Pierre Zarokian, CEO of Reputation Stars, on How to Fight Yelp
Yelp was created to try and help users familiarize themselves with amazing spots in a city they thought they were familiar with. It used the opinions of friends to try and source these recommendations. At a small scale, this worked very well. Reviews were honest and people used the check-in feature to add authenticity. As Yelp scaled, it failed to deal with the underlying of problem of...
Read MoreYelp Using Negative Reviews for Sales
Yelp, the online review database that has become an ubiquitous part of the Web, is being accused of shielding companies who pay premiums from bad reviews. Yelp’s sales team has been using poor reviews as a sales tool, implying that businesses can pay their way out of hot water caused by user reviews. Since 2008, some 2,000 complaints have been filed by businesses and consumers. Yelp also has...
Read MoreYelp going after Fake Reviews
Yelp is one of the most important destinations on the Web. Its database of user-generated reviews can offer potential shoppers a quality source to vet a business before they shop. But faked reviews are threatening to dilute that landscape, eating away at the purity that a service like Yelp needs in order to be successful. In response, the company has announced new and aggressive steps to remove...
Read MoreNew Court Ruling Requires Yelp to Surrender User Data
A ruling from a Virginia Court of Appeals has rendered anonymous reviews unprotected, at least in Virginia. The popular online review website Yelp is at the center of litigation regarding the legitimacy of anonymous reviews. On one side is Yelp, whose terms of service explicitly ban users from posting faked reviews that are negative or positive. On the other side are the businesses hurt by these...
Read MoreYelp Lawsuit seeks to get Yelpers paid for reviews
A class action lawsuit filed in California seeks to get Yelpers paid for reviews. The lawsuit claims that Yelp runs a cult like environment and instead of paying the reviewers, it offers them badges, titles such as “Elite”, praise, free liquor and food, and free promotional Yelp attire, such as red panties with ‘Make Me Yelp!’ We spoke to one of the plaintiffs, Lilly Jueng,...
Read MoreYelp Sues Law Firm for Posting Fake Reviews
McMillan Law Group in San Diego has been sued for posting fake reviews on Yelp. McMillan apparently posted several reviews from the same IP address in their office. To their defense they claim that they had invited their clients to a party at their office and asked them to leave reviews from their computers. One of their clients has publicly confirmed this. McMillan also claims that the lawsuit...
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