*** UPDATE 3 ***
A documentary on Yelp called “Billion Dollar Bully” by Kaylie Milliken of Prost Films was just released (currently on Amazon Video, iTunes, and DVD). I was honored to be interviewed to provide my analysis and assessment of Yelp’s paid advertising program for business owners. I am sure you can guess my recommendation…
*** UPDATE 2 ***
It’s hilarious (and by hilarious I mean sad), to see that 7 of our legitimate reviews are hidden. Some of them were from the get-go but others just magically disappeared into the “not currently recommended” section despite having been allowed to show up on our profile for over a year… Since the last update when we had 3 hidden, we are up by four to now seven that are hidden. *tsk tsk*
And yet, the one bogus scathing review from a “Mindy” whom we never spoke with remains…
P.S. We did not sign up for their Yelp paid advertising non-sense (see previous update below). Hmm, interesting eh?
*** UPDATE ***
So my Growth Hacking agency currently have an unpaid Yelp listing so we can help control the online information about us – we’ve had it for some time and recently, an Yelp representative reached out to us via email.
As you can see… it reeked of carrot-dangling vague generalities salesmanship. For example, “$1200 of Extra Free Yelp Ads” which is meaningless because we have no idea what that $1200 actually does and what those Ads are (reading the Main Post below you can see how misleading this is).
And before that he weakly attempted to build rapport by saying that he “previously gone to school and lived in Los Angeles” and as such… knows the “business climate like the back of [his] hand.”
I personally have no idea how going to school and LIVING in Los Angeles would have any bearing on how well you know the business climate. I mean, by that logic, any elementary schooler in the L.A. area would also know the business climate!
And he ended his email with the “assume the sale” tactic by giving me an option between tomorrow or Wednesday (taking away the option to say “NO”).
My response was terse.
“Hi, What is this about? We already have a Yelp listing.“
And you can see below in his response… he just intensified his salesmanship.
He again blew a lot of smoke about a bunch of nothing… “lot of opportunity,” “promotion of $1200 of Extra Free Yelp Ads” (which still explains nothing), “gain exposure,” etc.
Blah blah blah.
And he tried the same “assume the sale” close at the end to get me locked down for a call.
I think he was hoping I’d get swayed by the $1200… little did he know that I knew exactly how absolutely meaningless that $1200 meant in this context.
So I told him straight up,
“Go ahead and send me some info so I can decide if it’s something worth us hopping on a call, I’d hate to waste your time or mine.“
And several days later, he came back like a dog on a bone…
So the dance continued.
I mirrored his email style and shot back the following response (see if you can pick up the similarities between our two emails)…
And this is about the time he called quits because a few days later, he responds with “I will no longer be your point of contact over here at Yelp. You will receive a new rep soon. In the meantime, you can call 877-767-9357 if you have questions. Have a great night.”
In the same email, he sends over some nonsense generic Yelp Ads Video and Yelp Advertising information which are nonsense fluff not geared lacking transparency – I want to know the CPC, where my ads will show, how much (quality) impression I can expect, who will be viewing my ads, demographics, etc. But nope… none of that. And unfortunately, this sales rep wasn’t able to help.
With that said… it’s been almost a month and no one else at Yelp has contacted us so maybe they gave up? *shrugs*
All I wanted was to get something in writing so I can hold them accountable but they shied away from accountability.
On a separate note… we had three 5-star reviews removed from our listing.
Now… I can understand Yelp removing the top two reviews – they are from no-face reviewers whose sole review are the ones left for us. But removing Bree G. (3rd review) when there’s a legitimate image, location, 114 friends, AND 6 reviews?? That made no sense.
And of course trust Yelp to leave a 1-star review on our listing by a angry resentful person who was NEVER a customer and even resorted to name calling in his review.
*sigh*
Way to go Yelp.
*** MAIN POST ***
Maybe you know and maybe you don’t… but Yelp (a local search and reviews online service) offers paid advertising for businesses called the “Yelp Sponsorship Program“.
To sum it up, according to the page advertising this opportunity, this Yelp Sponsorship program allows you to:
- Put up a slideshow of the images of your business.
- Highlight a user’s review that you like the most (as the business owner)
- Promote your business as a sponsored search result and on your competitors’ business pages. Target potential clients while they are making decisions about where to spend their money on a business like yours
It sounds all fancy spansy right? Sounds like you get even MORE control over your business listing which will help “put your best foot forward” and sneak attack your competitors, stealing all their would be clients.
