New allegations surfaced from a San Francisco area newspaper claiming Yelp is suppressing bad reviews of establishments in exchange for advertising revenue. The allegations are by nine businesses who claim they are contacted regularly to move bad reviews as part of their advertising budget. In today’s market, many businesses are willing to cross a line to stay in business, but these nine tell a story that worries those of us that use Yelp as a resource.
Yelp is a…
Yelp is a website that collects user opinions about most anything you purchase from restaurants to dentists to wedding planners. The company refers to itself as “word of mouth advertising, amplified.” Their business model equates to selling advertising in and alongside search results.
I Yelp, do you?
I use Yelp. I used it last weekend in fact, to find a suitable Mexican restaurant near a concert venue in NYC. Their iPhone app works very well in my opinion and I’ve been told other companies reference its database for user opinions. It is a breech of faith to think the reviews I read in selecting a restaurant had been tainted.
Repeat offender?
This is not the first time Yelp has run into similar allegations. In fact, the company addresses the issue on their FAQ page (number 11):
Will Yelp remove bad reviews if a business pays for sponsorship?
Absolutely not. Reviews of Yelp sponsors and non-sponsors are treated identically, and any complaints are handled by the same user support team, operating under the same Review Guidelines and Terms of Service.
Are you guilty? No, but…
The company says there could be a misunderstanding between sales reps who are fighting for fewer and fewer marketing dollars. From the newspaper story:
In an interview, Chief Operating Officer Donaker said it is all a big misunderstanding. “Do I think that sales reps call are saying, ‘We’ll move your bad reviews’?” he asked. “No. But I think it could be true — when you get to pick your favorite review and put it to the top, if I said it a little different way, it might sound a little nefarious.”
Here’s something fresh
Sounds to me like there could be lots of confusion, top to bottom. Messing with trust is a big issue and there are plenty of competitors at the ready to take Yelp’s place. Take Goodrec for example. This interesting site brings together Twitter-like reviews (160 characters or less) to the mobile crowd. The idea is rather clever: simple reviews that cut to the heart of the matter complete with thumbs up or down. Forget about sifting through “shout outs” in other reviews or wading through wanna-be critics using far too much language to say the, “the food was horrible.” I’ve got high hopes for Goodrec, check them out if you can.
As we become more and more reliant on anonymous reviews, conflicts of interest are part and parcel to the deal. We need to be vigilant as well as taking the reviews with a grain of salt.
Source: [East Bay Express]
UPDATE: Yelp responds: http://officialblog.yelp.com/2009/02/kathleen-richards-east-bay-express.html
"As we've said many-a-time we do not do this and you don't have to take my word for it."
The ceo's response could be summed up to:
1. Heavy reliance on anonymous sources.
2. Reliance on at least one source with serious credibility issues.
3. The accusatory thrust of article is essentially overturned at the very end."
If it matters, I am still using Yelp…how about you?
Check out this free and ethical alternative to Yelp for local businesses: http://www.rateitall.com/promote
Thanks for the great mention, JG. We're rather fond of Goodrec as well
You might be interested to know that the new GoodFood app is available for the iPhone. It’s much faster than our initial offering and it’s also more tightly focused on restaurants, which should make it even easier to find and rec restaurants while on the go.
http://goodrec.com/downloads/goodfood/iphone/
GoodFood makes it much easier to find and filter recs based on criteria such as price, cuisine, which friend rated it, etc. We think it’s one of the best apps out there for finding recommendations, especially if you like flickable maps. Hope you find it useful.