How to remove a posted review on yelp

Removing bad Yelp reviews is something every business owner needs to take seriously. Business reviews – especially ones in a major directory like Yelp – can make all the difference to a business’ reputation. Here’s how you can try to remove a bad review that your business received on Yelp.

Before we go any further, we all know how popular Yelp is among consumers. According to DMR Business Statistics, Yelp has a total of 145 million unique monthly visitors utilizing its wealth of local business information and has a (cumulative) total of 148million reviews on-site. And one important thing about the mammoth online directory is that it takes consumer reviews for businesses very seriously.  Just take a look at Yelp’s take on business reviews in 25 characters or less.

“The best reviews are passionate and personal. They offer a rich narrative, a wealth of detail, and a helpful tip or two for other consumers.”

So, we’re going to list out three ways that you can try to remove bad reviews on Yelp for your business.

Grounds for Reporting and Removing a Bad Yelp Review

Before we get to removing and flagging malicious or false reviews, let’s take a look at Yelp’s content guidelines and regulations.В

Here are the grounds for removing bad Yelp reviews.

When a business review is not from a customer’s perspective

When the reviewer is not talking about a personal experience;

When a review is disputing an existing review;

If the reviews are plagiarized;

When the reviews are posted on the wrong business page;

When the reviews talk about business policies, service offerings, or policies.

Reviewers cannot post the names or other personal details of the business employees they interact with. For example, they cannot add the name or address of a restaurant’s waiter to the review. On these grounds, you can remove the review.

Although, there is an exception to this rule. If the review contains the personal details of a business that has the name of the employer, the use of names is solicited. Example: If the business is named “X” Realty, you can mention X’s name in your review.

In addition to this, reviews that includeВ

threats, lewdness, hate speech or any displays of bigotry can be reported and removed

. In case the review is talking about extraordinary circumstances, they can be removed as well. However, reviewers are excused if they use profanity or colorful language. You can’t dispute that if it is the case.

If your customer’s review is blatantly making any of these violations, you can report them for removal. Subsequently, these cases will be evaluated by Yelp moderators, and action will be taken accordingly. Yelp also mentions that in some cases, the removal of these reviews will be automated.

Respond to the Unhappy Reviewer

This is probably the least messy and fairly productive way to handle removing bad Yelp reviews: respond to the reviewer and help change that bad impression. Not only can this help you get a shot at improving your online review score or star ratings, but it will leave a positive impression on your other (potential) customers.

If your reviewer is unhappy with your services, you can always attempt to rectify their experiences by offering to give them a better experience. For example, if you’re a landscaping company, you can offer to redo your project and add in a gift coupon at your local Ikea.

Report the Bad Review on Yelp

Go to the review that you want to remove and click on the “flag” icon at the bottom of the review.

Now choose the reason for removal and proceed. Once the moderators evaluate your request, the bad Yelp review can be removed. Although, you need to know that reporting doesn’t always result in removal. Additionally, you’ll need to have evidence supporting your request for removal. In most cases, you probably won’t be able to get to remove the review unless it is a blatant violation of Yelp’s Terms and Conditions and its Content Guidelines.

DO NOT and CANNOT remove Yelp reviews on behalf our customers!

В This article is solely meant to help you consider some options to help your business maintain a good online reputation.

Although, we have a neat review management platform along with listings management and rank tracking.В You can read more about it here.

With Synup, you can optimize your business’ local presence by getting listed on 48+ sites like, manage your online reputation and track your ranking on SERPs. Start by running a free scan to see what your business’ online presence looks like now.

There’s no shortage of ratings and reviews for businesses on Yelp written by other people, some gushing with praise, and others carrying a tone of stern disapproval. But what about what YOU think? Whether you’ve been a customer at a store for a long time or just had a one-time drop-in, if you want to share your experience with other Yelp users, here’s how to do it.

How to write a review on Yelp

Go to in your web browser and log in.

In order to review a business, you’ll need to find its page on Yelp. See the “How to Search for a Business” section of our How to Use Yelp tutorial if you need help.

In this example, we’ve chosen to review “The Bull BBQ Pit”, a popular local restaurant near Techboomers headquarters in Saint Catharines, Ontario, Canada (but not one we’re affiliated with in any way, just so you know!). To get started, click Write a Review.

You’ll be taken to the review screen. The first thing you’re going to want to do is give the business an overall rating. Click one of the stars beside the section labelled “Rating” to set your rating; you can click a different one to change your rating. Stars closer to the left represent poorer ratings, while stars closer to the right represent better ratings.

The next step is to actually write the review itself. Click inside the box beside the section labelled “Your Review” and type in your thoughts about what you experienced at that business as a customer. If you need some help with what to write or how to write it, click Read Our Review Guidelines to open a window with some general rules, and then click Review Guidelines in that window for some specific advice dealing with writing reviews.