But Stop the Music, Do These Yelp Advertising Features Actually Accomplish Anything? Or are They Just Fluff Designed to Lure You in so They can Zap You?
Suck Them in & Then ZAP Them!
Before we proceed, I’d like to first state that my experience and knowledge of this Yelp Sponsorship program comes from dealing with them on behalf of one of my clients. This client signed up with Yelp (despite my warnings – apparently Yelp’s salesman are SMOOOTH) and I got to learn all about this program.
Having said that, that’s only ONE experience which doesn’t make me an expert but it certainly makes me more knowledgeable of this Yelp marketing program than those who’s never experienced it.
Furthermore, in case you are not familiar with how Yelp works, anybody can post a business on Yelp, as long as it falls under one of their categories and is a “fit” per their policies. And the rightful owner can claim that Yelp page by jumping through some hoops and voila, you have a FREE listing about your business.
FREE Yelp Reviews Page
And for comparison’s sake, here’s an example of a PAID Yelp review page:
PAID Yelp Review Page
With that said… let’s examine feature #1.
The “Slide-Show”
Now, granted the larger images and the “slideshow” adds a bit more snazziness to the page but honestly, how big of a difference does it really make? If you wanted to see pictures, wouldn’t you be inclined to go visit the business’ actual website?
I’d love to see some split test on this…
Favorite Review
As far as feature #2, I suppose this is a good thing, like Yelp for Business Owners says, “put your best foot forward”. But then they go and shoot themselves in the foot by posting the “Rating Distribution” graph next to it. This graph, as you can see, shows all the reviews, INCLUDING the negative ones.
As humans, we are so inclined to ask “what’s wrong” that I reckon most wouldn’t take the “favorite reviews” at face value; they’d go and seek the worst reviews to find out why those folks gave bad reviews.
Yelp’s Business Owner’s Sponsorship Program feature #3 is my favorite.
Yelp Advertising… on Others’ Pages
So the idea here is similar to Google AdWords, when someone searches for a term related to your business, your listing shows up (as, “Sponsored Result”) with the hopes that your business gets clicked on.
Here’s the caveat though, Yelp is charging you per impression basis instead of per click basis. What this means is that whenever your listing shows up in this manner, it counts against your total allotted amount that you paid of (so you are paying “cost per impression”). If it were click based (cost per click) you would get charged ONLY if your ad gets clicked.
This brings into a few questions, the least of which are:
- So how much is it per impression?
- How many impressions can you expect to get (this is of course dependent on the search volume) – bear in mind that this is a LOCAL search and review online system. Which means that you are really throttling the number of impressions your ads will show up because the number of LOCAL folks doing searches related to you business within your area is a tiny tiny fraction of the searches done nationally combined.
- Are you able to test different the keywords with which your listing shows up (which is costing you money)?
- Are you able to TRACK the results you are getting on fine details? I.e. what keywords are converting, when is the best time to show your Yelp sponsored listing, etc. Basically, questions that any savvy AdWords expert would ask.
- How much control do you have over this campaign? After all, you ARE paying for it.
Before I Go On, Let’s Talk About Leakage
What is “leakage“? Well, in digital marketing term, it means actions taken by your website visitor that doesn’t contribute to your ultimate goal (such as capturing the lead, making the sale, etc.) This often includes having active links which serve as distractions that take the visitor ELSEWHERE.
Now… take a good look at just about any Yelp review page, do you see leakage? Do you see links everywhere? But more importantly (and relevantly from a marketing perspective), do you see the box that says, “People Who Viewed This Also Viewed…”? Do you see how these links tend to be links to direct competition to the business review page you are viewing?
Yelp.com Pay Per Impression is a Friggin’ Joke (& Rip Off You Can Argue)
Okay, so going back to the sample list of questions listed earlier on. Let’s dig deeper and find out exactly what sort of program Yelp is running (and charging you for).
First of all, here’s the cost for Yelp’s advertising program:
$300/mo – promotes you to 1,500 people in your area looking for a business like yours.
$500/mo – promotes you to 4,000 people in your area looking for a business like yours.
$1000/mo – promotes you to 10,000 people in your area looking for a business like yours.
