Earlier this month the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled, in a 3-0 decision, that Yelp has the right to manipulate reviews on its site in order to favor paid advertisers. While the company has adamantly stated that they do not condone manipulating reviews, there is of course, now, no law stopping them.
While the company denies any manipulation of the reviews on their site, there have been several eyewitness reports of Yelp taking down 5-star reviews based on lack of advertising. Should businesses be forced to advertise with Yelp if they want a good review, and in turn, more customers?
Many people see Yelp as the be-all and end-all resource for discovering new restaurants, shops, or galleries, but should it be trusted? This generation especially puts a large emphasis on the importance of peer reviews. With the explosion of sites like WebMD, Yelp and Rotten Tomatoes, it seems as if nothing is touched unless it was recommended to you by a friend.
With this new court decision users need to begin to understand the type of content they are viewing when using Yelp. Kiss the days of finding that new delicious underground Thai restaurant goodbye, unless they have a huge marketing budget that is.
It’s inevitable that the small businesses that don’t see value in working with Yelp will be slowly weaseled out of the picture. In this day and age, anything under a three-star rating on Yelp could certainly hurt your business.
It only takes a couple random wackos, whom you don’t even remember, to give you a one star review, in order for your ranking to fall off the charts. Who are these people that comment up a storm on this site? I don’t believe half of them are even real at all.
The manipulation has gone far enough! While Yelp is not owning up to what they are doing behind the scenes, please just take the site with a grain of salt. It, like many other huge national corporations, are prone to going after every last dollar; and that’s certainly not something we need in the Cleveland community.
Support local platforms. It just so happens that I know an excellent alternative to Yelp for Clevelanders: it’s called CoolCleveland Mobile — currently available on all desktops and devices: iPhone, Android, and everyone else via our Mobile Web.
Discover all of the cool local hotspots in your neighborhood bias free! There are no peer reviews, and all the sponsorship is clearly labeled with a “*” next to the listings. Check out CoolCleveland Mobile, and make sure you really know what’s under the surface.
http://www.martinbielat.wordpress.com
After finishing his internship at Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Marty Bielat became the Director of Engagement for CoolCleveland and kissed print media good-bye.