YelpReviews 1,585

I am surprised Yelp's rating is low. I always use it when I am trying to find a new restaurant or even trying to decide what to try at a new place. Their "highlights" have kind of gone down hill. It's not so helpful, when you highlight words like "bar," "music," or "brunch." They used to be more specific recommendations for good dishes to order... hence only 4 stars. Also, did you notice how some of the reviews are hidden at the bottom... down to 3 stars now.

Yelp is a very dangerous way to advertise your business. They filter out really positive reviews so no one can see them, but they can leave in negative ones. No matter how legitimate the positive reviews may be, Yelp filters out 5-star reviews if the reviewer is not a very frequent reviewer / member. So Yelp is slanted toward people who review many businesses. If you're not a restaurant or other high volume business, you may not get tons of reviews and the people who review you may not be frequent Yelp reviewers. Yelp will not remove negative reviews, and you can't get them to unfilter the positive ones. If you get lucky with keeping positive reviews, good for you. But Yelp can really hurt your business if you're not careful. They also call you up and hound you to sign-up for expensive paid advertising and a larger profile, but I understand this doesn't help any, and they are completely insensitive to your experience on Yelp. They're money-grubbing, callous people who hide behind the law to protect how their automated filtering "algorithms" can ruin businesses. Be careful creating a profile on Yelp; it can do a lot more harm than good.

Yelp is a horrible site filled with entitled snobs who proudly wear their 'elite' badges, questionable business tactics and mob mindset.

I'll start with the admission that I was once an elite yelper. At first I really loved the site and getting involved with the yelp community though after some time I learned that yelp really isn't as wholesome as it would have the masses believe.

Basically what yelp has created is a platform for self important people (aka 'elites') to whine. There are some great elite reviewers out there who do take the time to write thought out and fair reviews however they make up the vast minority. Elites are the most entitled people in existence and use their badge which gives them immunity against the review filter to their advantage and will say anything they want about a business and usually top off the review with a obligatory catch phrase or inside joke. Aren't they clever? They do this because they can and will continue to do so because they get away with it.

Yelp also creates a mob mentality with it's monthly review challenges and events that the community managers create. This makes the elites feel so special as they get invites to the most exclusive parties where they are given free booze. This is a complete contradiction of one of yelp's terms of service because elites are being given freebies in exchange for writing reviews. If you take a close look at the terms of service that yelp itself posts on it's site you'll see that getting freebies in exchange for reviews is a big no no in yelp's eyes, though apparently it's ok when you're getting the freebies through yelp itself.

The whole issue of the extortion claims against yelp is a pretty hot button issue. Many business owners all across the globe have come forward claiming that a yelp rep offered to remove their negative reviews if they pay for advertising, The excuse many yelp elites will offer for this is that what the yelp rep is actually saying is that with the fee for advertising they can include the service of a yelp employee to personally go through your reviews and check for legitimacy outside of the automatic review filter. If this individual finds legit reviews caught in the filter these will be released. However this service costs yelp money so that is why this service can only be offered if the business coughs up dollars for advertising. Whether this is true or not is anyone's guess, I however find it hard to believe that billions of business owners are completely misunderstanding what is being told to them by the yelp sales reps.

Bottom line, yelp is a terrible site and does not provide honest feedback on businesses. It is a site used by many as a place to post their personal vendettas and in many cases flat out lies. I have abandoned yelp for good and suggest you do the same!

I am not a business owner, just a consumer. I thought this site was a great idea when I first found it, but it seems they have a hidden agenda that filters out many reviews, good and bad. I have written several objective reviews of businesses that I have patronized that are just discarded, so I quit wasting my time. Because they only post the reviews that THEY decide are acceptable, I do not just them as a reliable source of information.

I use Yelp pretty much everyday. I almost always have a great experience with it. My favorite thing about Yelp is that it almost always gives an accurate description of a restaurant/business. Whether the reviews are good or bad, I at least have a fair expectation of what I am getting into. But my favorite use for it is when I travel. When I go to cities I have not been to before, and I want to get the true local experience, I rely on the local reviews of bars and restaurants. I have discovered some amazing places that I never would have otherwise and generally avoid the tourist traps.

Look, I've been on Yelp since 2006. Like all crowdsourced opinion sites, it had merit when it first launched, and a couple of years thereafter. There was a cool community of like-minded people who enjoyed food and drink, and in the Talk section, we'd BS about where we ate, or joked around with each other.

Many of us got dates.

Then, as with all sites that have grown beyond their usefulness, they have degenerated into a cesspit of angry and elitist snots who think their opinion means something, or being a Yelper means anything to a business owner other than "This person is nothing but a headache."

With crowdsourcing, the more people that flood in, intelligence dips precipitously. The ability to write a cohesive sentence deteriorates. The Talk section becomes porn, and the business model essentially extorts money out of small businesses who struggle to get their feet off the ground.

What you won't see is anybody representing Yelp bothering to stop by here or any other site ratings to defend themselves. They do not care. Nobody has ever received a legitimate correspondence from Yelp that wasn't a canned response or form letter... written in that sickening, kintergarden-teacher, sing-songy prose, signed off by an obviously fake pseudonym like Dino, Bam-Bam or Scooby (I kid you not.)

They don't value the contributors, they don't value businesses. They are the worst exercise in Machiavellian corruption online, next to porn and outright scams.

Why did I give it two stars? I got laid a few times, so Yelp has its limited purpose.

I have nothing, but mad love for Yelp because a lot of my reviews have been well rated by users as an Elite member. Unlike many sites Yelp has gone not just local, but regional and internationally as well. It's worth setting up an account and also downloading their mobile app so you can have Yelp at your fingertips. I found a guy on here who fixed my washing machine who will be worth checking out on my reviews from Yelp. I have more than 200+ reviews on Yelp from local places to places I have been to in other states and cities that I have gone to in the past. It's worth checking out if you want to do something to help other consumers to get a good deal somewhere or saving them the added headache of some buisness not worth the time and money. I have 150% love for this site:-)

Lousy. Several problems:
1) They're terrible at screening out the fake reviewers (this becomes obvious on some of the small business reviews)
2) The number of genuine reviews for businesses in my area is pathetically low, making reliability a real issue.
3) They send me a lot of junk mail - it's not malicious, but I'd rather see less of it

If you want an example of how weak they are, check out their rating of Autocare in Richardson, TX These dudes are scammers who sell overpriced car maintenance policies via illegal spam phone calls and misleading snail mail (I have a gem in my hands right now). They have an F rating from the Dallas BBB, yet they're 5 stars on Yelp. That should tell you everything you need to know about the quality of Yelp reviews.