SamIam
Member
Is that why you called?
Yelps is up to something!
- Thread starter SamIam
- Start date
Is that why you called?
Mikey P
Administrator
yes but when you didn't answer I called Robert Atlas to see how bad he got dinged.
He went from 160 to 119
He went from 160 to 119
SamIam
Member
Mikey P
Administrator
then I got pulled over by DCSO onKingbury Grade.
I thought for sure for having my cell phone on my shoulder.....but I lucked out and my tail lights were off.
Turns out I'm supposed to tell LEOs that I have a CCW whether I'm carrying or not and my tag is expired
we talked about the new Tahoe snow tire and chain laws for this winter, who owned the CC business, my choice in snow tires and a nice warning to be careful on Old Pickles Curve down below, ice has started to form already...
I thought for sure for having my cell phone on my shoulder.....but I lucked out and my tail lights were off.
Turns out I'm supposed to tell LEOs that I have a CCW whether I'm carrying or not and my tag is expired
we talked about the new Tahoe snow tire and chain laws for this winter, who owned the CC business, my choice in snow tires and a nice warning to be careful on Old Pickles Curve down below, ice has started to form already...
we were around 55 now down to 49 but thats pretty normal for it to go up and down a bit. Had a crazy lady's review get filtered, now it stuck.. kinda pisses me off but she discredited herself by writing a novel. Any review longer than a paragraph makes them look crazy lol
KevinD
Member
- By: Jennifer Fiala
For The VIN News Service
Nine small businesses have joined a California veterinarian's lawsuit that accuses the online review site Yelp of extortion, alleging that the site's sales team demanded payment to hide negative reviews.
The new plaintiffs were added last month to the punitive class action, originally filed on Feb. 23 in Santa Ana, Calif. The 39-page amended complaint shows that a cruise line, appliance repair company, bakery, pet grooming service and furniture store, are among the businesses that have signed on as class representatives. In addition to the extortion charge, the lawsuit accuses Yelp of fraudulent and unfair business practices.
Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, with backgrounds in computer engineering and computer science, founded Yelp in 2004. Based in San Francisco, the online cityguide has been bashed by those who believe that sales representatives within the company manipulate reviews based on whether businesses advertise with them.
Yelp lawyers have not yet filed a response to the lawsuit though company officials have repeatedly denied any culpability in the case. A scheduling conference is set for April 26 in United States District Court, Central District of California.
Attorney Elizabeth Lee Beck, whose California law firm represents the plaintiffs, says future amendments to the lawsuit likely will be necessary as more businesses seek to be included in the action.
"We've been contacted by every type of business that you can imagine, all across the country," she says. "We've been certainly contacted by a number of veterinarians, doctors and dentists, just to name a few from the medical profession."
The lawsuit began with Dr. Greg Perrault, a veterinarian who owns Cats & Dogs Animal Hospital in Long Beach, Calif. He alleges that a Yelp sales representative repeatedly offered to rearrange negative reviews of the hospital so that they appeared lower on the site's listing page, effectively hiding them from the public, in exchange for the purchase of a $300-a-month advertising subscription.
In an interview with the VIN News Service, Perrault insists that this is not a case of "sour grapes" concerning the nature of his reviews. Cats & Dogs Animal Hospital earns four stars out of a possible five on Yelp.
Rather, Perrault says he contacted the company concerning a questionable review, which triggered a salesman to solicit his practice repeatedly. That's when he was pitched an "unethical" advertising arrangement, he contends.
"I was told that with money, I could hide negative reviews and so forth," Perrault says. "I never asked to be on Yelp, I never paid for anything, and yes, I'm getting some referrals. But this system is unethical. (As business owners) we're half of the equation. We should have a voice in how this works and should be changed."
Stephanie Ichinose, Yelp's director of communications, explains the system this way:
Yelp users write reviews and post them to the site. Yelp does not verify the authenticity of reviewers but attempts to present the most useful and helpful reviews from engaged community members, many of whom have complete profiles and are frequent Yelp users.
