Item — HN Reader

Agreed. If there was one terrible review written a year or two ago by someone with a reviewing history, and then suddenly twenty gushing all caps reviews filled with superlatives and exclamations of personal affection by reviewers with no other review history, all posted within the same week, I'd be upset if yelp didn't filter them out.

If some business tells all of their best customers to post a review on Yelp, a site they had never used before, then they actually are straw reviews and worth nothing - and this business owner admits that. Case closed. Filter working perfectly.

This is not to say that the one bad review characterizes this man's business in any way. He probably just doesn't have a tech-savvy, hip clientele, and the first yelper he ran into may have been a spoiled curmudgeon. What offsets the damage is that since he isn't drawing from that hip clientele, the review is likely not driving away any significant business.

The best response would probably be to put a Yelp sign in some prominent space, which might trigger someone who is familiar with their business to add a few more reviews. If he gives good service, the preponderance will be good. Much better idea than calling for a favor from your affectionate regulars.

There is no right to a good reputation.

2 comments

All true, but note that the "other 18" in this case are not all posted in the same week, with all caps etc. Several are in the same week, but others are spread over multiple years and are not overly gushy, all-caps-y, or anything else (although it's possible they were one-time posters). Reading through the filtered posts, my thought was that if these were the work of someone gaming the system, that person is A LOT more subtle and meta than one would normally expect. More likely is that the majority of them are totally legit.

But the implication in the article is that the negative review is a fake review put up by a competing dog trainer...

That implication is based on the fact that he has reviewed seven dog trainers, given two of them one star reviews, one of them a five star review, and the other four reviews weren't worth mentioning in the article for some reason.

Is it at all unlikely that this guy took a dog to two trainers, didn't like them, then went to a third that he thought was great? Or does it have to be a conspiracy?

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edit:

and from the article, the business owner's opinion: "The whole thing is odd," Frank Brader said. "It certainly seems to me that he's been to so many other dog trainers that nothing you can do is going to satisfy this person."

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another edit:

Here's the profile in question:

http://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=z25c9TyWY1TdVEGxkj34...

Does anything even look vaguely suspicious about it? His average rating is four stars, and contrary to the article, he went to four dog trainers in 2010, and gave two of them five star ratings, and two of them one star ratings.

http://www.yelp.com/user_details_reviews_self?userid=z25c9Ty...

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and another:

Now the review is being pushed out by wonderful, helpful reviews like this:

"Just read the Chicago tribune article and it's just terrible! Yelp should pull this review!"

http://www.yelp.com/biz/haus-von-brader-dog-obedience-traini...

"The Chicago Tribune article could go evan a lot further to expose Yelp for the extortionist business model they employ. I and thousands of hard working small business folks around the country who deliver exceptional quality and service every day to our customers are being victimized by this extortionist buiness model."

http://www.yelp.com/biz/haus-von-brader-dog-obedience-traini...

and

"Score one for the small business owner not happy with Yelp's horrible filter algorithm. Yelp is a horrible business and if they don't fix things fast they will simply disappear (we can only hope) its amazing how there filter has managed to alienate all of their users (businesses and reviewers). Great article in the tribune, shine more light on Yelp's craptastic system. By the way we are animal lovers too!"

http://www.yelp.com/biz/haus-von-brader-dog-obedience-traini...

All five stars.