Yelp now removing Boston reviews?
Over at Charlesgate Realty, Michael DiMella complains that Yelp has pulled several reviews of his business. And even though the ones that got yanked were the less-than-perfect ones (he now only has reviews giving him perfect 5s), he's upset:
... I think this is a complete disrespect to me, my business, and my employees, not to mention my customers who WASTED their time writing their thoughtful reviews. We're promoting Yelp to our customers because Yelp provides us a tool to allow customers to comment freely (without our control) and gives us an opportunity to earn new business from the reviews (which I anticipate being mostly positive - hopefully!). And if we happen to get a bad review - even better - it will give us an opportunity to correct things!
But because of this, I have really had my faith in Yelp shaken. I am not sure if I should discontinue linking to Yelp, and mentioning Yelp to customers or not. What's the point? I don't want to waste my time or my customers' time. ...
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PLUS there is most likely an
PLUS there is most likely an assumption by the less then perfect reviewers that the business had something to do with the removal... If I were a store owner I would feel the only thing worse then someone not being happy with my store is someone who makes a comment on Yelp only to have it removed, and therefor making me look like Im covering something up.
Freebie
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/gyrobase/yelp_and_the_business_of_extortion_2_0/Content?oid=927491&page=1
I'm a regular poster here
I'm a regular poster here choosing to remain anonymous because I was a longtime Yelper and I did make a few friends through it.
I think Yelp has gone down the tubes. I've been wanting to move my reviews to another site but they don't offer a way to download your reviews. There's been other sleazy practices with Yelp, and I do not think they are a reputable review site, nor have they been for quite some time. The emphasis on the site is less about reviews and more about the social networking aspect. Their events are promoted, and they have their cliquey "elite" status, which I think it's bogus. The regular Yelpers are cliquish and they sometimes treat non-regulars poorly.
If I were a business owner, I would cease to mention and link to Yelp.
It's not a true review site; it's a social networking site. and a business It should not be taken too seriously.
Everything you said about Yelp
...is absolutely true. There are some nice people who have written nice reviews about me, but that site is a legitimate cult. I got deleted once for defending some colleagues who were getting trashed. The cunt who closed my account didn't even respond to my e-mail in response.
You can save your Yelp reviews...
It's time-consuming if you have hundreds of reviews posted, but you can just save each individual review page from your browser: File menu, Save Page As, select as Save As type (complete page or HTML-only or text). Faster than retyping them, at least.
what I really don't get
What is so hard to understand is why they just remove the reviews with absolutely no warning. No "this review was flagged" or "this review seems fake" or whatever. Nothing at all to let me know and as far as I can tell nothing to the people who wrote the reviews. It's amazing how this "web 2.0 company" (a buzzword I hate anyway) can operate with a complete lack of transparency. At least give me something other than it was "the algorithm" that removed the reviews.
Not good.
I've removed the Yelp app from my iPod in protest.
Hey guys, this story was covered over a month ago by The Dig
http://www.weeklydig.com/%5Bcatpath%5D/200903/they-yelp-me-they-yelp-me-not
There you go. All you Dig-hating douches that have come out of the woodwork can suck it.
Really?
I don't see a single quote from Michael DiMella in that entire Dig article.
Also here at Universal Hub
though it didn't get much response or attention at the time:
http://www.universalhub.com/node/23381