If you get stuck partway through your review and need some time to think on how you’re going to finish it, click Save Now to save what you’ve written so far, and then you can come back later and write the rest.

The final step is to answer some questions about the business and its services. Click the buttons or check boxes beside the answers that match the business, to the best of your knowledge. If you want to help out even more, click Show More Survey Questions at the bottom to display more questions for you to answer.

NOTE: This step is totally optional, so you can skip it if you’re in a hurry or just don’t know enough about the business to answer honestly.

When you’re all done, if you’ve had second thoughts and want to stop writing this review (or start over from the beginning), click Cancel. Otherwise, click Post.

Don’t worry if you eventually have a change of heart concerning the business. Your review isn’t set in stone once you post it, so you can come back and update it or delete it at any time.

Once you post your review, you’ll be taken to a page that will confirm that your review has been posted. From there, you can:

– go to your review on the business’s page
– fix your review if you’ve made a mistake or want to change it in any way
– add the business to a “List” (of your favourite spots)
– review a similar place nearby, or one that you’ve looked at recently
– share your review via email or social media
– go back to the top of the business’s page

Congratulations! You now know how to write and post a business review on Yelp from start to finish! Now, get out there and spread the word about your favourite hot spots!

• You can easily delete a Yelp review you’ve written if you’re not satisfied with it.
• You can use Yelp’s desktop website or mobile app to delete a Yelp review.
• Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more.

Yelp, an online business directory, over the years has become an integral tool for many when choosing a restaurant, beauty salon or bar. The reviews on the platform serve as an indicator for the quality of a specific business and could ultimately either attract or deter a customer from giving the business a first try.

There are times when we write a review for a business on Yelp that we later regret for certain reasons. Fortunately, Yelp does allow its users to make mistakes and remove wrong reviews. Here’s how.

Check out the products mentioned in this article:

MacBook Pro (From $1,299.99 at Best Buy)

Lenovo IdeaPad 130 (From $299.99 at Best Buy)

iPhone 11 (From $699.99 at Best Buy)

Samsung Galaxy S10 (from $899.99 at Best Buy)

How to delete a Yelp review on a computer

1. Log into your Yelp account on your browser on a Mac or PC.

2. On the right-hand corner of your screen, click on your profile picture and your name to launch your profile page.

3. On your profile page, click the “Reviews” tab on the left side of your screen.

4. In the “Reviews” section, surf through the review(s), if you find a review you wish to remove from your profile, click on the garbage can icon to delete the review.

5. After clicking on the garbage can icon, you will be prompted to a new page, requesting you to select a reason for removing the review with the option to provide additional information. Click “Remove Review.”

How to delete a Yelp review on a mobile device

1. Launch the Yelp app on your iPhone or Android device.

2. Tap on the icon that says “Me” at the bottom of the screen.

3. Scroll down to the page to tap on “Reviews,” to launch all the review(s) you have previously published on Yelp.

4. Scroll through your Yelp review(s) and tap on the review you want to remove.

5. Scroll down to the bottom of the review and tap on the “Remove Review” option. Again, a new page will open again asking you to explain reasons you want to remove the review from the website.

If you want to leave a review for a business on Yelp, you must register first. The registration form is quite simple, and you are asked to type your name, e-mail address, and select a password.

1 On any Yelp page, click the Sign up link (or on the home page, Create Your Free Account).

Alternatively, the figure shows that you can also create an account on Yelp by signing in with your Facebook account.

Next you arrive at a page where Yelp wants to find out more about you, such as your gender, and birth date, but you needn’t fill it in; that information is optional. Yelp would also like to help you to find those of your e-mail contacts who are registered members of the site.

You’re asked to input your e-mail login and password. Then Yelp logs in to your online contact list to see whether anyone on your list matches with current Yelp members. If you squint really hard, you can see an inconspicuous Skip This Step link next to the Find Friends button. Why not click it?

2 Click Please Complete Your Yelp Registration on the Welcome page to get to a page where you assign yourself a nickname for the site.

Or you may click the Go to My Profile button where you also can fill in your nickname, as well as upload your photo and personalize your profile — as little or as much as you wish.

In the meantime, Yelp sends you an e-mail to confirm your e-mail address. It will have a link in it, when you click it; you end up back on Yelp where you confirm that your e-mail is correct.

3 Every page on Yelp has a navigation bar with links to various areas on the site.

Click any of those links to get to your desired area.

4 To post a review, find the Write a Review link and click it.

You land on a search page. Type the name of the business and city in the Business Name and Near text boxes, and click the Search Businesses button.

5 Scroll through the group of loosely related listings to find the exact business you’re searching for.

When you find the matching business name (and location) click the Write a Review link next to the address on the page.

6 On the review form, put your mouse pointer over the stars to select the star ranking you wish to give (one to five), and click your selection.

