The fundamental problem I have with Yelp is that it's full of opinions, not reviews, and people are allowed to post a star rating essentially in a vacuum, which then gets averaged against other star ratings to form a ranking. "The food was great but the waiter didn't fold my napkin properly - 1 star."<p>There's a reason newspapers hire professional food critics to write about restaurants and film critics to write about movies. It takes training, skill, and insight to write well-written reviews. Most people who write Yelp reviews are perfectly entitled to share their opinion, but not a professional review.<p>I remember a while ago reading the Yelp reviews of a nightclub in NYC...two different reviews told two very different stories:<p>"Oh this place is the best. My girlfriends and I showed up, they walked us right in and everyone was buying us drinks all night. So fun! 5 stars"<p>"This place is terrible. The bouncer made me and my guy friends wait on line for an hour and then charged us $50 each to go in. The drinks were overpriced. 1 star."<p>So according to Yelp, that place would be ranked 3 stars and I'd essentially know nothing about it.<p>The other major issue I have is that in almost all non-restaurant business, there is a hugely negative bias. Who goes and posts a positive review after a good experience at the local dry cleaner? Nobody. But if they're rude or lose a shirt, Yelp's going to hear about it.
This happened to me last year. I went to a dentist near by where I moved. The dentist and her assistant were both highly incompetent. Her assistant for example, could not understand a single word. When I demanded my X-rays, so that I can go and get a second opinion, I was refused at first and then told that it will cost $25.<p>So, I went to Yelp and put a review about them. To my surprise, I received a call from them asking to remove the review or I'll face lawsuit. I deleted the review.<p>To be honest, the language I had used was not bad in any way and all I did was describe my ordeal with an incompetent doctor.
I don't really see the purpose of Yelp if reviews can not be 'raw' and 'uncensored'. The reason we all use yelp is because we won't get some boilerplate testimonial- rather we will get the gritty details whether good or bad.<p>I can see the effects its having on some businesses. My suggestion to those businesses: focus on good customer service
What I really want to know is, if the conspiracy about Yelp taking down reviews based on whether you pay for its premium services. I imagine this is most of the fight with FTC complaints. I've seen so many accusations, but no actual proof of a page losing its reviews, or even a recorded phone call with a rep (legal in most states, one of the exceptions being CA), just stories. I believe most negative reviews are legit and many businesses that complain about getting them are in denial.<p>Aside about reviews: Everyone loves to hate on how Yelp is biased and reviewed by idiots, but for me it's been better than the alternatives, and the star ratings generally reflect quality (especially for places with 100+ reviews). I usually don't have the same tastes as professional critics, since they often have a far higher price range and pay attention to the professionality of a restaurant, and have their own biases away from the "plebeian" tastes. The sample size of a lot of Yelpers is usually pretty effective in finding good food. ZAGAT et al often also don't review small tea shops, food trucks, etc.
A system with comments attached with no poster 'real' identity pretty much warrants the dilemma yelp is facing now. What about a (food critics, etc.) system where all the comments come from your facebook friends? Would that significantly reduce the inaccurate info the user will see? People can still register fake accounts to make unfair comments but the stores do not need to worry because it is likely their potential customer will not make friends with these 'fake people/account'. And the one makes comment will be much more accurate because all of their friends can see his/her comment, so his/her comments have many social implications so most people will not purposely write some unfair comment.
This will set a dangerous precedent - if companies that get negative reviews could sue the reviewers for defamation, any business with enough money can strong-arm negative reviewers off their Yelp page (or really any other online reviews site) by threatening them with a defamation lawsuit. Even if the lawsuit is fraudulent, most people wouldn't have the resources or willpower to fight it, as it is much faster to just delete their negative review.
Thinking of a solution for Yelp's anonymous review system reminds me of how Youtube approached their problem of terrible anonymous video comments by forcing G+ integration.<p>Everyone bashed/bashes them for the move, but I have noticed a striking contrast in the quality of comments now: largely on-topic discussions, people calling out other posters to substantiate egregious claims etc<p>I would not mind if Yelp iterated around solutions involving public facing identity.
Something I'm kind of wondering, how could one verify the claim "Yelp somehow makes negative reviews come in after a business declined ads".<p>I hear it so much in this that I feel like it's something worth investigating (without wanting to actually claim that I think that's what is happening).
A "suburban carpet cleaner" that picks up rugs and cleans them can employ over 80 people, run 60 trucks, and does $12MM in revenue? Are there really that many frequently soiled fancy rugs in a single suburban area?
At this point, I can't even read food reviews on Yelp without wondering if there are negative reviews missing. I just end up opting browsing photos for a truer experience.