelp’s automated filtering system believes some of their reviewers don’t have an established account.
It’s not entirely clear what constitutes an established Yelp account. Yelp says they have an automated system in place to determine which accounts are established enough to get their reviews published but Yelp does not disclose what the criteria is.
There are at least two reasons why Yelp matters. They are because Yelp is popular and it is also very good at local Search Engine Optimization. Many local Google searches for businesses often yields Yelp results on the first page of results and, at times, ABOVE all of the businesses themselves. In the example below, Yelp is ranked number one AND two for a highly competitive search term. The business that is benefiting from this search is obviously Zen Dental. Had their Yelp reputation been negative, it would have been front and center on the search and most likely deflect a potential patient. Luckily, they have taken control of their Yelp presence. They have tons of great reviews that get them a #1 position on Google, even thought their main business website doesn’t rank at all. So even if you do not use Yelp or care about its popularity, Yelp results are still ranking and effecting potential patient’s perception of your practice. This is why it is important to monitor and improve your Yelp reputation. If done correctly, improving the results your bully produces can work in your favor rather than against you and guide patients to your practice.
Dealing with your Yelp reputation can be difficult. If you had an exceptionally angry patient, their long and well thought out review can be front and center on your Yelp page. With a new update feature, they can decrease your ratings by ranking you lower if the original problem was not addressed. Conversely, there is the chance to increase your rating by addressing the original bad review and changing their mind about your practice. The Yelp user can go in and update their review to a higher rating and tell everyone how you made it right. This could be more beneficial than an original good review. It shows you care about patient’s experience and you aim to improve it.
Several businesses have questioned whether or not Yelp manipulates reviews for businesses by not publishing positive reviews. Some businesses have even claimed that reviews had disappeared from their account after turning down Yelp advertising. Some even claimed they were even threatened with their positive reviews being taken down. Recently, a case was presented to a federal appeals court in which several small business claimed they were being extorted by Yelp for refusing to pay for Yelp ads. The result of this particular case resulted in the judge essentially ruling that Yelp is not obligated to publish positive reviews. Further, he ruled that had they manipulated reviews in direct response to a business’s actions they would not be in violation of any laws.
The accusations have yet to be proven but Yelp has since stated that they do not manipulate reviews and that they rely on their automated system for review filtering. Even still, the thought that they are not breaking any laws if they did manipulate reviews has made several businesses wary of them.
Some businesses have taken to outsmarting the popular reviews website by turning its own slogan on its head. As you already know Yelp has a famous line and sticker slogan of “like us on Yelp”. A local business that did not want to play into the delicate tango of building their positive Yelp reputation started a “hate us on Yelp” campaign! This actually encouraged the kind of reviews that make business owners cringe. The tactic has worked out well for them. They now have a reviews score of one star and couldn’t be prouder.
Unfortunately, you could not get away with this type of tactic in the dental industry. This is because patients are looking for a reputable dentist that is actually getting good reviews. But it does give us insight to the ways that people are hacking Yelp, and could be evidence of several business’s frustration with Yelp and its practices. If you or anyone feels like they have been a victim of this type of bullying, have them give us a call at Infinity Dental Web, we can help make it right.
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