On the Complete Your Review page, you see the review form on the left — and other folks’ reviews of the business on the right.

7 Type your review in the text box.

Scroll down the page and optionally add an evaluation of whether you feel the photos of the business give a good representation, and click from one to four dollar signs to give others an idea of the pricing of the product or services you’ve received.

8 When you’re done, click Post.

Your review appears on Yelp for all to see — and on your About Me Profile page. From your profile, you can update a review at any time.

What is the Yelp filter?

Why does Yelp filter your business’s legitimate reviews?

1. Yelp doesn’t trust users who have only written a few reviews, especially if they have no Yelp friends or profile information.
2. The review is too positive or too negative. This also goes for reviewers who only post positive reviews everywhere they go. I guess Yelp assumes you can’t enjoy every experience.
3. It isn’t funny or useful. Other Yelp reviewers can mark a review as funny or useful. Reviews that are too short also get filtered. “Great service!” really isn’t helping anyone.
4. The review violated Yelp’s Content Guidelines, which are pretty straightforward.
5. The IP is wrong. Yelp uses IP addresses to determine whether or not a review is fake. So, if a reviewer is on vacation and visits your business but waits until they get home to review it, that review is probably going to get filtered.
6. The CEO thinks your reviews stink. Okay, that’s probably not a real reason, but he does say so in his Yelp profile.

Is there a way to work around the Yelp filter?

• Never pay someone to review your business. That’s illegal, and if you do, Yelp will find you and they will make sure everyone knows about it.
• Don’t offer a promotion to Yelpers in exchange for a review.
• Don’t use Yelp as a contest or ad space. I mean, unless you’re actually paying for Yelp’s slightly shady advertising service. (Yelp has been accused of pushing this service on businesses by threatening to push negative reviews higher on the business’ Yelp page.)
• Don’t ask your family and friends to write reviews for you. They will spot Grandma’s glowing assessment a mile away.
• You can also attempt to help legitimate reviews be recognized by Yelp. If you see a review a real customer has written on your Yelp page, but the review is being filtered, you can add the reviewer as a friend or vote the review useful, funny, or cool.

Comments

I read the artical but still have issue with yelp. We always have a hard time with them. We did a huge party for someone and it was very well done and the client was thrilled so she wrote a review for us. For some reason it never posted and our marketing person found it in the “flagged” Catagory. Yet there is a competor down the stree who has people writting terrible reviews and they are rediculous and they are posted all the time. None of our 5 star reviews ever gets posted. Feeling frusterated.

Monday, February 15, 2016 by Jennifer

For a long time Yelp hosted Market Parties for their elite helpers. Free booze and food at a great location. Not sure if they still do that but isn’t it more fun to read a creatively nasty review vs a plain old “well done”?

Interesting also that you get advertising calls after a bad review. Pretty sleazy.

It does not surprise me that Yelp has grown so large. A symptom of our current culture and Yelp does a great job of playing to egocentric millenials.

I’ll take the honesty of Urbanspoon any time.

Monday, February 15, 2016 by Tom Geis

A new user with a negative review although honest and didn’t really share all of the horrible things that happened and yet it gets buried. Thankfully, I have Facebook and twitter where they cannot hide the reviews and I can say what I experienced in the open. Let the business owners come on and refute any claims but they honestly couldn’t in my case because everything I said was true. They want honest reviews and then hide them saying they are not helpful. Well that makes their service not helpful and even though they have a lot of users now, thanks to social media, their user base will drop.

Tuesday, March 20, 2018 by TJ

I take notes when I travel, especially if something exceptionally good or bad, and then I post when I have time and I write the date of the visit. Such a shame that real reviews are discarded. I’ve seen it happen more than once

Tuesday, July 24, 2018 by Christine

One 3/17/19 I wrote a review of Cornerstone Kitchen & Tap. I was polite, but it was a bad review that was well deserved. Perhaps I did something wrong but am not sure. It ONLY shows up if I log in and look for it on my home page. I had reviewed CKT a year or 2 ago, and deleted that review when I posted this yesterday. Was that incorrect to do? I have to get used to editing I guess, but last nights review was very valid. I am thinking that they ordered low quality meat and perhaps have a new cook (I will not refer to him as a chef). Please let me know why my review does not show under a normal search online and what I should do in the future. Thank you.

Monday, March 18, 2019 by Barbara Merz

I’m a former employee who needed a refresher on filtered Yelp! reviews, and this informational result was the first in Google! Keep up the good work guys.

Thursday, March 28, 2019 by Kaitlyn C.

I have had numerous comments censored by Yelp and delegated to the “not recommended pile” for no other reason than they are negative (and not all of my posts are). They are phonies and since I go to the bother of writing them and they are not obscene nor foul in any way I will not post again on Yelp.