Thirty million people visit the site monthly, making Yelp high-stakes publicity for businesses in the 35 major markets where the site is anchored. With that kind of leverage has emerged users who try to game the system by posting glowing reviews to promote businesses, usually for a fee. It's a practice known as shilling, Ichinose says.
To combat shilling, Yelp employs a custom review filter to look for patterns of abuse. While Ichinose would not detail the filter's recipe for catching phony reviews, she explained that it's built on algorithms in the software.
With that, reviews -- both positive and negative -- are suppressed from time-to-time, based somewhat on how active, or "trustworthy," the reviewer appears.
"Yelp isn't a place where you can come in and throw up a review and expect it to remain. That doesn't foster a sense of community," Ichinose says. "We're trying to return the most helpful reviews for this business. Yelp is word-of-mouth in digital form, and we're weighting voices. We want folks engaged in this process."
Shilling is not an easy problem to solve, Ichinose admits. So she understands how business owners might be confused by the system: "Say you had 10 five-star reviews. Then a couple weeks later, you get a call from someone at Yelp to advertise. You come back, and six of the reviews have been suppressed by the filter and you only have four reviews still standing. The confluence of these independent events can be very confusing if you don't know about the filter."
Yelp advertisers receive a photo slide show, the ability to call out one favorite review on their profile page and feature rotating ads on competitors' pages. Yelp does not allow advertisers or non-advertisers to manipulate the order of reviews, Ichinose says.
"We don't know when reviews will come up or go down. We can't manage the order of the content," she insists.
The company also has stepped up efforts to get businesses involved in Yelp processes by hosting Webinars and how-to meetings to guide them on ways to respond to reviewers.
Despite those efforts, Perrault wants Yelp's business model to change. Rather than having businesses pay to advertise so that readers can use the site for free, he wants it to operate more like Consumer Reports, which employs the more traditional subscription-based system.
To get the word out, Perrault is working with the Southern California Veterinary Medical Association to develop guidelines on what to do when faced with a negative review and managing client satisfaction online, in general. His legal efforts have attracted support on the Veterinary Information Network, where members have expressed disdain for online review sites that they consider to be lacking in credibility and objectivity.
"How do we deal with this?" Perrault asks, speaking to a notion that most reviews are from consumers who are extremely dissatisfied or very pleased. "We're not restaurants. We fit into a different category. We are bound by ethics and rules and we can't just comment back on the boards (to defend our practices).
"Veterinarians tend to believe that everyone's honest, and they're not," he adds. "This is not the Yellow Pages. We're a community and we need to stick together on this."
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FB19087
Guest
steve_64
Member
- Joined
- Aug 11, 2012
- Messages
- 13,371
My Google guy called yesterday. Over a thousand veiws in two months it may have been 2 grand. He broke it all down and said my numbers are way up.
Google has recommended my services 14 times and that's a new feature.
Glad I never tried yelp or the others.
Google has recommended my services 14 times and that's a new feature.
Glad I never tried yelp or the others.
SamIam
Member
sounds like that guy should open his own review site....................
Or mark the business as closed on yelp
KevinD
Member
SamIam
Member
I’ve got more unrecommended reviews then I do reviews. 49 reviews 53 unrecommended Mother F......rs
SamIam
Member
Here’s my main argument!
Yelp is obviously doing a reset!
Trying to level the playing field.
But if you’re an advertiser already they crapped all over your hard work by decimating your reviews.
If your a new potential advertiser, why would you trust a company that’s willing to do that to its existing customer base?
Yelp is becoming a one star search engine and a laughing stock.
It’s almost like they love to shit where they eat?
Yelp is obviously doing a reset!
Trying to level the playing field.
But if you’re an advertiser already they crapped all over your hard work by decimating your reviews.
If your a new potential advertiser, why would you trust a company that’s willing to do that to its existing customer base?
Yelp is becoming a one star search engine and a laughing stock.
It’s almost like they love to shit where they eat?
