Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum banner
Cancel
Create thread New Forums

Fake Yelp Reviews

Jump to Latest
1 - 20 of 21 Posts
M

Maverick71

· Registered
Joined
·
19 Posts
Discussion starter · #1 ·
Lately quite a few of my colleges are getting unreal amounts of Yelp reviews. I'm talking about nearly 100 in a matter of months. Ive heard there are 2 ways this happens.
!. paying an "online reputation" company to post fake reviews
2. Paying Yelp to allow these fake reviews and allow the real ones to stick and not be filtered.

I find these tactics unprofessional and straight up cheating. I hope the consumers are aware that Yelp is no longer a legitimate source for client testimonials.

I've tried paying Yelp to boost my ranking but when I cancelled, they purposely buried my page.

What has your experience with Yelp and fake reviews been?
Do you know any contractors who pay for these BS reviews?
Does it piss you off that they are getting more marketing hits by lying?
 
#4 ·
Maverick71 said:
Lately quite a few of my colleges are getting unreal amounts of Yelp reviews. I'm talking about nearly 100 in a matter of months. Ive heard there are 2 ways this happens.
!. paying an "online reputation" company to post fake reviews
2. Paying Yelp to allow these fake reviews and allow the real ones to stick and not be filtered.

I find these tactics unprofessional and straight up cheating. I hope the consumers are aware that Yelp is no longer a legitimate source for client testimonials.

I've tried paying Yelp to boost my ranking but when I cancelled, they purposely buried my page.

What has your experience with Yelp and fake reviews been?
Do you know any contractors who pay for these BS reviews?
Does it piss you off that they are getting more marketing hits by lying?
Click to expand...
I would think that any yelp users, and practically everyone else, would know that they are fake. A painter with a hundred reviews in the last few months, all 5 stars? Fake. Faking reviews is stupid, and they are usually easy to spot. Honest reviews from real customers are obvious. The smart way to get reviews is to tell your best customers that you would appreciate a nice 5 star review on yelp if they have time. That's it. You don't hammer them, you just mention it and move on. It's also easier than faking reviews.
 
#7 ·
You dont have to pay to play on yelp. If you have a client create an account and they only leave a review on your biz it will get filtered, esp if its a 5 star.

If you want it to stick it is better for them to review a couple restraunts, and when they leave a review on your biz to mention someone by name, a day of the week or the color used on something. Specifics will go a long way for making a review stick.
 
#8 ·
Not just Yelp. Yelp at least filters something.
Homestars here in Toronto is the worst!

There are companies in Homestars with 500 even more than a thousand reviews,
with an average of 9.9 out of 10.
Every single one of these companies with the hundreds of almost perfect reviews are paid advertisers.

The problem is, they portray themselves as legitimate and neutral
and they are on first page of Google.

I think time will come when consumers will blank all of them.
 
#10 · (Edited by Moderator)
Manuel.Rocha said:
Hey OP,

I see this common topic talked about on many forums.

Don't worry about it. Acknowledge and move on.

Don't spend your time or even thinking about things that will not serve you and your business.
Click to expand...
Totally agree. Keep plugging away on what is working for you.

You can spend time trying to get them found out or you can focus on being a badass and dominating on your strengths.

That is unless......your main source of business is Yelp??
 
#11 ·
Cid-87 said:
You can spend time trying to get them found out or you can focus on being a badass and dominating on your strengths.
Click to expand...
I have never seen "Yelp Fraud" as bad as what OP describes...it does happen. And I agree that trying to get another company busted is a total waste of time. Any time you spend trying to police Yelp (or other review sites) is almost always better spend working on YOUR Business....since that's the only business that you can control.
 
#13 ·
Yelp has called as much as four times in a day. They will allow lies and falsehoods to be posted about you, even if you can prove it wrong. There's no way to contact anyone except by reporting the post, but you can do it only once and you get a reply that they don't take sides, without contacting you or having any dialog, and it's a no reply email address.

Strange way to run a business. There have been numerous complaints about the same thing, I don't know how they get away with it. Then they call and try to sell you advertising! Maybe it's supposed to make the bad reviews go away? Hopefully the smarter customers can read between the lines.
 
#14 ·
I dont know how many different Internet service there are these days. I am not on any of them. I am stubborn and I hate how the internet and the television shows make the skills of our profession a fun hobby. Its a friggin joke.

