Their sales tactics are borderline abusive, too. They will hunt you down forever until you sign a package with them, and they give you zero time to think about whether their ad package (which only works on their site and has a super high CPC compared to AdWords) is right for your business.
They need to go away
This is false. Source: I worked there, on search. You cannot pay to rank higher in search.
You can argue whatever you want about your former employers but convincing SBOs that Yelp aren't extortionist scumbags based on this detail is not going to fly.
Source: I work directly with maid services and trust in Yelp is at an all time low. Literally the first comment when they are mentioned in our private group is something along the lines of "Die in a grease fire" or "F*ck Yelp". And this is from some of the nicest ladies (mostly) that you'll meet.
No, it's a common rumor. Repeating rumors does not make them true, and this "knowledge" is completely false.
I have no financial or business interest in Yelp. I just don't enjoy seeing my own work, and the work of my colleagues, disparaged by completely unsubstantiated rumor mongering.
Yelp is also terrible for owners who purchase a business and are strong armed into doing business with yelp on order to remove all the previous bad ratings, description, contact info, etc. (Source: bought 1 bar in LA and 2 in LV)
ads from paying businesses list higher than search results; this effectively means you pay to be "indexed" higher
Yelp is weird because when it's good, the reviews are great and super insightful. But you don't necessarily get a great picture of the area. (My typical use case I showing up in randomtown, USA for 24-48 hours.)
4sq's venue ratings is hit or miss. I've definitely found some good places to eat at (that I would've otherwise not found), but I've also eaten at a ton of places that are highly rated but nothing special. For the latter, perhaps they are good relative to the immediate area, but not really that good.
In cities like SF, NYC, etc, I've had much better luck with recommendations from Foursquare and Yelp. Especially with new places.
Somewhat surprisingly this is the case for a lot of travel POI type sites (hotel referral commission rates are so high). Even a site like Kayak gets a significant portion of its revenue from hotel bookings.
While other things may be fudged for profitability, there was a clear line between content and advertising we didn't cross.
There are quite a few TA people on HN. Maybe one will chime in?
TA is definitely my go-to app when I go places; it is pretty good both as a consumer and as a listee.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/TripAdvisorInsights/n684/tripadv...