Fake Yelp Reviews Ruin Businesses

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Author: Reputation Armor

There is no doubt that online reviews help consumers make good choices and informed decisions when buying products and service online and offline. There needs to be services like Yelp to allow people to post their experiences with local national businesses, but there must be a better way to control how they validate online reviews (Good and Bad).

Problem With Yelp #1

Yelp cannot and does not verify the true identity of users that post reviews about businesses. Yelp also can't verify whether or not a review is true or false. We cannot expect them to have a system to verify each review for accuracy, which is impossible. Yelp can however have a verification process that verifies the identity of those that leave reviews and only allow the business reviewed access to this information. Yelp could use the same tactics as Craigslist.com uses to verify ID's by using a phone/pin number verification. This would make a yelp reviewer verify their ID by phone and prove they are real and unique to that 1 phone number. This would also cut back on multiple accounts used by competitors to bash each other.

Problem With Yelp #2

Yelp seems to NOT allow new positive reviews to appear on businesses, but allow all negative reviews to show up quickly. My opinion is I do not know if Yelp.com actually does this or not, I do know that I have had dozens of businesses mention this to me. Could it be that "the business" is using the same IP address to post fake reviews about themselves? Sure. But what about when I tried to leave a review for a business that was a client and since we have done "Business" together I wanted to leave a review and say that they were a pleasure to do business with??? My review never showed up! Was this company the target of a Yelp conspiracy? I am not sure. I am sure that yelp needs to somehow change up their business model a bit.

I don't hate Yelp and I think that it is a great website and they are very successful. I do believe that Yelp's business model is hurting other businesses.

If you are having issues with Yelp Reviews contact Reputation Armor and see if we can help you.

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