So you are looking at $100 CPM (cost per thousand impressions) to $200 CPM to advertise on their network. In the AdWords world, this is ridiculously high for paying CPM unless you are in some highly competitive and profitable business like real estate and 401k portfolios (oh wait… given the crash of the economy, DOH!). Even then you are pushing it a bit. Folks who are paying high CPM on the pay per click networks have thoroughly tested their campaigns, have tracked EVERY single detail, and have all the control in the world.
But on Yelp? Hellllll no! You don’t know what your “campaign” looks like let alone have any control over it. You are like a blind mouse and they are the big bad kitty toying with you. And yet, they are still charging you an arm and a leg. And one quick look around Yelp will tell you that most businesses are NOT high-price markets, they are mostly smaller markets like restaurants.
This brings me to my second point of frustration when dealing with these Yelp folks, where’s the proof of these impressions people paid for??? Where are my listings showing up? And what’s the conversion rate?? Again, they tell you nothing and keep you blind.
YUCK.
Sales Team Who Doesn’t Know Jack and Preys on Toy Mice
Okay, so I had the opportunity to speak to a Yelp representative on the phone on my client’s behalf. Armed with my knowledge of AdWords, marketing, the works… I came prepared. Sadly for the person on the other line, that’s more than I can say for her.
I asked about all the things I mentioned before (about click through rates versus impressions, how I can track my campaign, how much control I have, etc.) and she was STUMPED. She couldn’t understand why we would care about such matters. As a matter of fact, I’d venture so far as to say she didn’t know JACK about marketing, and yet, she’s representing a team that’s suppose to help us market.
But what REALLY got to me was when I asked her about a 24 hour backout clause, which means that within 24 hours of the start of the campaign, if I am not satisfied with the results I am seeing, I can cancel. Nope she said… and the reason is because it takes time for the program to ramp up for me to really start seeing results.
EHHH? It’s the internet we are talking about here right? I can track clicks fairly easily right? Hmmm… okay.
So then I went on and asked what is the minimum sign up period, to which she replied, “6 months”.
OMGWTFBBQ, 6 month minimum at $325 a month where you have NO IDEA what’s going on? Thanks but no thanks.
The Proof is in the Pudding – Proof that Yelp Sucked
Against my better judgment, my client went for it anyway, and looking at the chain o
f emails he received from Yelp along with how their program is setup, I can sympathize why.
See, Yelp is banking on folks NOT knowing the difference between “impressions” and “clicks”. They are banking on the fact that businesses will confuse “impressions” with “visitors” – as in, “For $300 a month I can get 1,500 NEW customers every month? SWEET, sign me up!” They are banking on folks not knowing how to track their progress and not caring to either. They are banking on being able to just sweet talk their would be victim on the phone and dazzle them with fluff.
And worse yet, without the clients being able to track the campaign, Yelp is able to get folks to resign, again and again, by giving out meaningless stats.
To give you a perspective of just how much SUCKINESS is in this program, with the aid of Google Analytics and my idea of adding a page that leads people to a printable in-store coupon, we were able to see how the program performed. Here are the stats, in 2 months time, Yelp drove 64 unique visitors to this special landing page (which again helps us track the comers from our Yelp advertising campaign) and of those 64 visitors, we got 9 customers that we can tell.
This meant 32/1,500 = 2% conversion from visitor to Yelp to the website and 0.3% from impression to actual customer. Put it another way, my client paid $72.22 for each of those clients – clients who are just diners to his restaurant.
NOTE: We are not even sure if these visits and visitors are a direct result of my client PAYING for this Yelp advertising program, read below to see what I mean.
Ouch.
Look, You Don’t Need to Pay for Yelp, Nor Do You Want To
Don’t get me wrong, Yelp.com is awesome, I use it all the time to get the low down on new restaurants, find a plumber, etc. But you don’t need to pay to use it! Business owners can get free Yelp review pages and those rank (from a search engine optimization perspective) just as well as the paid for pages.
This means you’ll get traffic regardless!
Hope this was enlightening for you. Like I said earlier on, I’ve had only one experience with Yelp and boy was it a horrible one. I’d love to hear some success stories and some proof that it worked.
Until then, don’t pay Yelp a dime to join in on their “Yelp for Business Owners” program, especially if you are a restaurant owner.
Raymond Fong
If you are looking for real trackable result, I’d like to recommend you take a look at our gowth hacking agency. We help businesses (both startups and traditional businesses) gain more exposure, get more leads, obtain more customers, and ultimately add to their bottom line leveraging the internet.
