Anyone seeing their reviews on Yelp slowly disappearing?

I had 12 five star reviews on my Yelp page and now down to three reviews (all five stars). I have been getting calls from Yelp asking if I wanted to advertise. They said I would only have to pay $2 per click and after politely declining (because I currently pay about $.35 per click on Adwords) I started seeing my reviews slowly disappearing.

I looked into this a little more and found this article: http://m.bizjournals.com/boston/blog/mas......l?r=full

It looks like this is not an isolated incident but rather Yelp is extorting money from business owner. I'm just glad I only have 5 star reviews.

Josh

Yes, I've just lost 4 - 5 star reviews. First one went missing but it was fairly new so I assumed the algorithm dumped it but this morning 3 more long standing reviews were gone.

- Mary Mowder

This has been going on for a while and has been discussed here before I believe. Just more of them flexing their muscle to get you as advertisers. It seems to be backfiring by angering more people. "Bullying For Bucks" is the term I've heard several times at industry events.

I presently have 3 5 star reviews with Yelp. I get sick of their constant calling trying to get me to pay monthly. That is why I blocked their number. They want to grow like Google.

I can't blame them for wanting to grow like Goggle but their calls are annoying. I took a call while driving and they wanted me to go to a web site with them. I said, "I'm sorry I'm driving right now." They said, "We'll, can you open up a browser on your phone?" Seriously!

I've encountered two Yelp phone salesmen. Both used the aggressive tactic of continuing to talk and ask questions no matter how many times you say "No thank you, not interested," until you are absolutely forced to just hang up the phone on them mid-sentence. I was taught as a child that it's very rude to hang up a phone on somebody without both sides giving a proper goodbye, and this obnoxious jerk tactic exploits this. Any salesman who does this will never get my business, even if their product could make me a lot of money.

I just lost three more reviews.

That's a total of 7 lost for me.

- Mary Mowder

Yelp makes it incredibly hard to work with them, so I stopped. Can't even update business information.

Just lost another 5 star review.

D'oh!

- Mary

Why are you not asking your customers to post their reviews onto your "Google My Business" page?

(You can do this as well as asking your customers to directly email you a review / testimonial.)

- Donald

I do ask them to review on my Google Plus page and Yelp but more choose Yelp.

More people say they found me on Yelp as well.

-Mary Mowder

In my follow up email, I give the customer a link to my "Google my Business" page. I simply got a short url for the link.

I don't know anything about Google Plus. I remember hearing that it was shut down.

Most of my web traffic is created organically, but I also do some paid advertising.

- Donald

Capture your reviews before they disappear them use as needed. Not the same but still usable and better than being lost completely.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Using other people's platforms like that is subject to their rule clanges.

Yelp reviews go up whether we want them or not and people use Yelp to research Magicians.

That is the reality.

I'd block any use of Yelp with regards to me if I could but neither I nor any other business can do that.

-Mary Mowder

This is easy to do with "Google My Business." They send you a notification (link) every time that someone leaves a review. And so it's simple to go to the review, and copy and paste it onto a file on your computer, so you can put it on your website, etc. Most of the time, my customers also send me a note to let me know they left a Google review.

- Donald

Exactly!

Didn't know about Google My Business. Good to know, thanks Donald.

I actually ask my customers to send me their testimonials directly (I've been doing that for years).

But I also put the mention about putting a review on "Google My Business" (I've been doing that for the last year or so).

I get about 2/3 who send me the testimonial directly, and about 1/3 who do the review on Google. And there's some overlap, where some people do both.

- Donald

I will start doing this as I've just lost another review.

Thank you Mindpro and Donald.

- Mary Mowder

Having to DEAL with Reviews coming and going . . . and them selling ads puts a bad taste in my mouth concerning the BUSINESS of Magic.
It takes the fun out of the original premise: "Entertaining others so they can have fun".
Takes the fun out of practicing to get better.
Takes the fun out of everything.

A Comedy Club once told told me . . "We do not want any "Amateur Nights" and we don't CARE about helping others get started because we are only here to make money. Its just a bar with a cover charge and we completely change the audience over twice a night. It's ONLY for the money."

The Cut throat BUSINESS of show business . . . . Realty takes the fun out of it !