Protecting Yourself Against Yelp and Other Online Review Sites
Online, Reputation is everything!
A wise man once said, “Steal my money and I can earn more but let no man steal my good name.”
In today’s world where anyone or anything can be easily “Googled”, hard earned success can be wiped out overnight if companies fail to actively manage their reputation. After all, online, we “are” what people say we are!
Take a minute and do a Google search for your company name, your domain name, and your personal name. What do those results on the first page or two in Google look like? Hopefully it’s all good, but there could even be whole sites devoted to the myriad ways in which you “suck”.
If you find negative listings within the first few pages of Google, it’s very likely that many of your customers are finding them too. And that will to have a dramatic effect on whether or not they decide to do business with you.
In this content rich video you will learn how to:
- STRATEGICALLY HANDLE NEGATIVE SOCIAL MEDIA ATTACKS
- QUASH NEGATIVE RESULTS
- DOMINATE RANKINGS
- KEEP YOUR NOSE CLEAN
- THE BEST DEFENSE IS A GOOD OFFENSE
- CASE STUDY MAKEOVERS
Few things are more important to your continued online success than your company’s brand. And your brand can be quickly destroyed if you’re not controlling what customers are presented with when they Google your company.
If you are ready to take command of the conversation, engage with your ideal target market, and build expert credibility online, the this video is right for you!
For businesses with NO Reputation, http://ReputationChallenge.com
For businesses with a BAD Reputation, stay tuned for a new AWESOME resource!
I sued Yelp last week for taking ownership of bad reviews and then selling them for money, THUS making Yelp the employer and/or respondeat superior of the defamer. Yelp is upset stating that I am pleading around the protection of the Communications act which they believe gives them immunity to do anything to anyone.
.
They aren't immune to creative suits. There are many ways around it. One in particular is that they specifically claim in their title, "Real People, Real Reviews". I say, Prove it!!! That's false advertising. Now, if they are committing false advertising to fraudulently induce you to believe the reviews, then they aren't necessarily protected because the fraud waives the protection… but good luck finding an attorney to argue it.
On or about April 5, 2013, Tabatha J of Eugene Oregon, acting as an agent and or employee of Yelp, Inc., and using the anonymous name of “Tabitha J” of “Eugene Oregon” defamed plaintiff by stating that he
a)operated a business by way of a dishonest scheme:
b)a scheme for making money by dishonest means,
c)tricking somebody: to obtain money or other goods from somebody by dishonest means,
d)that plaintiff had taken a bribe from a business owner to take his guests to the business owner’s establishment,
e)that plaintiff had been arrested,
f)showed up late,
g)had staged customers as part of this fraudulent enterprise,
h)that his transport was dilapidated
i)and/or dangerous ,
j)that it had a large opening which pours in cold air,
k)that plaintiff was so ignorant of the operation of the bus that he pressed the H for horn instead of turning on the Heater,
l) that there was broken glass and
m) stains on the seats,
n)that he did not know where he was going on the tour,
o)that plaintiff was late,
p)that plaintiff barely knew anything about the area, and also
q)defendant Tabitha J demanded that other people post defamations and
r)that people who had already purchased a spot on the tour should breach their agreement with plaintiff,
s)that plaintiff was rude, and
t)lied about his methods for acquiring work in the entertainment industry, among other defamations and bad acts by defendant.
you seriously ROCK!! reading this made my day
Thanks!
I speak to countless people about there hate for yelp, hiding all the good reviews then there phone rings,
can you help out anyone in any state???
Not to mention deleting your yelp account from what I have read, is impossible unless they do it
am I right?
WOW..I am SO thankful I found your site!! We are a small business and received a call today from a Yelp rep to generate better business. Anyone that knows me, knows I am a HUGE researcher on-line for anything so I did some digging on Yelp…HOLY COW!! I had an appt set up in a few days to do some business. Now I look forward to telling this guy what he can do with his company
I have to figure out how to delete my account now..Can anyone be honest these days?!
Thank you again and I have your website bookmarked
To help improve your online reputation contact an established Wikipedia Editor working for Wikipedia since 2005 with over 80,000 edits and a strong reputation with Wikipedia Admins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ronz
Services provided:
Online Reputation Monitoring
Creation and managing your personal page on worlds largest free encyclopedia (Wikipedia)
Making sure your image is maintained online through my support and network of editors
Competition monitoring and attack strategy to create issues on your completions wiki-page
[email protected] for more info on package details.
I started an advertising campaign with Yelp and had the ad run for about 10 days. It seemed very simple but it is not. They make claims that your exposure will increase drastically and drive more customers to your business. During this campaign they give you updates, for instance "A man in his 40s located in Houston just got directions to your business". This gave me hope, but it was a false sense of hope. I am a startup so I ask every single customer how they heard about us. 99% of new business is from people driving by the B&M location or from a referral. Yelp was the first online marketing I did and I received ONE customer from Yelp. In their defense advertising is not a science, however the claims made did not translate into an increase in business as stated. The most frustrating thing was how the campaign is structured. They have you pick a daily maximum amount you want to allot toward your ad campaign. I chose to do $5/day so that after ten days I would only be out $50. I was going to track this after a few days of activity; only to not be able to login to my account. I requested a password reset be emailed to me and it simply was not making it into my inbox or my junk mail. I send an email with no response. Finally, I found a phone number and called in to get my password reset. The lady on the phone was very pleasant and sent me the email which made it straight to my inbox. I was able to login and discovered the marketing campaign had run over $100! I asked the representative what happened and she explained that they take the $5/day and multiply that by 30 days in a month, so the overall monthly budget is $150. So it is not $5/day it is $150/month and they can use that $150 up in a day if that's how many clicks you receive. I was less than pleased but was told there was nothing they could do as services were rendered. I am writing this review to warn others of what you can expect. This is not the end of the world for me but I hope that others have a better experience. Good luck all!
P.S. I will be trying Google PPC next as that seems to be a more cost effective option.
Ted
Home Stars is Killing my business. the top Home Inspectors are the low ballers. I've been on HStars since 2009 for 2 yrs I was #1 with organic (Not Solicited) client reviews. I was soon out paced by low cost inspectors with slick websites. Last year a new company almost outpaced the top rated inspector simply by being cheaper than most others, he was also a paid member.
Hard to compete with inspectors who are in a race to the bottom in Fees and Service. I forgot to mention new inspectors are claiming certifications (CAN NACHI) in things like mold detection, IAQ, IR, drone inspections, etc.
YUP. YELP SUCKS. Not only for the business users but for the consumers as well. I suspected they gave false praises and witnesses and confirmed it when I got burned and found the same good reviewers appeared, with virtually similar praises, for numerous vendors, some so separated geographically as to make it physically impossible. Go figure. This is out and out fraud and has to be prosecuted and the perpetrators convicted and locked up. However, no doubt, they may well be beyond the borders of the U.S.
Yelp sucks!!
Yelp seems to want to hurt businesses and not help them.I have some negative reviews and I can only verify one as a real customer.
I also have several positive reviews but not one of them are showing up on their so called recommended reviews. I have verified through our software that all the positive reviews are legitimate customers. The negative reviews can not be verified as customers that actually used my service with the exception of one.
I normally wouldn't care but this is splashed all over the internet and is reflecting my company unfairly.Hopefully other business owners see this and we can take a stance and seek legal action.
[…] wasn’t newsworthy. “Ronz” notably doesn’t disclose any clients, though comments across the internet suggest the user has been offering “online reputation monitoring” […]