Yelp Sucks! But I need them!

1 replies
Yelp has got to be the most convoluted, screwed up, mismanaged review site in history with a review filtering system written by a bunch of monkeys with typewriters! But yet they have the most prolific group of reviewers for almost any niche in offline, especially restaurants, so I need to be able to reference them for my reputation management customers.

The problem is that they can be gamed so easily. I have a feed of their reviews which I monitor in google reader and create my own feeds from, but after looking at it day after day you can easily see patterns of "paid" reviewers gaming the system.

I mean, how many people do you know eat at five different places in one day and rank 4 of them one star and only one is good?

I'm not sure whether I should hire these people or expose them, I'd really like to take yelp down because it's pretty common knowledge they have a different filter algo for paid advertisers vs. free listings...it's just frustrating as hell working with their reviews, knowing they can be bought and sold so easily.

Steve
#sucks #yelp
  • Profile picture of the author Aaron Doud
    Here is the million dollar question....

    Do real people use yelp to decide if offline businesses are worth visiting?

    Or do they do what I do and everyone else I know and google the name of the restaurant, read the google places and the stuff on top?
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