people that YELP are scumbags

google does not sell search result placement.

Of course they do. I used to help buy it for the giant corporation I used to work for.

do you mean ads or sponsored listings?

Google used to have a special "boxed" ad atop search results, paid and placed. I get the feeling Yelp at least claims they're doing something similar.

http://img529.imageshack.us/img529/6008/picture2m.png

right, i was referring to the actual results though. google has always been very good, much better than any other search engine i think, about clearly demarcating paid ads and actual results.

You can make a case for Google clearly demarcating paid content from search results, but Yelp can probably make a very similar case, at least if their model is basically what's depicted above (which may not be the case, for sure). In other words, Google isn't going to kettle Yelp's pot based on the aforementioned evidences.

how much do they pay for good reviews?

Yelp has contacted me NUMEROUS times asking for money, claiming they can "really help the business" with their listing placement, but it's some absurd amount of money they want. Fuck you Salvador @ Yelp, stop bothering me at work.

libcrypt, maybe you should do a little more than scan the links that have been posted...? i am not trying to be rude but i'm sincerely confused as to how even skimming the links would give you the result that you are coming up with here.

you know, people pay good money to google to get their results higher up in a search. they most coitainly sell search placements. big business, man.

(this coming from my former corporate days)

ugh. that's not really how it works, burt, but whatever!

(this coming from my current corporate days)

Well, not exactly, they separate the results a little. keyword bidding or whatever.

seo maneuverings are not really similar to the issues at hand being thrown around about yelp, i wish this topic hadn't been brought up with that ridiculous "google do no evil" thing! learning yelp's partnering with google now really makes it extremely, extremely unsurprising that they're now engaging in leg-breaking tactics and shitty, godawful customer service. everything they f'ing touch!

libcrypt, maybe you should do a little more than scan the links that have been posted...?

Feel free to make corrections as you find appropriate, schef.

i mentioned it upthread a couple of times but the whole cultish aspect of yelp is extremely creepy

seo, my old nemesis.

Next thing, you'll be saying that the whole notion of "cougaring" is crepey.

Can someone explain what's cultish about Yelp? I've never really used it, but it seems hard to believe that cultish behavior could form around rating local businesses?

Next you guys will tell me there's a hopstop cult.

I should prob have checked yelp before we used that real estate broker. It might have saved me a month and a lot of mishegas.

yeah librcypt the thing about those links is that no one (well, few people) is questioning the practice of sponsored results or similar well-known practices. it's that yelp is aggressively phoning local businesses and the ones that refuse to pay or complain are suddenly seeing an increase in negative reviews + several establishments stating that positive reviews are being removed until they agree to pay the monthly fee to "sponsor." it's quite possible that these are just busybody business owners banding together to make yelp look bad too, but they all seem to be well-reviewed establishments (3.5 stars or higher averages) so i feel like that's a lot less likely than their stories being true.

i admit that i've never cared for yelp, tho i use it as a search tool! too much of what was said upthread, "complaining how they can't order sushi in an italian restaurant."

most people use it as just a review site, but there's a very definite community that is vv serious about yelp and getting freebies because they are "yelpers" and who basically try to get other people into it. it's maybe more pyramid schemey than cultish but it's probably a little of both.

and i think most people who have reviewed items for a site that has some iffy qualities would just shrug their shoulders, but people who are hardcore into yelp basically act like scientologists when confronted with aspects of the site that are a little "off".

Yelp isn't cultish, at least apart from the weird cougar cult that's associated with it, but it is full of annoying attention whores, insofar as which makes Yelp no different than YouTube or Pitchfork or whatever. (xp)

Is this true? I'd love to see some forum discussions by Yelp cultists.

yeah what the hell is "yelp elite" and why do these ppl get freebies? that's just like, ok, why do you get a prize for needing your hand held the most? but i've never actually met a person like this...? that is lol that they really exist!

i think they mostly just hang out with each other, my friend who went to a yelp "elite" event said he had an okay time but it was totally strange and he'll never do it again.

that sounds so amazing. get him to write a story.

i feel like that's a commonality with a lot of big not-quite-message-board not-quite-social-network "community" sites actually...

Is this true? I'd love to see some forum discussions by Yelp cultists.

http://www.yelp.com/talk/sf/category/Site-Questions-and-Updates

schef, I think that the strongarm-via-negative-reviews thing, while it may be the case, has no substantive proof behind it. There are some folks unhappy that they happened to see negative reviews pop up, but how many folks approached by Yelp didn't? The other side of the coin, "pay-for-positive-placement", isn't substantively different from Google, at least how Google did it a few years ago.

justine a. says:

Hi Everyone =D

Like many people, I was curious on how to become a yelp elite. My problem is, when I type "Yelp Elite" into the search box, it brings me a bunch of conversations about yelp elites but no direct link to how to become a yelp elite.

