We’ve heard from several clients this year complaining about how aggressive Yelp’s sales reps are and how expensive it is to “claim” a listing on their platform. Don’t get us started! Actually, too late, you got us started and it’s time to write Yelp their own review. Here’s everything we can’t stand about this platform.
They Don’t Want You to Ask for Reviews
Here’s a direct quote from Yelp: Yelp’s policies prohibit soliciting reviews from anyone. When asked to write a review by a business, a customer may feel pressure or influence to positively inflate their rating compared to someone who was inspired to write a review on their own.
Umm, earth to Yelp. Every…single…person…in…America gets a review request several times a week, if not several times per day. Bought a pack of gum when filling up your car 2 days ago? Please tell us how much you enjoyed that spearmint flavor! Sure, the amount of review requests we all get is out of hand, but if you took Yelp’s advice and just stopped asking, you’d be shooting yourself in the foot. No one is going to stop asking at this point.
Instead, find the most productive ways and times to ask for reviews. Many of our clients use review management systems to ask for reviews. They work best when paired with a personal ask from the doctor or treatment provider. “You’ll be getting a text from us in a few minutes with a link to leave a review. I would be delighted if you could take a minute to tell others about your experience.”
They Prioritize Reviews from Losers
Yelp cultivates and rewards what they call a “Yelp Elite Squad,” which is essentially an unpaid army of opinionated blowhards. Honestly, we have no idea why they think this is a good thing. They are giving outsize weight to reviewers who essentially have no life, and who have an incentive to keep on reviewing everything in sight or risk losing their “status.”
Our question: How many average, well-functioning members of society can go around writing Yelp reviews of everything they encounter throughout the day? Brown Sugar Pop Tarts burned my mouth…1 star. Valpak delivered some great coupons in the mail…4 stars. Papa John’s ad made me laugh (but their pizza is soggy)…3 stars.
This is yet another instance where we just fundamentally don’t agree with Yelp’s philosophy. Some of the most heartfelt and helpful reviews are left by people who seldom review anything. It was the fact of receiving exceptionally good (or exceptionally bad) service that prompted them to go the extra mile and leave a review. This is a strong indication that a business is either doing something really right or really wrong. But isn’t it funny how many of your 5 star reviews fall into Yelp’s “not recommended” category, while the cranks are front and center? Which brings us to our next point…
They Hide Your Best Reviews
It’s a common complaint online that Yelp hides many of a business’s 5-star reviews. And many business owners believe (or have seen firsthand) that once you start paying for an upgraded listing, those reviews magically surface toward the top of your review list. While Yelp of course claims that you can’t pay to improve your reviews on their platform, many people’s experience suggests otherwise. They also claim that their algorithm chooses which reviews get listed as “not recommended” based on which reviews may be fake or unhelpful. But in our experience, many very honest and very positive reviews of our clients remain hidden. At best, that means its algorithm is failing, and it’s been that way for years.
They Make Everything Pay-to-Play
It’s 2023. Everybody gotta earn. We get it. But there’s a big difference between offering a genuinely valuable service and artificially restricting information unless payment is received. In Yelp’s view, they’re happy to give you a car for free (a free listing). But oh wait, you wanted the car to have seats (show before and after photos)? And go faster than 15 mph (promote specials and offers)? And you didn’t want to be forced to bring along passengers you hate (competitor ads)? That’s extra, extra, extra. And now you’ve ended up paying way more for all these “upgrades” than you would have if you’d just bought a reliable, functional car in the first place.
Welcome to Yelp’s shakedown business model. If you think it sounds a bit like the mafia, you’re in good company. (Yelp’s CEO, Jeremy Stppelman, has had to defend the company against claims of extortion.) You’d probably find less sleaze at a nearby used car lot.
They Give Inaccurate Analytics
In our experience, Yelp’s dashboard shows some pretty questionable analytics. While we don’t have an independent way to verify how many visits a client’s page on Yelp receives, we can see how many people clicked from Yelp to a client site, and that number is abysmally low, even for clients in markets where Yelp is somewhat popular. It’s typical for Yelp to account for 0.5% to around 5% at most of a site’s traffic. We’re talking well under 10 visits per month in almost every case. And yet for some of our clients, Yelp claims that they receive thousands of views every quarter on Yelp’s site and app.
Certainly possible, but what’s really suspicious is the complete discrepancy between conversion counts on Yelp and in Google Analytics. In some cases we’ve seen conversions claimed in Yelp to be 5X higher than the conversions we’ve recorded in Analytics. We’ve pressed their reps on it a few times over the years, only to get a dog and pony show in response. We encourage clients to whip out their salt shakers before looking at any stats sent by their Yelp rep…you’re going to need those grains of salt.
Summing up the Scumbags
While there are many candidates for online platform we love to hate (we’re looking at you, Meta), Yelp just might take the cake, since they charge so much and cause so much frustration while providing practically nothing of value. Reviews? Google and Meta do it better. Local business info? Ditto. We just don’t see the point of Yelp, and we really don’t see the value.