Free Book Preview No BS Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing

From restaurants to plumbers to corner retail stores, local small companies can see a nice increase in business if they receive positive recommendations on popular user-review sites like Yelp. But what happens when a business gets a negative review? Or several? Bad user reviews are like a smudge on a business’s reputation, showing up when potential customers search online.

Yelp relies on an algorithm that determines which reviews will be displayed on a business’s page on the site. Even when a review is flagged by Yelp’s software, it’s simply moved to a “filtered” section on the business’s page where readers can still view it. The problem is, a number of legitimate reviews wind up in this filtered section, and negative reviews that business owners think have been deleted actually have only been relocated here.

While it’s unlikely any automated review process will be perfect, business owners should know what options they have for dealing with not-so-nice comments. We interviewed Darnell Holloway, Yelp’s manager of local business outreach, who offered these three steps for handling negative user reviews on the site:

1. Keep your cool: When deciding how to handle a review, avoid a virtual screaming match, even if a review is completely wrong or even just off base. “When deciding how to handle the review, we suggest thinking about what your customer service policies are for face-to-face interactions and applying that same logic to your written response,” Holloway says.

If you find yourself too emotional to calmly address online reviews, Holloway suggests appointing an office manager or another employee you trust to manage them. If you think a review violates Yelp’s terms of service you can flag it for evaluation by Yelp’s user support team.

2. Respond diplomatically: When you do respond to an online review — negative or positive — be civil and professional, and make sure to offer a solution when appropriate. Using Yelp’s free review response tools, businesses can respond publicly or privately. A private message is similar to sending a personal email directly to the reviewer. A public comment posts directly under a user’s review and is visible to any Yelp user.

“[Responding publicly] is a great route to take when you want to shed more light on a situation, or demonstrate that some action has been taken to address the reviewer’s feedback,” Holloway says.

3. Be consistent: Actively reading and responding to user reviews can accomplish at least two important things. First, it can provide insight into how your product or service resonates with customers, as well as ideas for how you can do better. Second, it can show users that you care and are engaged.

“You won’t hear back from every person you reach out to, and that’s OK,” Holloway says. “If you regularly implement feedback from your reviews, and engage diplomatically with your customers, you will be in a much better position over the long term.”

There are plenty of reasons why a business owner might not want their business listed on Yelp. Sometimes the internet trolls can ruin hard-earned ratings in a matter of days. On the other hand, consistently poor service will inevitably lead more and more people to leave bad reviews.

Unfortunately, not as many satisfied customers leave feedback compared to unhappy customers. This can cause a significant drop in customer base, which – let’s face it – no one wants.

Sometimes you may even find your business on Yelp because a competitor submitted it. It’s quite the common practice these days – get your opposition more exposure so that you can trash them in public.

But what if there was a way to remove your business from Yelp? Would you jump at the opportunity?

Can You Remove Your Business from Yelp?

The reality is that Yelp doesn’t delete business profiles even at the request of the business owners.

Yelp offers plenty of free tools that business owners can use to improve the profile by adding relevant information, offering deals and reservations, and essentially working with Yelp to gain more customers.

Yelp suggests that even businesses that come down to a 1-star rating could turn things around with the right mindset and planning. There are enough success stories you can read in various articles around the web.

But let’s get back to the core issue. If there is a way to remove your business from Yelp, you won’t find it on their business support page.

With Yelp clinging to their ‘information is a matter of public record and concern’ policy, it’s hard to imagine them ever implementing a removal feature. Furthermore, it’s how the company makes money.

It’s Still Worth Trying If You’re Desperate

That’s not to say that there can’t be some special circumstances when Yelp might be helpful. You may get in touch with Yelp after you’ve claimed your business page. If the circumstances are extreme, then Yelp may be willing to make an exception.

However, it’s hard to say what those extreme circumstances would have to entail.

You may alternatively try to take legal action, but keep in mind that Yelp is right about the whole freedom of information mantra. Even if you take legal action, you have to be very sure that your situation calls for special circumstances and leniency.

It’s generally not a great idea to get involved in a lawsuit after you’ve been turned down by Yelp to remove your page. You can bet that the company has a pretty good legal team that’s quick to asses each one of your claims.

If their legal team believes there’s even the slightest chance you could win in court, they would certainly just honor your request before the situation escalates.

Is It Necessary?

Although there’s no easy way to delete a business from Yelp, there are some methods that could work. However, they won’t work for just any business and for just any reason, so for the most part, you’re stuck with your ratings and reviews.

If that’s the case, wouldn’t it be better to just give in and try to make it work? After all, Yelp does offer plenty of tools and assistance to all business owners who are willing to work in a partnership.

There is also a more private method of receiving negative comments. If you don’t want your business profile to be muddy, you can use the TalkToTheManager tool from Yelp.

