For those who may wonder, Yelp is not a site that pays people to rave about their favorite local businesses, the way Associated Content did or the way Chatabout did. Yelp does advertise a "cash back" system (where Yelp writers get cash off their actual purchases at stores they write about) and some form of social rewards for those nominated as "evangelists for Yelp," which seems pretty tacky in view of the site's high-flown self-promotion. However, Yelp's actual mode of operation seems to work like this:
1. While writing for some other site, person looks up current web site for business person wants to recommend.
2. Google displays the (promoted) Yelp page for the business at the top left, the business's own site at the top right, so person may actually see the Yelp page first. Or person may be provoked by a preposterously unreal Yelp review--which is likely to draw the most traffic to Yelp, as writers' attention spans are probably long enough that we all remember to look for the business's own URL rather than Yelp's.
3. Person goes to Yelp and writes a review to provide some balance and get person's own blood pressure back down. Blood pressure surges occur when Googlers recognize, for example, raves about the cleanliness and fabulous bargains, from an alleged customer with a name like "Katie B.," at Yelp's page for what we know to be a stinking, price-gouging, salmonella-ridden store mismanaged by a lunatic with a name like "Katie B." Or we see rants from some alleged one-time visitor about the "rude staff" at a family business where the consistently kind, courteous, cosmopolitan owners, pillars of the church, etc., etc., have been known to employ a troubled 25-year-old foster child who apparently, shudder quake, said a swearword. Or, as yesterday, somebody posts what may or may not be a very unusual experience, or just an outright lie, about a business that has served a lot of people well for a long time.
4. This generates some traffic at Yelp, which encourages people to post reviews with pop-up lines like "With so few reviews, yours could be huge." A person might, as I did once many years ago, decide to devote a half-hour or an hour to reviewing every local business listed on the site.
5. Yelp used at least to display replies to the reviews that truly make visitors wonder whether some Yelpers are thinking about the right store. (Yesterday I stumbled across one that was showing for a chain store outlet in Tennessee, where a Yelper who claimed to live in California burbled "I like this store because it's so close to my home." Say whaaaat? How hard is it to change your address on Yelp if you have, in fact, moved?) A few stores generated some rant-and-rave exchanges. However, Yelp has decided to replace this feature with one that allows only the listed owner of the business to reply to reviews. How nice, considering Yelp's admitted goal of making big-chain stores look better than local independent ones. When unhappy small-town storekeepers (like one who's actually listed his store for sale by now) see only one review, some of them are likely to get all emotionally involved with blaming the person who gave them four stars instead of five...and they can't see any exchanges in which the writers of bad reviews admit, e.g., "I think I was actually thinking of a different store."
6. Yelp used, also, to hide individuals' reviews based on the claim that they didn't know who the reviewers were or how impartial they were, based only on people's online presence. I got that run-around, years ago when this web site's archive ran to less than a full ream of printed material. My reviews went live again, as best I recall, when Ronia Regal joined Yelp in order to follow me and when, around the same time, I sold the words to a picture book about chickens. Since then I've not visited Yelp within every single year, so don't know whether they've been suppressed and unsuppressed. Nor do I know whether RR ever visited Yelp again. Becket Adams did, and verified Yelp's bias.
https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-yelp-protects-corporate-interests.html
This has changed into something...interesting. In a nasty, biased, even cyberbullying sort of way.
Whatever people may think about my social media presence, it is no longer possible for them to doubt that I'm a real live writer. This blog's been presenting a consistent personal narrative for years. I've written other books, guest-posted on other sites, and interacted in real time with thousands of people on social media. I'm read by thousands of people worldwide, wherever English is spoken, and not exclusively in English either. (This bothers me. When I was able to read priscillaking.blogspot.fr it looked weird enough in French; I have no way to imagine how bizarre it looks in Romanian, which, the computer says, is one of the most common ways it's currently being read...I wrote something for a Romanian site recently.) I have enough online presence and clout to annoy the everlovin' daylights out of Bayer, which may well be the last good thing I'll accomplish in this life; in any case I achieved it without investing a single penny or having, when I registered this screen name, a single active e-friend. I'm a real individual and a real American. Those who try to "verify" such things by encroaching on my privacy only make themselves look bad.
