Frank's dashboard

Eric, thanks for your response. I didn't think you were a Yelp employee. In fact, I was a Yelp advocate for about a year and asked all of my customers to provide reviews on Yelp. I believe we have great customer service and was confident that, on average, our reviews would be good. I have a competitor that regularly posts fake reviews on Yelp and other sites so it may be that this competitor is flagging my reviews and causing the deletions. But if that's the case it is still a serious problem that a competitor could savage my reputation via Yelp. I became concerned with Yelp and contacted them before we ever received a bad review and while our average was still 4.5 stars. The concern was that at some point we would receive bad reviews and if Yelp kept deleting most of our reviews then when we did get a bad review it would skew the results more than it should. That is exactly what happened. Our Yelp score jumps from 4.5 to 2.5 to 2 to 4 depending on whether we have 2 or 3 or 4 reviews showing at any one time--despite having received a total of 15 to 20 reviews. One of our last Yelp reviews was from someone who had written a number of reviews. So I hoped it might be one of the ones that "stuck." But it was gone the next day. I recognized the customer based on her review. She definitely wasn't "astro-turfing." I agree that Yelp should notify users before deleting a review or at least provide an e-mail explaining the cause of the deletion. As a business owner, I get notified when I get a review so why don't I get notified of a deletion?

Eric, I'm new to GetSatisfaction.com. A consultant pointed me here when I discussed my problems with Yelp with her. I started collecting examples of Yelp! review deletions for my business about 2 months ago after I got so frustrated at the frequency of the deletions. I recognize most of the customers from their reviews--I have a car repair business and most people give their first name and mention the type of car they have and the work they had done so it's pretty easy to connect the dots. Some of these customers also called to complain that their Yelp reviews had disappeared and wanted to know if we had something to do with it. I get e-mails from Yelp regularly that point me to charts showing how many months I've gone without paying them for advertising and how I could show better reviews if I'd just pay them. I'm happy to be an named source with actual evidence of what I think is at best incompetence by Yelp and at worst malfeasance and extortion. My last sales call from Yelp was just Sept. 16, 2009 and 4-5 reviews disappeared within a week of me saying that I didn't want to advertise with them. So whatever this problem is--or even the smell of a problem--it is still happening.

Yelp erased 5 of our good reviews when we refused to advertise with them--including ones from Yelpers who had written a good number of reviews. I'd love for Yelp to die but I think it will probably get purchased by someone & this nightmare will go on for a few more years before someone finally puts some ethics into it--or at least rationality. – Frank, on November 10, 2009 03:02

Sounds about right to me. – Frank, on November 10, 2009 02:56

We are a small business and at best hope to generate 2-3 online reviews per month. Yelp has deleted 10 to 15 of our reviews in the past year and a half. We have only 2 reviews showing now. One has 4 stars & one has 1 star. Most of the reviews had been 4 stars, one or two 5's and two 1-star reviews. So it's a mixed bag. All of the reviews were from real customers--no padding--no asking friends to post reviews for us--none from any employees. For a long time we managed to average 4.5 stars with several reviews showing. But Yelp seems to have settled on only 2 reviews that are going to remain: one at 4 stars & one at 1 star for a 2.5 star average. We have a large, well respected & independent customer satisfaction survey company that randomly samples 50 customers on a quarterly basis. We consistenly get ratings of 90+% satisfaction. So we don't think Yelp's manipulation of our reviews matches the reality of our quality or service. We've talked to Yelp about this problem several times but can't get a reasonable answer about why it happens--is a competitor sabbotaging our business? Is Yelp penalizing us because we refuse to advertise with them? (specifically because of this problem.) If it is their "algorythm" as they claim then the algorythm is poorly designed and needs to be dumped. I've had customers complain to me that we caused their Yelp reviews to vanish! Yelp has been unfair to our business and to the Yelpers who took the time to post reviews with them. I'm fed up. I've started collecting screen dumps of the reviews that exist one day and not the next. Anyone for a class action suit against Yelp? Whether intentional or not, Yelp is treating this small business unfairly and is causing harm to the business.

Judi, I'm having the same problem but I'm the business owner. I doubt your former employer did anything to your reviews. Yelp deletes reviews of my business within days of them being posted--dozens of them. We always look like we are just starting out. Yelp just says that it is their algorythm doing its thing. It makes no sense to me and it is hurting my business. I have customers complaining that we deleted their reviews--we don't have that power. While the vast majority of our reviews have been positive, we have gotten 2 bad ones. The only reviews that have had any lasting power are 2 from very frequent Yelp users--one who has written 300 reviews and another who has written 90. Sadly, one of these two writers provided one of our bad reviews. She seems insane--her review is full of profanity and false claims--but it is one of the 2 that sticks.