

YELP REVIEWER UPDATE
Review averages and counts update automatically as new reviews come in.īusinesses must qualify to receive the coveted ‘People Love Us on Yelp’ sticker.
YELP REVIEWER CODE
Just copy and paste the HTML code associated with each badge into the site. Yelp offers several badges that you can put on your site, which link to your business profile. The difference may be slight, but it’s worth noting. Give customers a ‘heads-up.’ Instead of saying “Write a review about our business on Yelp,” instead say, “Check us out on Yelp.” The first is a solicitation while the latter is a “heads up” - an FYI that raises awareness.There are several ways to get reviews - some of which Yelp itself recommends - despite its policy forbidding review solicitation. Getting Yelp reviews is well-worth the effort, if you believe the results of a 2011 study by Michael Luca, a professor at Harvard Business School, which found that a one-star increase in a Yelp rating led to a corresponding 5-9 percent jump in revenue.
YELP REVIEWER SOFTWARE
On average, the software recommends about three-quarters of the reviews that users submit, even with those safeguards in place. “e have the unfortunate task of trying to help our users distinguish between real and fake reviews … the harsh reality is that solicited reviews often fall somewhere in between.” “Solicited reviews are less likely to be recommended by our automated software,” Yelp said. The software looks at different signals, including various measures of quality, reliability, and user activity, and is attuned to flag fake or solicited reviews. It’s a bit of “give to get.” In looking out for its users’ best interests, Yelp is protecting its own.Īnother aspect of Yelp’s review policy has to do with the way its software algorithm determines which reviews appear on the site and in what order. If consumers don’t trust that Yelp will deliver authentic reviews, they may deem the site unreliable and not return - something that would adversely affect the company’s bottom line. “Over time, these self-selected reviews create bias in the business listing - a bias that savvy consumers can smell from a mile away.”


“Let’s face it, most business owners are only going to ask for reviews from their happy customers, not the unhappy ones,” Yelp said. Yelp defends its policy by saying that review solicitation could lead to mistrust, due to the likelihood that businesses would only encourage positive reviews from their customers. The fact that Yelp discourages businesses from asking their customers for reviews may seem counter-intuitive since the site’s popularity is built on users reading and writing reviews about their favorite local businesses. In this article, I summarize Yelp’s review policy and provide a list of ways to get customer reviews that won’t place you in violation. Basically, “asking” is forbidden, according to its policy guidelines. Yelp is possibly the most restrictive of all the business directories and review sites when it comes to asking for customer reviews. In 2016, we merged the two sites, leaving Practical Ecommerce as the successor.

Practical Ecommerce acquired Web Marketing Today in 2012. Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by Web Marketing Today.