So the last few times I visited Yelp, my reviews were showing. Then, as mentioned, one of them annoyed a local character more than I'd intended it to--by having appeared at a particularly bad time for him, he claims. Now, during the month that review of his store was written, the review was suppressed, so I doubt the review contributed anything to the demise of his store. (I won't go into what-all did contribute to the demise of his store. Local readers remember; nobody else cares.) Apparently the man knew nothing of Yelp or of my review until last spring, when his sole Yelp publication consisted of a rant about my review.
https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2019/06/status-update-yelp-is-seriously-whacked.html
It wasn't the sort of refutation of facts that Yelp claims to want business owners to post. The man did not deny that his store went out of business and is currently listed for sale. He was just upset that I'd given the store, when it existed, less than full marks, due to a fact that he admitted was true. I posted something that I meant in a conciliatory way. He posted something that showed that he didn't want to be conciliated. Now if he'd disputed my facts, I would have stood by them; if the facts had changed--if, for instance, he'd reopened the store--I would have conceded that. But the fact is that the store has not existed, as a place shoppers could discover, for many years. All the store's Yelp page was doing was bringing up bad memories and raising the blood pressure of a cardiovascular patient. So I pulled down both of my posts on his store's page, and suggested that Yelp purge the whole page. And there I intended my Yelp activity for this year to end.
This was not meant to be.
Someone on Twitter asked for help with a computer problem. I naturally thought of the local computer store that's developed a specialty in "vintage" computers, and has served me well over the years. I Googled their address.
Say whaaat? Yelp was giving this business one star? That's not a matter of personal preference or even business competition. That's insanity. This store has a niche that's not everybody's, but they own that niche; they're very, very good at keeping older computers running.
Yelp makes it possible to see the reviews they've decided to exclude from consideration when down-rating an independent business, so I verified that these were still there:
"
Belinda M., Kingsport, TN, 3.28.19: 5 stars
Charles & I have been using Compu World for computer repair ~15 years and are very pleased with their work. They are trustworthy with very reasonable pricing. Highly recommend.
Priscilla K., Gate City, VA, 12.20.17: 5 stars
Where I go for Christmas! This store has or will find everything...the newest or the oldest, the flashiest or the cheapest, or any gadget in between. I clicked four stars for that, then added the fifth one because they both let me upload files from floppy disks to e-mail *and* chatted up my car pool buddy while upgrading my 1998 desktop.
Small store, though. Everyone I've seen in there, staff and customers, has seemed the type who would help clear a path for any wheelchair user who came in, but it'd take them a while.
"
And here's what Yelp had decided to present as the only review worth consideration:
"
Vincent S., Kingsport, TN, 11.11.18 (First to Review): 1 star
these people ruined my macbook pro laptop. i had already formatted the hard drive and all i needed was operating system reinstalled. They said they cou!d do it. But after a week they admitted they didnt work on macbooks! finally after much back and forth over a 3.5 week period of me trying to get it back to take to someone that worked on macbooks. they told me that mine was one that had been recalled due to graphics card being bad. which was a LIE according to apple. when I finally did get it back the screws had been removed from back of it as 1 was missing.and another one was cross threaded. So im guessing the one person that worked there who allegedly had one like mine, switched out guts with his which was more likely the one with messed up graphics or whatever they tried to say was wrong with mine. Not honest people and my job is to alert all future potential customers about these people. Not only did they charge ,they charge me 100.00 for loading an operating system on it but said I had to use a cooler under it or no graphics will display on screenl. and charged m,e 30l.00 for IT!!!!!!
CROOKS!!!!!! I WOULDNT LET THESE PEOPLE WOIRK ON AN AM TRANSISTOR RADIO.
"
Now I have no way of knowing that Vincent S. may not be a real person. I doubt very much that his guess about what happened to his Macbook Pro laptop is accurate. I'd believe that a mistake could have been made, because even wizards aren't always perfect. What I do know is that Vincent's experience is not typical. How I know this is because this store, Compuworld, is located about fifteen miles from my home. I have walked fifteen miles with a laptop in a case, but I'm not about to try carrying a 1998 desktop through fifteen miles of local whatever-is-least-convenient weather. So I almost always bribe somebody to drive over there with me. I've gone to Compuworld in the company of Grandma Bonnie Peters, Adayahi, Oogesti, Lisiwayu, Adawee, The Goth, and The Grouch: that's seven fellow computer users, and about as diverse a group as you could find. All seven have their own accounts at Compuworld.