This allows customers to send their feedback via SMS. You can also reply to them. Don’t worry, as your number will not be made public. Even better, you don’t have to commit to using this. You can just try it out for a month and see how it goes before you decide to spend any money on implementing it.

Another cool thing about this tool is that it’s all happening in real time. Therefore, if a customer wants to complain, they can do so while still at the location. This might give you a chance to fix the problem before the customer leaves and unloads on your Yelp profile.

Final Word

There is no way to remove your business from Yelp on your own, but you can request it. Unfortunately, this request is rarely granted due to Yelp’s policy and monetization plan.

Unless you have some special circumstances that may trump freedom of information and public concern laws, you’re likely out of luck. The good news is that you can still turn your business around if you stop fighting and start working with the tools Yelp puts at your disposal.

After all, short of closing down your business or using Yelp, there’s not much you can do but try to make the best out of a bad situation.

It’s obvious why a review that is paid for or written in exchange for a discount or freebie may be biased: the reviewer might be willing to shower false praise on a business if they get something of monetary value in return. Yelp lets consumers know when we see this behavior with a Consumer Alert on the business page.

What’s historically not been so obvious for businesses is if they should ask customers to write reviews. Why is it a gray area? Because other companies have allowed or even encouraged businesses to ask for reviews. That’s because those companies care more about having lots of content on their site, and not so much about whether the content is trustworthy or accurate.

Yelp’s priorities are exactly the opposite: we care most that the content on our site is high quality, reliable and organically motivated, and we actively choose not to showcase every single review that is contributed to our site. Today we recommend about 72% of reviews on Yelp.

While many business advice columnists have long suggested soliciting reviews as a way for businesses to improve their online reputation, we’ve seen a recent increase in aggressive review solicitation by businesses. Some companies go so far as to hold contests among employees and offer incentives for getting their names mentioned in reviews or hire reputation management companies that spam their customers asking for reviews.

Asking for reviews at all, even if the business breaks norms and attempts to ask more than just their happy customers, can create a bias away from organically motivated reviews. And when some businesses ask for reviews and others don’t, it becomes difficult for users to compare reviews across businesses. Not only does solicitation lead to bias, it’s a bad experience for customers, too. Take this review of a moving company, for example:

“Impressively quick to unload our fully packed 17′ U-haul in only 90 minutes. They were pretty careful and didn’t break anything. Would be 4 stars for good service, but -1 for being unreasonably pushy about a yelp review and making me write it in front of them.”

That’s why we’re continuing our efforts to weed out solicited reviews and elaborating on Yelp’s position on asking for reviews: Yelp does not want businesses to ask their customers to write reviews and our recommendation software actively targets reviews that have been solicited. Our content guidelines state this policy clearly:

“Don’t ask for reviews and don’t offer to pay for them either: Please don’t ask your customers to review your business on Yelp. Over time, solicited reviews create bias on your business page — a bias that savvy consumers can smell from a mile away. Learn why you shouldn’t ask for reviews. You should also never offer compensation (discounts and freebies count too) in exchange for reviews.”

We recently tuned Yelp’s recommendation software to put a stronger focus on solicited reviews as well. This will help us identify and not recommend reviews we believe to be solicited, including reviews previously contributed, since we consider them less reliable. We’re regularly making updates to our software to improve its performance and react to trends we see from those trying to game it, so expect to see additional updates in the future, too.

To make sure businesses understand what is acceptable and what violates our content guidelines, we’ve put together a list of do’s and don’ts for business owners.

While Yelp has had this policy for a long time, we want to be sure businesses know that if they do choose to solicit reviews from their customers, this tactic is likely to fail on Yelp. If a business solicits reviews, our recommendation software is designed to identify that activity and determine those reviews to be less trustworthy, thus placing them in the “not recommended” section of the business page. Not recommended reviews can still be read on a separate page, but they do not factor into a business’s Yelp star rating.

Academic studies suggest that solicited reviews are systematically different from reviews that are left without being requested. Findings by researchers from Northwestern University state that “[C]ustomers who are prompted (by an email) to write a review, submit, on average, up to 0.5 star higher ratings than self-motivated web Reviewers.” It’s easy to see why this is tempting for a business, who views this as a cheap way to boost its rating, and why it’s also problematic for consumers. If only some businesses are soliciting reviews, then it’s hard for customers to know which businesses have good reviews because of good service and which have simply hounded customers for more reviews. Not only is this bad for customers, it’s also bad for businesses who might feel they have to solicit as many reviews as possible just to keep up with the competition. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for users to compare between businesses, and we’d rather businesses focus on improving their ratings by improving their service, rather than trying to game the system.

We’re not alone in this approach. You may have heard recently about Amazon’s efforts to deter fake product reviews and Facebook’s efforts to weed out fake news stories. That’s because companies are realizing that sheer volume of content is not always the best thing for consumers, especially if it’s biased because of solicitation or monetary incentives.

