They say that, but they decide which reviews are legitimate, and they're more likely to decide that positive reviews are legitimate, if a business is paying them.

On the other hand, my experience pre-pandemic was that Yelp had the only reliable database of local USA businesses' hours of operation (there is probably now no way to know other than phone calls).

In fact, I know a business who complained he got more calls from Google trying to update their maps database than he got from real customers!

So THAT'S what all the humans at Google are up to, while their bots are busy locking legitimate user and developer accounts!

https://ai.googleblog.com/2018/05/duplex-ai-system-for-natur...

How cute. You think that these are humans calling from google. No biological human has represented google by phone since the 90s. It is all androids and chatbots.

Do you have any evidence of that?

I have several unsolicited 5-star reviews for my business that have been flagged as "not currently recommended." Yet despite fighting off their sales reps for years my business is the best rated business in my city in my category.

Based on my experience, the Yelp hate is just sour grapes from businesses that are reluctant to bend over backwards to make every customer happy.

Not too many business that do that stay in business for long. "The customer is always right" if not taken with many grains of salt will bury you when you get just the right customer (who will directly reference the mantra).

One key to making it work is to invest in long term relationships with your clients. A transaction with a client you have an established relationship with is much less risky than a transaction with a stranger.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149078

Not sure if the policies have changed since then, but I am inclined to believe him.

But I second this. Yelp won't remove legitimate reviews, even for paying businesses. You can pay for priority in search listings and to show up in the Similar and Nearby sections, but that won't help you get negative reviews removed.

As I speak, there are 2.5 star restaurants being promoted in every search I do for nearby restaurants. If Yelp removed the negative reviews as people claimed, they wouldn't be at 2.5 stars right now.

(It's true that some individual sales reps claim Yelp will do this if you pay them, but those are individual sales reps trying to hit a sales or bonus goal.)

On the business side all I’ve heard from Yelp Business was that they will let more bad reviews slide thus lowering your rating if you do not pay for their protection racket. Also, paying them gives good reviews that would otherwise be rejected now allowed as acceptable.

Maybe those businesses were not paying for the “premium” service tier that includes Yelp sending a photographer to your business to then create a video for you with an annual plan.

I have managed restaurants and talked to several Yelp reps. It’s difficult to trust online reviews.

That's definitely wrong, as my Yelp profile has zero friends and no profile picture, and all of my reviews are still up, when viewing the businesses logged out, across multiple devices using different IP addresses.

I have managed restaurants and talked to several Yelp reps.

I have spoken to restaurants on behalf of the Chamber of Commerce investigating this issue, and found no evidence that these claims are true.

I've had my legitimate Yelp reviews shadow-removed (I could see the review on the computer it was made on, but not others). So they absolutely did at one point remove/hide reviews.

-person with actual experience

It might be true, but a claim that undermines the entire business.. warrants at least a link or an anecdote.

Yelp etc needs the average review to be somewhat useful so people actually trusts the Star ratings. However, they can still accomplish that while distorting a significant number of reviews.

The simple fact Yelp lets companies pay to highlight a favorable review is IMO enough to destroy their credibility. Worse they directed customers through GrubHub for an unearned commission which is as far as I can tell simple fraud. But, that’s not what people are alleging here.