The Rise And Fall Of Yelp

When Yelp went public in 2012, the popularity of the review site was quickly growing and its stock soared. But it’s been a rocky road since then as advertisers fled the platform and as competition has increased from Google, Facebook and others.

Watch the video to hear the story of Yelp and learn why the company has lost its 5-star rating.

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The Rise And Fall Of Yelp

[CNBC]

How much do you use Yelp? What app do you use for local reviews?

[InayetHadi]

I have 16 reviews for one of my business and the only 1 negative review is being shown and the 15 positive are hidden because I refused to pay for their monthly marketing plan.

[petenice]

I had 21 reviews for my business. 19-5stars, 1 4 star and 1- 1 star review. I got calls from them to advertise with them almost everyday. When I refused for around the tenth time, 19 reviews were moved to the not recommended reviews and I was left with 1 five star and 1 one star review. It’s a sham company.

[phdraaa]

Deadass, I stopped using the site after being constantly redirected to an app I don't want.

[mjg]

YELP fell off for me when Google reviews was integrated into Google Maps and I could start leaving reviews on Google Maps. It's much easier and more intuitive and less app-clicking (I can get the menus, phone numbers, pictures of items, recommendations, etc) without leaving Google Maps. That simple.

[patrickm]

Never force ppl to download an app to access information. That’s what killed them. There’s fewer things more annoying and shady than that

[mikeydiggs]

Yelp repeatedly harassed my friend who is a small business owner, hounding her to purchase an expensive ad package. After she kept turning them down, they removed over 100 of her 4 and 5 star reviews and said that if she wants them back she has to buy the package (well over $10, 000). I will NEVER use yelp ever again, and tell this story to every friend that I even see use the app. Screw yelp. I sincerely hope they fail as a company.

[surfgurujeff]

As an owner of 2 businesses, I can testify to Yelp's shady practices of pressuring me to pay. Whenever they would call, I would explain that legitimate customers' reviews were being filtered out, and their response on multiple occasions was to the effect of, "If you pay for X plan, then we can bump those to the main page." The same went with 2 false reviews written by a known competitor (our customers even confirmed the reviews were fake). From then on when they would call I would tell them that I was looking forward to joining a class action suit against them.


I cannot WAIT for Yelp to tank. Greedy, lazy, and full of himself Stoppelman will one day be looking at that original email offer from Yahoo and wishing he had taken the money. Pushiness never succeeds in the digital age!

[reeeech]

They should, like Amazon, have verified purchase reviews. Meaning, before you put a Yelp review, it should require you to be a verified customer of said services before you can review.

[AwesumBear]

whenever I use yelp, I feel like I'm using an app that was made a decade ago

[grungyracer]

Should've sold for 1Bil when they had the chance.

[ckim]

Yelp called me like 20 times a day tryna sell me ads. It was a different person each time. I started to pretend to be Disney characters after a while, cause I was bored and it humored me.

[luisbraz-ruivo]

I am a Yelp hater! I used to own a business with 70 employees and they kept blocking legitimate reviews, pushing mainly the better reviews to the “not recommended” portion of the reviews. While doing that they kept insisting in selling advertising. How can you advertise with a company that is purposefully hurting your business? They are the mob of the internet and the FTC missed it completely on their investigation. I will be glad the day they fall flat on their face...

[BusinessLawReview]

Yelp forces business to buy ads. If not, they block all, I mean all positive reviews! They are bully

[eldepavas]

"Can Yelp survive?" Let's hope not.

[josephbeatty]

As a small business owner, Yelp is the worst. They're sales calls verge on harassment, and the ability to manage your reputation is non-existent. Extortion in my opinion.

[greatone]

Google offered 500 Million to Yelp and Yahoo offered 1 Billion .The CEO of Yelp Stoppelman said the offer
wasnt good enough I wonder what
was he smoking

[nickstadler]

The only thing I use Yelp for is to read about the restaurants I'm watching Gordon Ramsey try to fix on television.

[Luckys]

Yelp is annoying af. It won't let people see reviews unless they make an account.

[azizoutoftheboxideas]

Cant wait for the day they go out of business
Best legit scamming business out there