While on search, I found the website direct link: http://www.yelp.com/elite

Hope you find it useful on your mission. Happy Yelping =D

(I'm a hospitality major and we had a discussion in class about yelp elites and I was curious on how to really become one. There are rumors that you need 300+ friends, x amount of reviews, etc. So I wanted to find out how to actually do it. Also, it would be nice to place on my resume yelp elite =D especially being a hospitality major and maybe some day being a concierge or travel agent.)

I think I may be wrong about this Yelp-not-a-cult thing.

Yeah... I had no idea about this dark underbelly side of Yelp. I always thought it was just a good place to get restaurant reviews :/

I don't know why I just put a side-ways ambiguously feeling smiley there. I blame all those forum messages I just read.

I had no idea that there were hospitality majors.

That's a special Yelp-major.

schef, I think that the strongarm-via-negative-reviews thing, while it may be the case, has no substantive proof behind it. There are some folks unhappy that they happened to see negative reviews pop up, but how many folks approached by Yelp didn't? The other side of the coin, "pay-for-positive-placement", isn't substantively different from Google, at least how Google did it a few years ago.

― ----> (libcrypt), Tuesday, February 24, 2009

ok but it's not just negative reviews mysteriously popping up left and right but the positive reviews disappearing that is a skeezy issue here -- i mean it's pretty difficult to prove those negative reviews aren't just asshole flacks for other restaurants etc just showing up to badmouth other businesses too! and quite frankly seeing the ppl who just yelp regularly on the ny site with things like "i can't believe this bbq restaurant would not serve me seitan -- 0 stars" it could be idiots who've just joined posting to every single place they've ever felt slighted by to up their review stats.

whatever, i mean i think the majority of human beings take yelp reviews with about as much OMG RESPECT as one would approach, say, amazon reviews so i don't think it'll ultimately hurt anyone but it is really uncomfortable imo. but i mean in my experience every business product google has absorbed recently has turned into a shitshow full of incompetence so you know not a surprise really. there isn't anything anyone can do about it but it makes me even less likely to patronize yelp for more information about some restaurant that i've read about in a more "reputable" source first. themoreyouknow.jpg

this new cult info is hilarious tho!!

sum that up in like, two sentences.

yelp sux. a lot.

yelp sux! but lol cults ppl r weird

themoreyounabisco.jpg

schef yr otm with the comparison to amazon reviews, but they also have the charming personal touch of youtube comments

also, the immediate response snap-judgment factor of... well, youtube comments

Yeah... I had no idea about this dark underbelly side of Yelp. I always thought it was just a good place to get restaurant reviews :/

― Mordy, Tuesday, February 24, 2009 9:08 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

yeah i just use it to find restaurants nearby

haha just saw that rottenneighbor thing posted upthread

spent about 2 minutes looking around and decided I probably wasn't gonna find anything better than this

okay re the cult shit, i wrote a handful of reviews on the l.a. yelp page awhile back and this yelp rep kept writing me over and over again, and these are the messages that remained in my inbox (i wrote reviews using the "face is everything" guide to the internet):

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I writing you mainly because I have this kind of awesome new job for a company you may have heard of. It's called Yelp. I have only had this job for two weeks. But it's a nice one. And my job is essentially to make sure the best writers/people are the ones who are active and happy and all that jazz.

So yeah. Basically this is just a note to say: you are one of the best writers in LA right now. I am happy you are writing. Please keep doing so. But if you choose to come out from the shadows, it would be cool to actually meet you at a happy hour or something! Bring a friend, bring your girlfriend (or boyfriend, if you are a lady, or a boy who likes boys) or just bring yourself...but they are generally fun.

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I just read one of your reviews that would have been perfect for the Review of the Day, but there are a lot of things that go into the ROTD picks, and its some weird algorithm that is sometimes full of shit, but I'm pretty sure that one of the factors is having a real photo (don't tell anyone that info came from me. But yeah.) So great writers like yourself will never find themselves on the front page.

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I wanted to let you know that you have been nominated for Elite status! I would love to pass on the nomination to HQ for approval, but one of the requirements is that you use your real first name and a pic. It'd be cool to put some actual elite yelpers in the Elite squad. Plus, you get a hoodie! Ha. No, but really. A HOODIE.

I don't get it...who was sending you those messages? where did you write your reviews originally?