By Colleen D. – I found this out the hard way. Yelp is all about censorship. Most of the reviews and rating are controlled by HQ. Many of the reviewers give places like McDonalds 5 stars. How can you rate a top notch fine dining establishment when your used to TV dinners and spaghetti o’s? The majority are social outcasts and geeks looking for a place to fit in. And they do. Mostly Asian 20 somethings. I have nothing against them I just can’t rely on that for the tastes that I demand when I am dining out.
I have a more discriminating palate. I have found a few good places and a few five star duds. The worst is when you go to a 4 to 5 star place and it is the worst service, food, and waste of money. I like a good culinary adventure, but when I venture out to try a highly recommended place, well it better be good!
ROTD is not “voted on by you” like it states. It is yelp’s bargaining chip to please current sponsors and bring potential sponsors into the spotlight to entice them into signing up as a sponsor.
I know many business owners who have nightmare experiences with yelp. Blackmailing them, writing fake negative reviews against their businesses, then making them “disappear” when they sign up. It’s basically extortion.
Yelp has to be taken with a grain of salt. If you see a no picture reviewer with only one or two reviews, chances are that is a fake review by a competitor or yelp itself, maybe even the business owner, trying to promote their own business.
Wow you did some SERIOUS digging for this.
Kudos.
Yelp has to be taken with a grain of salt, indeed… and a slice of lemon, and a shot of tequila.
I don’t use Yelp for anything and neither does anyone else I know. I’ll look up what the PROFESSIONAL critics have to say about a place or just go by old-fashioned word of mouth from friends and relations.
After hearing complaint after complaint about Yelp’s practices, we decided to start our own review site that is geared more towards honest feedback.
It’s called Rate Diary and here’s how it works:
1. eat at restaurant
2. upon checkout, owner will give you a unique voucher
3. go to http://www.ratediary.com, and redeem the voucher for rate dollars that are treated as cash
4. you get the rate dollar no matter whether the review is positive or negative
5. the goal is honest feedback
6. only patrons can review, and the voucher expires after a 2 weeks
We were trying to eliminate some of the pitfalls of Yelp.
Take a look, and tell us what you think. Thanks.
http://www.ratediary.com