P.S. You might be interested in this post I wrote as well, “Yelp Strikes Again…“
P.P.S. You might enjoy my book on growth hacking, “Growth Hacking: Silicon Valley’s Best Kept Secret”, because it’ll help you grow your business.
Another issue with yelp “ads” is that content is highly restrictive. We only found out after the fact that no contact info is permitted, and no promotional copy either. Heck, isn’t that the very DEFINITION of an ad? Sales copy with contact information?
No idea what they expect to be included in their paid “ads”.
I wrote a review for the hospital that saved my life and Yelp felt it was “not recommended” for posting. When I called San Francisco to ask why, the person that answered said this isn’t “advertising related, have a nice day” and hung up. Yelp reminds me of the guy at “Ripoff Report.” They both could not care less about reviews– and only want access to your money. Both are not legit. Is it any wonder Yelp is based in San Fran.
Please, write about the scam of a “Request an Appointment” button. I recently found, after paying for an Enhanced profile AND PPC campaign, and that big green button on your shiny new page is actually a lead generator, for your COMPETITION! thats right. I wanted to see from a prosective clients view how it worked. So I used another computer, went to my profile and clicked the big green “Request an Appointment” button that I PAY for on my profile…guess what happened. Its a lead generator! It starts with “what zip code”
Then ” what type of business” wait what?! Then! an automatically checked box stating ” I would like to request appointments from MULTIPLE businesses” seriously! What the hell! I was so mad, I called and spoke with an account manager, who of course played dumb. I canceled everything. I told them ” How sneaky of you!, to use my marketing dollars to promote my competition!” I wonder, could this be their weakness, as far as a class action suit? Misappropriating marketing funds or something? Not disclosing this during the sales and set up on the phone? This company is such a money grabbing scam! I tell all my clients, please, leave a Google review, I am boycotting yelp. And I tell them why. And I tell them about the movie Billion Dollar Bully. Anywho, please beware the promotional buttons on your yelp profiles! They do not help you, they help your competition!
I would like to add that 2 hours, yes 2 hours! After I canceled my ad campain I recieved a 1 star review from someone that has never been into my business.
I decided to post this as a response.
I encorage everyone battleing these extorsion type (allegedly) issues to do so! It may be our only recourse.
Please, find My Real Client Reviews under the “Not recommended section”
And to clarify as to why this happens please click on the links below. Thank you.
Also check out the Movie Billion Dollar Bully
I claim My First Amendment- Right to Free Speech
Movie on Amazon –
Billion Dollar Bully
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.amazon.com/Billion-Dollar-Bully-Davide-Cerretini/dp/B07QV5RQTZ&ved=2ahUKEwiqyfGZzY_kAhXVoFsKHUB9BDEQFjAcegQIAhAB&usg=AOvVaw3JaY-3mCDZ76Ax1NDgNHxg
Wikipedia- https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki
Better Business Bureau › profile › c…
Web results
Yelp.com | Complaints | Better Business Bureau® Profile
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.bbb.org/us/ca/san-francisco/profile/internet-service/yelpcom-1116-193927/complaints&ved=2ahUKEwjYzuHczY_kAhX3HjQIHfmqAc0QFjAMegQIAxAB&usg=AOvVaw1Z4xUgpKVfFvy9q5r0E4wv&cshid=1566240854608
Please Watch Movie Billion Dollar Bully
Please read the many many many BBB complaints
If there is a class action suit I’m in as well. They refuse to post any good reviews or include them in my rating but will post negative reviews that aren’t substantiated. They just tell you it’s their algorithm but it affects business. Yelp is terrible and I hope they are put out of business.
Excellent!!!!! I’m admitting to being a newcomer to Yelp – these articles now have my eyes wide open!!!
One comment about a class action pursuit seems “on the money”
The class action should not only single out payment for advertisements but those who were sucked in by those ads. I’m in.
“don’t trust yelp reviews”
5/13/19
yelp will post any review before doing any verification (told to me by yelp help), by the time they get to looking into it the damage is already done.
I own a campground in New York state, a women from Washington state gave me a one star rating complaing that there is an “Evergreen Speedway” nearby where the sounds of the engines and smell of exhaust filters into the camp. Evergreen Speedway is located in Washington, thousands of miles away, clearly they are not writing about my campground. I contacted the reviewer to no avail (I am beginning to think something’s not right here) i also called yelp help line and they didn’t care, I told them the complaint is about something clear across the country, the man on the phone said they were not removing the post. The man was extremely rude saying they have freedom of speech. insisting the reviewer has the right to post whatever they want (freedom of speech) and the review will go through some very slow servers/filters and that will decide weather the post stays or goes.. I flagged it to yelp also and they emailed me saying it can take a few days to look into it. so in the mean time the bad review sits there, who wants to camp at a noisy, smelly campground?
