Yelp

I regret ever making a Yelp page and I want absolutely nothing to do with the platform. We are rated 4.9 on Google but 2.8 on Yelp! They hide all of our 5 star reviews but let the 1 stars from new accounts stick. For this reason, I don’t go on their website, I don’t use their app for personal use, and try to avoid ever clicking any of their links.

Well now all of a sudden we’ve gotten 2 message leads in the last week. I responded to one which of course had no response to us. The second one I just ignored because I don’t even know if these leads are real. It feels like more of an attempt to get me using their platform than anything. Also, if I am being honest, not sure I want a customer from Yelp who clearly sees our low rating there. I wish I could just delete my entire profile there and move on. And what pisses me off mostly is when they show on search results saying “Updated August 2026” when I haven’t even been on the account at all. All of this is very frustrating.

Have you ever unexpectedly met another Yelper stranger while patronizing a business? How'd it go? Any interesting stories?

I thought Google and Amazon were a pain with all the sponsored search results, but I just searched on "carpenter" on Yelp and got SIXTEEN sponsored results (which on a PC is like 6 pages of crap before the actual listing). Are there enough brain-dead people out there that actually mindlessly fall for the sponsored results for Yelp to seemingly render the site almost useless? Why would anybody pick a sponsored result? I remember a podcast years ago where the head of Google search was interviewed, and she said their internal studies showed the sponsored vendors were the worst.

Really interesting video from renowned marketer Wes McDowell. His argument against advertising with Yelp is the high cost per lead

Paid clicks and impressions on Yelp are often reported to be significantly more expensive than alternatives like Google Ads or Meta.

I saw an earlier post from a Yelp Elite that was quickly deleted. They were defending Yelp’s predatory business practices despite never doing business with them. Should this be allowed? It clearly represents a conflict of interest.

These people wouldn’t defend Yelp if they weren’t getting some kind of kickback from them. How can anyone defend a company that has a 2-star rating on its own platform with more than 16,000 reviews? ttps://m.yelp.com/biz/yelp-san-francisco

A company that preys and mom and pop business to appease WallStreet.

A company with 6,000+ 1-star reviews on TrustPilot? More than 1,600 complaints from Business Owners in the last 3 years on the BBB website?

I would be ashamed to work for “free” for such a scandalous organization. How much does it really cost to go to dinner or a DJ class? Is it worth cheating the small businesses that make America run?