Wrote my first Yelp Review!

[dioxide45]

After reading reviews for a local restaurant we wanted to try, I decided to write my first Yelp review for the restaurant after our visit. I find many of the reviews to be pretty useless. Sure they give a star rating, but then write two or three sentences. I took the time to try to write a detailed review of our experience and hope that I did a good job.

After watching a recent episode of Kitchen Nightmares, I learned that restaurants use Yelp as a form of feedback. Providing detailed and honest feedback is important both for the restaurant and for future potential guests.

 

[jme]

I find Yelp to be a great ap, and it's free......I use it all the time----this weekend in fact. You're so right that some reviews are worthless, but whenever you read a well-written one, it helps you make a good decision. And yelp is becoming more and more popular, and therefore more trustworthy. One thing it's great for is that, imho, it pulls up the top restaurants right away, and the list alone helps. From that list, you can surely find something. Three weeks ago in New Orleans, it was very helpful for us.

Did you add "Monocle" to your Yelp ap? It's really cool-------you press monocle, hold up the phone toward a busy street and it will tell you what's there along the street----the names of the shops, restaurants, etc. magically appear......very useful in finding something or seeing just how close it is. With UrbanSpoon and Yelp for reviews, you can't go wrong. Judgment tells you which reviews to trust and which not to. Some reviewers are simply naive and have no clue what's important......like saying a whining child made a restaurant unworthy(?).

Writing comprehensive and educated reviews like you did will only serve to make others do the same. Thanks

"Around Me" is another great free ap.

 

[dioxide45]

While I have the Yelp app on our iPod Touch, I did the review on their website via our PC.

 

[heathpack]

Yelp is basically extortion.

Yelp filters reviews, placing more emphasis on reviews of frequent Yelp posters and frequently removing glowing reviews of posters with few posts, with the assumption that those reviewers were "put up to it" by the business being reviewed.

If businesses are willing to pay an "advertising" fee, Yelp will allow the business to manipulate the filters on the reviews- some reviews can be filtered out, bad ones can be pushed to a second page, great ones can be brought to the top and highlighted. At first glance, the best Yelp reviews are typically of the businesses that are willing to "advertise;" those that won't "advertise" typically have worse looking reviews. The effect is most pronounced in businesses that by their nature have a low number of customers and hence a low number of reviews. Yelp will remove the good ones, leave the bad ones, then try to extort advertising fees from the business. Sometimes Yelp can be semi-valid for something like a restaurant that actually has hundreds of customers per week, but for a truly small or unique business Yelp cannot be relied upon. Find a friend who owns a small hair salon or similar and see what they think of Yelp.

Obviously many folks won't/don't care about Yelp's business model, but personally I can't stomach it.

H

 

[pjrose]

Heathpack, that's interesting to hear.
I reviewed an excellent brand-new restaurant last Spring; it was my first Yelp review, and my review was detailed and positive. We went back at least 3-4 times in the next few months, and each time I either wrote a new review or edited and added to my other ones, all positive, all detailed. My reviews got filtered! I've been feeling like a spammer who got her hand slapped

 

[heathpack]

Heathpack, that's interesting to hear.
I reviewed an excellent brand-new restaurant last Spring; it was my first Yelp review, and my review was detailed and positive. We went back at least 3-4 times in the next few months, and each time I either wrote a new review or edited and added to my other ones, all positive, all detailed. My reviews got filtered! I've been feeling like a spammer who got her hand slapped

I'm really surprised no news magazine/TV show has written an expose on Yelp, they are so blatant about the extortion attempts.

BTW, they don't filter the bad reviews even from posters with low post counts- their stated logic is that even first time posters are not "put up to it" by the owner of the business if the review is bad. But really keeping the bad reviews is what gives them the extortion leverage. If you want to be able to post on Yelp, only write bad reviews until you have enough posts. Then start writing whatever you want. But consider how incredibly unfair this is to the small business owner- Yelp is full of bad reviews, many ridiculous or unfounded, that can't be answered/adressed, and that survive in perpetuity. All in a context of Yelp users not knowing what their reviews are actually being used for. Do you really want to be the tool by which Yelp shakes down small business owners?

How about if you want to give a small business feedback, you just speak to the manager or write a letter?

Just the IDEA of Yelp makes my blood start to boil.

H

 

[dioxide45]

Here are three things from the 10 things you should know about Yelp on the Yelp site:

6.Yelp makes money by selling ads to local businesses - you'll see these clearly labeled "Yelp Ads" around the site
7.Paying advertisers can never change or re-order their reviews
8.Yelp has an automated filter that suppresses a small portion of reviews - it targets those suspicious ones you see on other sites

Personally I think there is a conflict of interest in number 6, they should never accept any money from the same people that the reviews are about.

 

[heathpack]

Here are three things from the 10 things you should know about Yelp on the Yelp site:



Personally I think there is a conflict of interest in number 6, they should never accept any money from the same people that the reviews are about.

Hmm, re-ordering reviews was most certainly a PROMINENT part of their advertising sales pitch very recently. It sound like now you can't reorder but you can still filter them out (note Yelp does not state that advertisers cannot do THAT.) The ability to manipulate what is seen is the primary perk of "advertising." Perhaps they have stopped the practice of letting businesses change the review order but until very recently this was a perk of "advertising" as well.

They filter a "small percentage of positive reviews?". Didn't PJ just say they filtered three of hers? Say they consider 15% to be small, and a business has 10 total reviews-Yelp has maybe removed 1-2 good reviews and left 1-2 bad and 6-8 medium. Totally manipulates the impression the customer has of that business. A "small" percentage to them is pretty "big."
H

 

[pwrshift]

I realize media needs advertising revenue to survive but IMO they cross the ethics line when the editorial content promotes their advertisers. Some 'directories or buyers guides' only list those that advertise. This prostitution of editorial content online seems more common than in print or tv for some reason. Even with Google you find their advertisers filter to the top of searches.

 

[dioxide45]

No surprise here, but my first review was removed from the restaurant's page. While it looks like it is still there when I am logged in to Yelp, when I log out and navigate to the restaurant's page, my review is mysteriously gone.

 

[heathpack]

My suggestion is to opt out of Yelp.

They are wasting your time, taking what you offer for free and using it for their own self- serving purposes.

H