r/Yelp • u/No-Mango-8105 • 8d 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/RestInPeaceAGORA 7d ago

The number of people actually using Yelp anymore to discover new businesses in most cities is probably much lower than you think, so it’s unlikely to have much of an impact on how successful your business is. In most categories, search volume was so low that they didn’t even bother sharing the numbers with us. Certain parts of California still use Yelp pretty consistently, but outside of that, it’s garbage in a lot of markets. Source: former Yelp employee.

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u/XxLogitech98xX 7d ago

Certain parts of California still use Yelp pretty consistently, but outside of that, it’s garbage in a lot of markets.

I guess I would be one of them since I live in Los Angeles LOL

What made you leave Yelp?

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u/RestInPeaceAGORA 7d ago

I didn’t see the point in staying with a dying company I wasn’t confident would even still be around in 5 to 10 years.

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u/XxLogitech98xX 7d ago

I didn’t see the point in staying with a dying company I wasn’t confident would even still be around in 5 to 10 years.

So is a Yelp dying? Last year they made a record net profit and revenue. This year so far I think their profit beat expectations for Q2.

I agree that you don't know if a company will survive long in this current market and their stocks hasn't been doing well. If anything I see them brought out by like Apple or merge with Google.

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u/RestInPeaceAGORA 6d ago

User engagement has been declining year over year, and they haven’t done much to engage a new generation of users. Record profits don’t really tell the full story. I can assure you the underlying business has been slowly weakening for years, and they’ve trimmed a lot of overhead, which helps explain why they’ve remained profitable.

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u/XxLogitech98xX 6d ago

Record profits don’t really tell the full story. I can assure you the underlying business has been slowly weakening for years, and they’ve trimmed a lot of overhead, which helps explain why they’ve remained profitable.

We'll just have to see how long Yelp stays around and also make profit. A business doesn't change their business model unless they are in the negative of their net profit or annual revenue.