We know it can be frustrating for businesses to not have every single review they’ve received be recommended on their Yelp page, and all the more frustrating when they find other review sites much easier to manipulate than Yelp.

However, it’s also frustrating for consumers when online reviews don’t give them a good idea of the experience they’ll have with a business. Since 91% of consumers read online reviews, it’s imperative for Yelp to maintain reliable content. Ultimately, that’s our top concern, and we’re willing to ruffle some feathers to stand by our values and deliver the best approach for consumers.

We hope that being outspoken about this anti-solicitation policy will encourage other companies to consider strengthening their content guidelines as well and raise the bar for the industry as a whole. Our intention is to help business owners understand why soliciting reviews is bad for the customer experience and encourage them to stop this behavior — or at minimum understand why solicited reviews may end up as not recommended on Yelp.

SAN FRANCISCO — Yelp.com is warning that a California lawsuit targeting critical posts about a law firm could lead to the removal of negative reviews and leave consumers with a skewed assessment of restaurants and other businesses.

Lawyer Dawn Hassell said the business review website is exaggerating the stakes of her legal effort, which aims only to remove from Yelp lies, not just negative statements, that damaged the reputation of her law firm.

Though its impact is in dispute, the case is getting attention from some of the biggest internet companies in the world, which say a ruling against Yelp could stifle free speech online and effectively gut other websites whose main function is offering consumers reviews of services and businesses.

A San Francisco judge determined the posts were defamatory and ordered the company to remove them two years ago, which a second judge and a state appeals court upheld.

Yelp is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the order. The high court faces an Oct. 14 deadline to decide whether to hear the case or let the lower-court ruling stand. Experts expect Yelp to prevail.

“There were a lot of people who were unhappy about this opinion,” said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law.

Internet giants Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft said in a letter to the California Supreme Court last month that the ruling “radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent” and could be used to “silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech.”

Yelp said it would give businesses unhappy about negative reviews a new legal pathway for getting them removed. They could sue the person who posted the content and then get a court order demanding the Internet company remove it.

But Hassell disputes the ruling would do anything that drastic.

Her 2013 lawsuit accused a client she briefly represented in a personal injury case of defaming her on Yelp by falsely claiming that her firm failed to communicate with the client, among other things.

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Donald Sullivan ordered the client and Yelp to remove the statements. Hassell said the client failed to answer her lawsuit or remove the posts, so she had to seek a court order demanding that Yelp do it.

“We have an impeccable reputation,” she said of her firm, Hassell Law Group. “We have a right to protect it.”

Yelp says the judge’s order violates a 1996 federal law that courts have widely interpreted as protecting Internet companies from liability for posts by third-party users.

A federal appeals court cited the law in a Monday ruling saying Yelp’s star rating system did not make it responsible for a negative review of a Washington state locksmith business because the overall rating is based on user reviews.

In Hassell’s case, a three-judge appeals panel has said the order requiring Yelp to remove the defamatory statements did not violate the 1996 Communications Decency Act because the company was not facing liability. That’s because Hassell’s lawsuit named her former client and not Yelp, the appellate court said.

The review site says the law is broader and prevents the courts from treating the company as the speaker or publisher of users’ posts regardless of whether it’s named in a lawsuit.

The ruling “would really inhibit a website’s ability to provide a balanced spectrum of views online and make it more doubtful that people would get the information they need to make informed decisions,” said Aaron Schur, Yelp’s senior director of litigation.

Yelp uses an algorithm to weed out biased and malicious reviews and encourages users to contact the company if they receive a final determination from a court that a review is defamatory.

In Hassell’s case, Yelp has questioned the court’s finding that the posts were defamatory.

I recently heard a story of a business that got caught with fake reviews on Yelp. They were also an advertiser spending thousands of dollars a month on ads. When they got caught, Yelp canceled their ad account and told them they would be demoting the listing’s ranking for 6 months. After that time, they […]

I recently heard a story of a business that got caught with fake reviews on Yelp. They were also an advertiser spending thousands of dollars a month on ads. When they got caught, Yelp canceled their ad account and told them they would be demoting the listing’s ranking for 6 months. After that time, they would re-evaluate, but there was no guarantee that things would go back to how they were before. Yelp’s stance on fake reviews couldn’t be more completely opposite of Google’s. Here are a few ways they differ when it comes to approaching businesses caught with fake reviews:

1. Yelp issues a ranking penalty, Google does not.

2. Yelp stops the business from advertising, Google does not.

3. Yelp monitors the listing to see if the business continues their deceptive practices, Google does not.

4. Yelp will remove a listing from their system for having fake reviews. I have never seen Google do this. I reached out to Yelp to find out if what happened to this particular business is typical.

