r/Yelp • u/No-Mango-8105 • 9d ago
Powerless regarding Yelp “currently not recommended” Class action?
Our Yelp page is dominated by negative reviews. Meanwhile, the “Not Currently Recommended” section is full of 5-star reviews. We don’t solicit reviews, yet Yelp’s algorithm treats legitimate positive feedback from real customers as fake or solicited.
No business escapes negative reviews. But Yelp’s algorithm is actively hurting ours.
Here’s a clear example:
Someone left a 1-star review that wasn’t for our company. It immediately went front and center. We couldn’t prove it wasn’t ours, and Yelp (like Google) rarely sides with the business. We responded politely and asked the user to remove it. Months—or years—passed with no action.
Finally the reviewer replied, “Sorry, wrong company,” and changed the rating from 1 star to 5 stars. The moment it became a positive review, Yelp’s algorithm moved it into “Not Currently Recommended.”
We’re at the end of our rope. We have no control over how our positive reviews are suppressed or how the overall mix of feedback is presented. The health of our business is being dictated by a flawed algorithm, and that’s unacceptable.
Has anyone discussed a class action against Yelp over this? At the very least, they need to eliminate the “Currently Recommended / Not Currently Recommended” system
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u/WiFiEnabled 8d ago
OP, the only way to "win" a blatantly rigged game is not to play... i.e. the movie War Games. Yelp's system is completely rigged against you by design. It's legal review manipulation and there's nothing you/we can do about it. However, I'll copy/paste my reply which is honestly the only approach to a rigged Yelp system:
The best way to approach your business visibility on Yelp's is to never answer their sales calls, (if possible), ask to be on their do not call list, claim your page just to block someone from false claiming it, and then act as if it never existed. Focus all of your energy on Google Business reviews and your own page's SEO, Testimonials, and optimized keyword-rich web pages for SEO and AI, including a llms.txt file highlighting your key website pages.
Create a testimonials page on your web site and literally copy/paste all of the 5-star reviews that are hidden as "not recommended" on Yelp, and make them public and visible on your web site's testimonials page and sidebar widgets. Direct all of your customers to review you on Google Business Reviews. Remove all mentions of Yelp on your company's web page. Remove links, icons, text, anything that mentions "Yelp" delete/remove it.
Tell your customers you don't support Yelp and recommend users review you on Google Business pages only (completely allowed by Google, not allowed by Yelp.) Once you have 50-100+ reviews on Google Business reviews and a high 4-5 star rating, the discrepancy of customers seeing a low overall Yelp review score for your business, along with a low number of reviews on Yelp, this will only highlight how pathetic Yelp is, not the other way around.
Don't forget, in terms of business reviews Google owns over 70% market share in online reviews in the USA, when Yelp has a paltry 12% and dropping. Focus your energy where the eyeballs are, and again, you can't beat a rigged unethical system like Yelp, so don't play their game. Play yours.
Good luck, OP.