GET YELP BANNED FROM THE INTERNET

It seems that every once in a while we come across something that just “bugs” us. I am a business owner and with every business comes responsibility to its clients/patrons. I have had a good business running for over 14 years and have clients who love us and also clients that have not been so happy. With that said, it seems that something has just gotten under my skin.

With the climbing use of the Internet and cell phones, they have become a crutch for most of the population. Review sites and local searches have become the wave of the future when looking for a business. These sites can be beneficial to businesses and their services/products, but when they take it upon themselves to decide which reviews are real and which are fake they ultimately make it a non trustworthy site. These sites are supposed to represent a business as a whole, but in actuality it only counts the reviews shown, in their ratings and creates mayhem for small businesses.

Unlike other review sites, YELP has a filtering system which it thinks is a way to “weed out” the fake reviews. On my site for instance, one week ago it was showing 1 negative review and hid 2 real, good reviews leaving my rating at 1 star. This week we had 1 negative review and 2 good ones added to the site by real customers and as of today 11/22/13 the only ones showing are the 2 negative reviews, YELP has hidden all four good reviews, again leaving my rating at 1 star.

When I complained to the Better Business Bureau, I received a response from YELP and this is what it said:

“ Hi Chris,
Thank you for writing - we are glad to have this opportunity to address your concerns.
As you may have read, the goal of Yelp's review filter is to showcase more reliable content. The system is automated, and it affects both positive and negative reviews.
You requested that filtered reviews for your business be reinstated, but as the system is automated, we cannot manually restore filtered reviews (nor can we manually filter reviews). That said, reviews may become filtered or unfiltered over time as the system picks up new information.
You can read more at http://www.yelp.com/faq#what_is_the_filter. Regards, Tara Yelp Inc. “

Not only does that not help me in any way, it is not a sufficient answer to my questions, which is “Why does it filter in the first place?” , “How does it determine who to filter?” , “Why does it not inform its Yelpers that their review may or may not be filtered out?” and “why are the filtered reviews hidden in light gray and can barely be seen?”. It seems to me, upon doing much research I have learned that there are many other businesses with the same concerns.

Below you will find information articles on this problem with YELP:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/apr/22/local/la-me--banks-yelp-backlash-20130423

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2012/08/16/think-yelp-is-unbiased-think-again/

http://www.theresumator.com/blog/do-you-believe-yelp-hides-good-reviews/

SOMEONE HAS GOT TO STOP THIS FROM HAPPENING TO
SMALL BUSINESSES AND SHUT YELP DOWN FOR GOOD.