I advertise in local newspapers and it not very good but what I see tells me going on the internet would be 10x worse. Nearly........ not all but.... 20 out of 25 is a disrespectful person. Either they want to supply materials or get you to provide a list for them to shop, or avoid a permit, or comment how they would do it themselves but are too busy, whatever...... Your just a handyperson they can go on craigslist pimp it out to anyone. Your prices are outrageous.....

I have my referrals and there are never enough but the lack of respect seems like it would only be compounded by net services.
 
#15 ·
I hear ya Tom. But those types of customers aren't ready for you yet. Once they get the lowball work done they will be a little more open to more professional work. At least most folks. Some will never learn and the thought of saving a nickle will over power all other considerations.
 
#16 ·
I would not worry about it as those reviews will get filtered. Yelp is actually one of the hardest review sites to game. They also note your IP, so if someone in another state leaves a review, it will get filtered. It can be done but you have to know how to do it properly.

The other reason a lot of real reviews get filtered is because it's your customers first review on Yelp. A lot of accounts with only 1 review looks unnatural. To bypass that filter the reviewer needs to have a minimum of 5 reviews posted previously. If your customer has never left a review on Yelp you're better off getting them to leave one on G+ or FB.

Yelp is starting to call people out on fake reviews when possible. They are also looking for a buyer $3.5 billion estimate.
 
#18 ·
goldnote said:
I would not worry about it as those reviews will get filtered. Yelp is actually one of the hardest review sites to game. They also note your IP, so if someone in another state leaves a review, it will get filtered. It can be done but you have to know how to do it properly.

The other reason a lot of real reviews get filtered is because it's your customers first review on Yelp. A lot of accounts with only 1 review looks unnatural. To bypass that filter the reviewer needs to have a minimum of 5 reviews posted previously. If your customer has never left a review on Yelp you're better off getting them to leave one on G+ or FB.

Yelp is starting to call people out on fake reviews when possible. They are also looking for a buyer $3.5 billion estimate.
Click to expand...
My GF owns a successful bakery, easy 30-60 orders a week which could potentially be a lot of reviews. She never pushes reviews, no time, doesn’t want to harass customers etc. Few months ago a new bakery opened up In town so to be proactive she asked customer to write reviews. Think she had about 200 reviews within a month between google, yelp, Angies list and a few bakery web sites.

Yelp calls her to advertise because she “Had” a lot of reviews, turns out yelp removed the reviews because the people posting were not members, members who did not post reviews often (whatever that means) and because to many reviews came in a short period of time.
It doesn’t take rocket science to verify the reviews; instead of doing their homework Yelp just deleted the reviews.

Why would anyone want to do business with a company that doesn’t know the difference between real and fake reviews
 
#19 ·
Sounds like they had an issue with the velocity of the reviews left. She went from none for how ever long to a lot in a matter of a couple months.

Even Search Engines take velocity into effect with backlinks. You can't go from 5 backlinks a month to 5,000 links all the sudden. It looks unnatural and this is how many people try to manipulate rankings. Whether it's with reviews or links.

G+ reviews are the most important reviews for obvious reasons. Does she rank in the 7/5/3 pack map listings?
 
Discussion starter · #20 ·
There are a few issues at play with Yelp.

1. Fake reviews.
Painters in our area are paying people to post fake reviews. They pay people they hire through craigslist $5-$10 per review. Once the review posts they pay the "reviewer" through paypal.

2. Reputation Management
That's just a fancy term for Fake reviews on a large scale. Businesses pay these companies $100- $2500 per month to post fake reviews. These are outsourced to places like India where they have hundreds of computers in an office. cranking out fake reviews.

3. Yelp "ads"
When you pay Yelp every month, they keep all the good reviews, filter the bad ones and allow the fake ones to be posted.If you stop paying Yelp a ton the good reviews get filtered.

Personally, we take Yelp with a grain of salt. Yelp will never make or break our business. The people who pay Yelp and post fake reviews won't last long. I get plenty referrals without Yelp.

Google "Yelp Fake Reviews" and "Yelp Extortion"
 
1 - 20 of 21 Posts
About this Discussion
20 Replies
16 Participants
Last post:
MOTB
Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum
posts
3.6M
members
169K
Since
2003
A forum community dedicated to professional construction and remodeling contractors. Come join the discussion about the industry, trades, safety, projects, finishing, tools, machinery, styles, scales, reviews, accessories, classifieds, and more!
Full Forum Listing
Explore Our Forums
General Discussion Tools & Equipment Business Painting & Finish Work Decks & Fencing