A Yelp spokesperson responded with this: “It’s critical that we maintain the quality of content on our platform and protect consumers from those relatively few businesses that seek to artificially inflate their online reputations. We reserve the right to demote in search results, or remove from our platform altogether, any business that seeks to artificially manipulate our system or mislead consumers. We continue to recommend that businesses avoid contracting with third-party companies offering to remove negative reviews or otherwise boost business page ratings as doing so may lead to severe penalties on Yelp. We have reason to believe that this business has used extreme measures to attempt to artificially inflate its reputation on Yelp and mislead consumers.”

5. Yelp’s automatic filter catches a lot of fake reviews, Google’s does not.

According to the Yelp spokesperson, Yelp’s filter removes about 25 percent of their reviews. These include reviews that are fake, biased, solicited, or other unhelpful rants and raves. I have yet to see Google’s review filter catch paid-for reviews.

Lots of businesses using review posting services (marketing companies that post reviews for them) will have these reviews automatically filtered on Yelp already, but the person reporting them had to get Google to remove them manually. I had a business once come to me who had their previous SEO company posting reviews for them. They were trying to make things right and asked me to get Google to remove all their fake reviews. Google’s first response to my request was that the reviews didn’t appear to be fake. I was dumbfounded. The business owner was admitting to this but Google didn’t believe him. Why on earth would any business owner make this up when all the reviews were positive? In the end, we sent Google the emails between this business owner and the SEO company to get them removed.

In my opinion, the variances between these two companies tell me that fake reviews are a big deal to Yelp but not to Google. What should you do if you catch a business with fake reviews?

Google: Report it on the Google My Business forum. In my experience, you need a lot of evidence to get Google to remove fake reviews.

Yelp: The Yelp spokesperson told me that if a consumer or business believes that a review violates Yelp’s Terms of Service, including those that do not represent an actual first-hand experience, they can easily report the review by clicking on the small flag-shaped button in the bottom right-hand corner of the review. The review will then be reviewed by Yelp’s user support team.

On the other hand, if a user experiences a business offering payment or other incentives in exchange for positive reviews, they can alert Yelp’s User Support team through this form. Businesses that are reported may receive a Consumer Alert, which warns consumers that a business has been going to great lengths to mislead them behind the scenes.

Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.

*Author’s Note: Most digital marketing companies—us included—do not offer Facebook review removal help as a stand-alone service. The guide below should help you solve the issue, and if you’re interested in digital marketing services as a complete strategy, we’re happy to help!

People on the Internet are the worst.

When they’re unhappy, they’re VERY vocal about it. It also doesn’t help that social media makes it easy for consumers to publicly shout about bad service, complain of unfair pricing, and even drag up personal grudges against the business owner.

While all this transparency and ease of communication has helped grease the wheels of customer service, it’s also a roadblock if you get stuck on the wrong side of a bad review. Unfortunately, negative comments and reviews about your business can do more than just hurt your pride—they can hurt your bottom line.

It’s true: 84 percent of people trust online reviews as much as friends, and 68 percent of consumers will often go straight to a business’s social media profile to read reviews. Heck, I only hire companies and go to restaurants with more than 3.5 stars for their average review rating.

So, if you’re looking to remove negative or fake reviews from Facebook, we’ll show you how it’s done. Be warned that removing individual reviews is a long process (see further below) and that the only immediate solution is to turn off the reviews tab. But first, I urge you to read our content team lead’s timeless blog post, “Should You Remove Facebook Reviews?”

Also be sure and check out our post, 5 Steps to Fix a Bad Google Review >>

Step-By-Step How To Remove Reviews From Your Facebook Page in 2019

Step 1: Removing reviews on Facebook in 2019 is the same as 2018. First, log in and make sure you’re using the platform as your page (not your personal account). You can switch between pages using the white arrow in the upper right-hand corner:

Step 2: Once you’re using Facebook as the correct page, click the “Settings” option located on the right-hand side, above your cover photo:

Step 3: Now that you’re in the Settings menu choose the “Edit Page” option from the left-hand sidebar. Scroll down until you see the “Reviews” section, then switch it to “Off.” Don’t forget to save your settings!

Can I Delete One Bad Review from My Page?

Yes—but not the way you think, and it will take some time. If you want to delete one bad Facebook review, what you’ll have to do is report it and wait for action on Facebook’s part. However, if you have a Facebook partner like us, there’s a workaround to make the process speedier. We can reach out directly to a Facebook representative to move the process along (and bug them about how much a false review can damage your business).

How to Report a Fake or False Review on Facebook in 2019

Navigate to your reviews section on your Facebook business page. It should be along the left-hand side, under your company’s profile picture. Find the review you want to dispute, and in the top right-hand corner of that individual review box, there will be three dots and an exclamation box. Click the exclamation box and select the option that best describes the review you want to contest or remove:

You’ll be prompted to select one of the situations that apply. Pick the one that best suits your need. You may be prompted to expand on the issue and go into more detail.

