Yelp Sucks

Has anyone else had Yelp filter almost half their reviews?

I own a small business and right now we have 21 visible/recommended reviews and 18 sitting in “not recommended.” They’re all positive and from real customers, and some even have photos.

Yelp basically told me their system automatically filters reviews based on different signals, and one thing that seems to matter is whether the reviewer has a lot of other activity/reviews on Yelp.

What’s frustrating is that while so many of our positive reviews are getting filtered, all of our negative reviews have made it through.

One of the negative reviews was also factually wrong. They said there were 3 people working when we literally never have 3 people working at once.

I even compared my page to a few similar businesses in my area, and their filtered review numbers were way lower than mine, which is part of why this feels so off.

I reached out to Yelp because the number of filtered reviews already seemed really high, and after I brought it up, I noticed about 8 more positive reviews get moved into “not recommended.”

I don’t pay for Yelp ads or have a paid account. I’m not saying I know why it’s happening, I just genuinely don’t understand how almost half our reviews are getting filtered while every negative one stays visible.

Has anyone else dealt with this? Did you ever get a real answer from Yelp or figure out how to escalate it?

Some Yelpers don't even have one! Others are humerous, foody related or just some inspiring quote.

Do you change yours frequently?

Do you even care?

Are you willing to share yours?

Maybe this question will motivate you and my work will be done! 😂

Or are we just going to keep letting someone spam useless annoying shit posts day after day?