I do not advertise on Yelp and now I never will. After reading all these comments at least I now understand where my good reviews went. This just isn’t right
“Just isn’t right” WHAT? It’s criminal!! Yelp needs a good hard slap in the face!
Read some of these other reviews – join in a class action suit. I’ll tell you as I’ve told the others, we would not get any $$$ but at least we could hit back – and that alone would give the satisfaction that “I will not take this anymore”
Such a great article! It puts data behind my gut feelings. As a business owner, I have a long and tawdry history with Yelp, though I have never advertised with the company. One of my biggest face palm moments was once when I was during a phone call with one of their advertising reps and I challenged her position that positive Yelp reviews caused increased revenue. They have long touted a “Harvard-backed study” that they claim “proves” this. I used to be a researcher, so I have done some digging and have never been able to come up with the methodology used in this study. I told the rep that it was a correlation (good businesses quite naturally have better reviews), not a causal relationship. She dismissed this and later in the call quipped, “I know, you don’t like studies.” That’s what she got out of my argument. I couldn’t believe the crassness on top of ignorance.
I wish I would of read these before we signed up. I canceled within one week and they still charged us $341 I told the girl it was a scam and they are ripping off small business. She could careless and just kept asking me if I wanted to go over are results. At least with home advisor you get calls and business. We pay that in a week and received no business not even one call.
Yeap, same here. I was getting calls daily from a yelp rep and finally told him I would not do business with them and to plz not call me again. A couple months later and 12 five star reviews are “not recommended” and I have only 2 reviews now which are both 1 star. I would LOVE the opportunity for a class action suit
Agreed. If there is any class action lawsuit against yelp please include me in. Google Dr Fagelman assault. Watch the YouTube. She was not fired or arrested and what does that say about her boss Dr Fagelman? He has admitted he did not investigate what happened to me yet he discussed me with patients I was another doctors patient that rented office space from him my patient lights are supposed be protected but they weren’t! They actually allowed reviews praising Delita Hooks who openly violated my patient rights and my body! She was not fired or arrested because the fix was in it turns out this doctor has NYPD Patients so when he learned I went to the NYPD he made a phone call and was arranged for her to file a false cross complaint believe me my review didn’t have any of this in it except her last name to protect anyone else from being hurt by her and him but yelp acted like Dr Fagelman has patients at yelp. I actually had to hire a lawyer to get my yelp review back up there it’s a horror story and I’m suing the Doctor who openly committed perjury. For instants my doctor and her partner moved out two weeks after I was assaulted he and the woman you punch me lied under oath stating it was months later which is simply not true. He said he doesn’t look at yelp reviews he never saw the first yelp review which was three years before I was punched saying the staff is bipolar and that she spoke to the doctor in for a short time there was improvement and then things went back to this verbal violence that she described as being verbally berated and yelled at.
I believe he lied and lied and lied and then of course he probably even has a yelp account along with the woman who finally assaulted me and they and their pals flagged me. I’m guessing they may have advertised or they had their friends put up fake reviews . In the guidelines it says something crazy about not being able to use last names but are you kidding me it’s a business with the first and last name and the woman punched me made a hole in my retina grab my hair shaking my head as I was holding my bags she also knew that I have a medical condition and then I’m older than her it’s pretty obvious I’m older and I was a pet medical patient and she knew that and I wrote my doctor note and it was stolen. Who do you think stole it ? We asked her how she got my name and she said from social media which is a lie. My review is important you could protect people from having their patient rights violated from being treated badly and after I paid a lawyer and got my yelp review they put it all the way in the back in the unrecommended ones or something when it even is recommended by people. If anyone does a class action suit please contact me. [email protected]
Class action suit / count me in.
Alan – class action suit – I’m in!! But remember, we would get almost nothing. The bloodsucking lawyers would take everything. But it would still be a satisfying punch Im the face so well deserved. So copy my email address and let me know of any plans – I’m in 100 percent.
Maybe it’s the time for a class action suit. Or I wish I new what government agency to report them to. I’m just waiting for them to make up a fake bad review for me in place of the 6 5 star ones they hid.