And it's not the case that they all leap at any excuse to rush over there at once. They all do say things like "All the way to Colonial Heights? Can we wait another week?", and like "What I want is the new computer in the other store's window. Would you consider going there instead?", and like "The other store's on my side of town." They do not, ever, say anything like "I no longer trust those guys" or "I'm not satisfied with the last job they did." Even when they've said they didn't want to shop for anything electronic, and even though the store is in a row of businesses that include places that have seats and sell snacks, they always come into the crowded little computer store and look around. Frequently they buy something.
This is because, whether they are prim little church ladies like GBP or large hairy characters like The Goth, the wizards always seem to remember them and happen to have stocked more of what they're likely to want. And one of the guys actually chatted up The Grouch. I did not go into this on Yelp, but yes, he was the one the wizards managed to keep in a cheerful mood for two or three hours. You have to be local to realize how hard it is to keep The Grouch in a cheerful mood for two or three minutes, particularly if you are a small business owner and The Grouch isn't buying anything.
For comparison, Google Reviews gives Compuworld an average of four stars, based on the following reviews...Google links ought to work on a Google-hosted site, so I'm leaving them in.
"
I read this idjit's bad review that was displacing two good reviews...I also looked at Vincent's profile on Yelp. He has only ever posted this one bad review. He has no "friends" on Yelp. He has no noticeable online presence, no link to a web site or social media account. How in blinkin' blue blazes is it possible for his reviews to impress anyone, even a bungled electronic algorithm, as more credible than, well, mine? The only way I can imagine would be through confusion with Vince Staten of the Kingsport Times-News. A bungled algorithm might achieve that level of confusion. Nobody who's read the Times-News would believe that that's the way Vince Staten writes. (For comparison, a link to Vince Staten's last blog post should be over on the right side of the screen somewhere.)
So, word-nerd and Perfect Virginia Lady that I am, I gave Yelp the chance to recognize and correct their egregious mistake. I e-mailed the site's headquarters to say that, if they wanted to suppress all my reviews in the interest of helping an old cardiovascular patient live longer, that was fine by me, but they ought at least to display the other Yelper's recent five-star review of Compuworld. I spelled out that although I'd clicked on a button to flag Vincent's review as "misleading," I wasn't asking them to purge his review, just to display it alongside one of the two reviews that reflect a more typical customer opinion.
This is what I got.
"
Hi Priscilla,
Thanks for writing back. After careful evaluation, we have decided not to remove Vincent S.'s content of Compuworld Systems. When reviewing user content, we look at a number of factors, including potential conflicts of interest, threatening or lewd commentary, and whether content has been posted to the correct business page. If a review falls within the bounds of our tolerance for strong language, appears to meet our guidelines and reflect the user’s personal experience and opinions, it is our policy to let the user stand behind their review.
Business owners can address concerns or misunderstandings via their Business Account by posting a public comment or sending a private message to the reviewer.
For further information on using Yelp, please find answers to frequently asked questions in our Support Center (http://www.yelp-support.com).
Additionally, one of the ways we try to help Yelp users discover local businesses is by using automated software to showcase reliable reviews. This means Yelp doesn’t recommend every review from every user and is automated so that it can apply the same standards to every business and every review. This is very different from other sites that tend to feature every single negative rant and positive rave. The software looks at dozens of different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability and activity on Yelp. What is recommended can change over time, and a review that is currently not recommended may be recommended on another day.
Because our recommendation software is automated, the Yelp Support team cannot manually override the software to recommend or not recommend a review. Our recommendation software is automated precisely so that it can apply the same standards to every business and every review without being overridden by someone's personal preferences.
We hope you'll take the time to watch our video about the Recommendation Software: https://www.yelp-support.com/article/What-is-Yelp-s-recommendation-software?l=en_US and visit our Support Center for more resources: http://www.yelp-support.com/Recommended_Reviews.
Regards,
Michael
Yelp Support
San Francisco, California
In other words, Yelp's criterion for a review's reliability is "How much of a point lead do this person's reviews, taken together, give to independent businesses over big chains?"
Let's all give Yelp zero stars.
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