Yelp hides my reviews

[AL123al]

Hello,

This is pretty frustrating. This is the third time Yelp has hidden a review for my business. I don't know why. I am trying to get lots of reviews on different platforms but I feel at the mercy of  Yelp as they decide what to show and what not. I think it was triggered when I actually replied to the reviewer on Yelp. I should have done nothing I think. Any hints or reasons why this might be happening?

[EGOL]

I have written a number of business reviews for yelp and have done a good job of it with photos, generous descriptions, etc.

But, yelp often does not show them.  When I first started writing reviews they never showed them.  Then, after I had written a couple dozen a few of my reviews began appearing without digging for them.

From what I can see yelp shows the reviews of people who have written a lot of reviews, who are connected with other yelp members, and who have written lots of reviews that have been favorably received by others.  If your reviewers are not hard core yelpers, a lot of those reviews will be buried.

[photoseo1]

You are not alone. We have a wedding and photography business and Yelp constantly hides our reviews as well, all real customers. Just focus on Google or whatever platform your customer base uses most. They have been doing this for years so don't feel singled out.

I was thinking a good experiment to do on yelp would be to advertise on there and see how many reviews, that are currently hidden, would pop up magically once you started paying.

Just write them off and focus your efforts elsewhere; fighting with them gets you no where.

[MiriamEllis]

Hi There!

The most common reason for this would be that the Yelp users who have left the reviews are not yet established enough in Yelp's system to have their reviews shown. Yelp has the most stringent quality filters in the review world. Check out the profiles of the people who have reviewed you. If they have left few reviews, this would likely be the answer as to why their reviews are being filtered out.

The other thing to consider would be whether you are falling outside of Yelp's guidelines in any way. For example, Yelp is very insistent that they don't want owners to ask for reviews. Would there be anything in your strategy that might be falling afoul of this guideline?

[julie-getonthemap]

Yelp's terms of service prohibit you from asking your customers to write you a good review.

When you ask someone to write a yelp review and they're not yet a yelper, yelp will hide their review.

If you want to ask for a review you have to teach the client how it works. First they get an account, upload their photo, connect with their Facebook friends and write themselves a funny bio. Then they write several reviews over the course of a month or so. Then they write one for you.

I know that you don't like this, but Yelp has their own game.

[AL123al]

Thanks for your answers. It seems bizarre that there are so many hoops to jump to post a visible review. I understand that it could be opened up for spam but at the same time it is hard enough to get a review sometimes and my clients won't be spending time writing loads on Yelp- Facebook yes- but not Yelp. So I guess I just have to hope!

[julie-getonthemap]

I completely get it. It's frustrating. Though, I get lots of leads from Yelp because of the time I've invested in making it work for me, so I find the frustration mainly worthwhile.

I teach Yelp classes for business here in Sacramento. I tell them "Yelp is like a report card, you're getting a grade whether you like it or not. If you want an A+, you have to do the Extra Credit work."