I thought I blog about this because I am in such disbelief. I’ve had numerous clients telling me that they’ve written five star reviews about my service on Yelp to have their reviews mysteriously disappear. It’s just so shocking and disappointing. It was first brought to my attention last week by a client telling me that they wrote a review about my service but to have it disappear a day later. I last checked Yelp about two weeks ago and I had eight reviews written from clients that took the time to write about my service. This past Monday I checked and it went from eight review to just five!!! At first I thought I was seeing things and kept refreshing the page on Yelp over and over within the hour. Still five!!! So I decided to do some digging and used the powerful Google and came across this article. Here is another one of the many articles and complaints about Yelp’s staff erasing reviews from companies that’s not advertising with them. Well I just checked this evening and my five reviews came down to two!!!! I almost fell off my chair when I saw this!! I love my clients for taking 10 minutes out of their day to start an account with Yelp just so the public can read about how happy they are about my service just to have it erased by the staffs at Yelp. I just blows my mind. So that’s why I thought I blog about this. I’m another business owner that’s complaining about Yelp. One of the many. If this has happened to you as well, please, chime in!
Hey Melissa,
This is a pretty common practice with them and quite annoying. I have been on yelp for a quite a while now. Since I was first put up by Sonia Roselli I should have about 30+ reviews yet as of now only have 8 reviews. I also do the paid advertising which definitely has not changed anything. I’ve talked repeatedly with my account manager and they seem to never be able to answer why. More or less they say it is a computer algorithm that erases the reviews that it feels are biased or fake. I’ve come to notice that the majority of the reviews taken off our by a client who signs up only to really leave one review and then never uses yelp again. For as much business I get from yelp it pisses me off that they continue to do this. Most likely you won’t get those reviews back FYI. I started copy and pasting them on a word doc just to have them on file.
I have had issues with Yelp.com since I first opened. they are harrassing me to advertise, and each time I decline, many five stars reviews dissapear. they Refuse to take down false reviews, that are not made by my clientele.
I am praying Yelp.com will go under as they are VERY SHADY!