I’m also wondering about a class action. They got thousands from me.
Yes, if we can do a class action it let’s do it, I’ve also lost thousands. Don’t know if this can be posted but – FUCK THEM! Let’s go for the throat.
Tony I with you. But the process of bring a class action suit is beyond my limited knowledge. But If you can pull it off – count me in. Count me in full time. I trusted those reviews and got screwed by a “5 star review.
Now, again, I’m new to the whole deal. I was conned into believing that yelp gave “unbiased reviews” – now I realize what a fool I was.
Tony, is there any honesty left in the world? Let’s get together and give them the reverse screw.
Tony. Follow up. Do you seriously think there is a government agency that would step in? They, Yelp, no doubt has very deep pockets and tons of lawyers who wrote up these contacts. I doubt there is a small single loophole left uncovered.
And Tony, seriously have you, me, or anyone body read through all those pages and pages of the “legalize” and clauses of protection for them – not us? I’d bet 100 to 1 that pretty much no one – even the most anal retentive knows what the hell they just read.
However, if you want to take it to court, I’m with you. And, if you read some of the early posts there are many who would chip in.
We would get nothing, the bloodsucking lawyers would be the only winners. But would it not be worth it to screw those who have screwed us? Just this one time. Take charge and say FUCK YOU, may you rot in hell.
We for sure will get screwed in the future, many times, but at least we could once remember, we stood up and said “NO”
Tony, If you read this get back to me with thoughts. [email protected] – hope to hear from you soon.
Yelp has played the game with me also. They took all my good reviews and made them “not currently recommended”. This was happening little by little as I turned down their paid services on the phone. I’m running a part time business with only about $1500 in sales/month. Now how in the world can I afford their paid advertising? A scam, a scam, a scam. How long will it take for someone to take legal action against them?
I wonder what would happen if I changed my free ad to say “please read the “not recommended” reviews”‘
Yes, Yes, yes!!!! We collectively could take some some sort of legal action. I say collectively because it would not be cheap. We would probably get nothing – the lawyers would take everything, but, revenge would be sweet.
To take down these bloodsucking nasty disgusting “things” would worth it. So I’m in even if it costs me.
Don’t advertise with Yelp. https://www.prostfilms.com/blog/prosts-local-business-owner-of-the-week-david-quinn/
Yelp advertising is suuuuuuuuuuuch a FRAUD- they totally mislead you to believe you are getting “bonus” ads and what they are doing is making you sign up for what you think is free but a few weeks later your card is charged UNAUTHORIZED fees. When you call and complain they change the story. When you ask to listen to the recording they say that because of “security” they only record themselves. It is the most unethical strategy I have ever encountered from a US company. Really taken back by this experience. Do not waste your money!
Father’s Law Office has 20 or so five star reviews. He has 3 one star reviews. The 3 one star reviews have about 3 or less reviews per account. Some of his positive reviews have more than 10 reviews.
Yelp sent an email asking for him to pay for advertising. He denied them, and they hid all his positive reviews except one and showed all his negative reviews. He has a 2 star rating, but if you check all reviews, they’re mostly 5 stars.
2 or 3 years later, they send him another email asking for advertisement money. I checked his reviews and he had 4 stars. His top reviewers we’re shown. Again, my dad denied, and they hid his positive reviews again.
Yelp is a company full of extortionists. Their algorithm is simply pay to be positively reviewed, or don’t pay and be negatively reviewed. There is no algorithm. Pretty sad knowing they can do this to people who never wanted in anyways.
I get calls weekly from yelp reps trying to get me to buy their ads. All of them work for a meager base pay and depend on commission sales so it would be a great deal — for them, not me. (Glassdoor.com reviews from yelp employees: https://www.glassdoor.com/Reviews/Employee-Review-Yelp-RVW20529792.htm). I have 30 five-star reviews, one four-star, and a few weeks ago, someone posted a one-star making accusations that were clearly false. The one-star review of course is featured by yelp, and they moved all but six of the other reviews to their not recommended pages.
I provide a highly specialized service and many new clients contact me by email. As a result, I’ve now added this note to my signature line and to my web page —
Note: Yelp moves most positive reviews off businesses main pages to “encourage” the owners to purchase Yelp’s very expensive ads, and voila, more positive reviews magically appear on their main page. I don’t buy their ads so be sure to click the grayed out “not currently recommended” link at the bottom of the page. Click twice to view all three pages of my clients reviews.