How do reviews get filtered on yelp

No matter what you do, Yelp is still going to not recommend reviews it considers spam—whether or not they really are. Yes, it seems obvious. But in the long-term, negative reviews need to be drowned out with good ones, and you always need to keep your reviews up-to-date.

So you need to get as many 5-star reviews as frequently as possible. And how are you supposed to do that? The first step to earning 5-star reviews is helping your customer as much as possible.

Yes, that seems obvious, but you need to do everything in your power to serve them the best experience possible before asking for a review not after! If they say 3 stars or fewer, ask them for feedback.

Negative reviewers can be the best sources of constructive feedback, and sometimes you can turn negative reviewers into really positive ones.

The longer you wait, the more likely they are to forget your business and the less willing they are to write a review. There are several reasons for this.

Second, ask customers for reviews earlier rather than later. The longer you wait, the more they forget you, and the less willing they are to write a review. Third, prospective customers looking at your Yelp rating want to see that your reviews are fresh and up-to-date. That means weekly or even daily, not monthly. Now you might be thinking this all sounds like a lot of time and effort.

Rising Star Reviews can help you pre-screen, request reviews, and follow up with customers on a regular basis. More importantly, we can help you increase your online review ratings, which helps you attract more customers and raise your prices. Check out our free day trial. Start getting 5-star reviews today. Easy in-app cancellation any time. The user has been inactive long enough to be considered a dead account.

The user only posts positive or negative reviews. The review is too positive or negative. The review is too short or vague. The review came as part of a big burst of reviews. The user has been inactive long enough to be considered a dead account Yelp trusts active users over accounts that stay dormant for long periods of time.

The review is too positive or negative Fake reviews tend to be overly-positive toward the business that paid for them and overly-negative toward competitors. No conflicts of interest, things should be unbiased and objective. Make sure your contributions are relevant and appropriate for the Yelp community. The review came as part of a big burst of reviews If your business suddenly receives a big spike in reviews all at once, it can either look like you paid for a bunch of fake reviews or your competitor paid to have you review bombed.

Step 2 Engage them That means you should follow them, compliment them, and add them as a friend. Step 4 Ask the reviewer to complete their Yelp profile Including their profile picture, description, and connection to Facebook.

Step 5 Offer a reward If they go to all this trouble for you, you should make it worth their while. Also, encourage customers to post photos. So what protects a small business from filter spam from competitors or one time haters, also prevents local businesses from turning good experiences into good reviews — they often are filtered out.

At Vivial, we feel your pain. Over half of our good reviews have been filtered out. So how do you get legitimate reviews passed the Yelp review filter so customers can see real feedback?

Vivial can help. One must understand the challenge to overcome it. So the first step is understanding the Yelp review filter and its purpose — to filter out fake reviews. Yelp takes a look at a variety of criteria, and will generally filter out reviews that:.

Note how these filtered reviews exactly fit the criteria with the exception of the one middle review from someone who had 12 reviews but 0 friends. Yelp also filters out other reviews that are less obvious which may be a function of the reviewer. Most business owners are frustrated with the Yelp review filter because it also filters out the positive reviews. We at Vivial tell our clients to request reviews from customers, their email list, people who tweet at them, etc.

On one hand, you want to generate positive reviews to help your social reputation management. On the other, you are probably frustrated when so many of them get filtered out. There are some easy things you can do to help reviews go through the dreaded Yelp filter. Interact with the Yelp reviewer or Yelp review in any way possible:. These are things completely under your control and you should do for every positive review.

You should also have someone else in your organization do them. The more the merrier. There are also things you can ask your customers to do to create the type of profile that would not get filtered. If Yelp is trying to filter reviews from not real people as spam, help your customers through the filter by instructing them to complete their profile and start leaving reviews regularly.

Ask them to invest in creating a real Yelp footprint — and get the benefit of the leading local review site. I have left over reviews, have over 50 friends and I have a realistic review distribution between 1 and 5 stars. As a result, not only do my reviews never get filtered, but even better, my Yelp reviews always appear on the front page.

The Yelp Review Filter is just one of many mechanisms intended to assure the integrity of reviews on Yelp. Their primary reason for being is to make money. If one is inclined to think Yelp is evil, there are many other better examples which some might consider inconsistent with review integrity :. The problem is that the Yelp Review Filter is built on rules or algorithms which may occasionally register a false positive. Who can say. The ServiceMagic blog has a great interview with Dr. Justin Bazan who is a top business on Yelp and has even been pointed to in Yelp presentations as a model.

Given Park Slope Eye has been cited in Yelp presentations as a shining example, this must be an approved technique. Bazan and Mat give us some good ideas.

Like many of their efforts the rhetoric and execution are not a perfect fit. Privacy Policy. Upgrade your marketing plan. Learn More.