This won’t get resolved immediately unless it is threatening, dangerous, or illegal. Otherwise, there really isn’t any way to speed up the process unless you’re a social media client at an agency—and even then, it’s not guaranteed. While we’ve had success helping remove many false or fake reviews for our clients, some cases do not qualify for removal. You’ll find the same problem on Yelp and other review websites.

If it’s a negative review you can’t believe is true, try digging to the bottom of it and rectifying the situation. We’ve had clients turn 1-star reviews into 5-star ones just by apologizing, making things right, and really making an effort to fix what caused the situation. Above all, do not lash out, get snarky, ignore it, or offer excuses. That behavior doesn’t work to fix things in the real world and it doesn’t work in the online one, either.

Learn a few other tactics for dealing with a bad review here »

(Be warned: most digital marketing companies—us included—do not offer Facebook review removal help as a stand-alone service. You must be a client with a qualifying digital marketing package in order to make this happen for you. If you’re interested in digital marketing services as a complete strategy, we’re happy to help!)

Need Help with Facebook Marketing or Review Management for Your Business?

Author’s Note: Most digital marketing companies—us included—do not offer Facebook review removal help as a stand-alone service. You must be a client with a qualifying digital marketing package in order to make this happen for you. If you’re interested in digital marketing services as a complete strategy, we’re happy to help!

With an estimated 900 million unique monthly users, Facebook remains the most popular social networking site in 2019. With that being said, it’s pretty obvious that most businesses can benefit from having an active presence on Facebook.

If you’ve got a business to run, chances are you don’t have a lot of time for “the book.” Blue Corona can help. Contact us today and we’ll help you create a Facebook content sharing calendar and/or Facebook paid advertising campaign. And as always, we’ll provide you with detailed tracking and reporting to ensure you get the most return on your marketing dollars.

You Might Also Be Interested In…

About The Author: Blue Corona’s Editorial Staff is determined to help you increase your leads and sales, optimize your marketing costs, and differentiate your brand by passing on our tribal knowledge. The team vigilantly stays on top of the latest in digital marketing, bringing you the top insights with expert commentary. Want to see something on our blog you haven’t seen yet? Shoot us an email and our marketing team will get to work.
View more blogs by Blue Corona

By Claire Ballentine

July 3, 2018

The California Supreme Court ruled on Monday that Yelp, the local search and reviews site, did not need to remove negative comments posted by a user, in a case closely watched by the industry for its implications for online free speech.

In a 4-to-3 opinion, the court said that federal law protected internet companies from liability for statements written by others. The decision to remove posts is at the company’s discretion, the court said.

Forcing a site to remove user-generated posts “can impose substantial burdens” on the online company, Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye wrote in the majority opinion. “Even if it would be mechanically simple to implement such an order, compliance still could interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform.”

The role of moderating speech on online platforms has become a hotly contested topic, as the reach and influence of companies like Facebook and Google have grown. But the companies have long argued that the companies are not liable for posts published by others on their platform.

The case concerned a San Francisco lawyer, Dawn Hassell, who had accused a client of posting defamatory statements against her on Yelp. A San Francisco Superior Court judge ruled that the posts were defamatory and instructed the client and Yelp to take them down.

The order was upheld by both a second judge and a state appeals court.

Yelp argued that the lower court decisions could provide a legal pathway for businesses seeking to have negative posts removed. The company also referred to the Communications Decency Act, the 1996 federal law that protects internet companies from liability for third party users’ posts.

The act, the ruling said, is meant “to promote the free exchange of information and ideas over the internet and to encourage voluntary monitoring for offensive or obscene material.”

Yelp was joined by civil liberties groups, like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The A.C.L.U. filed an amicus brief in the Yelp case in 2016, arguing that the removal order “requires Yelp to remove speech from its website without giving it any opportunity to argue that the speech in question is constitutionally protected.”

However, opponents argued that this free speech approach could prevent victims of online abuse from seeking a legal remedy.

Ms. Hassell’s lawyer, Monique Olivier, said in a statement to The Associated Press that the ruling “stands as an invitation to spread falsehoods on the internet without consequence” and that Ms. Hassell was considering an appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

Dissenting justices argued that because Yelp was inviting its users to post and read reviews, the company could be held complicit in users’ refusal to remove posts.

“The internet has the potential not only to enlighten but to spread lies, amplifying defamatory communications to an extent unmatched in our history,” Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuéllar wrote.

Aaron Schur, a lawyer for Yelp, said that the company examined the reviews about Ms. Hassell’s business and did not find them to be libelous.

He also said in a statement on Yelp’s website that the Court of Appeals’s reasoning put at risk journalists’ use of quotes or information from other individuals.

“Also at risk are the separate speech rights of individuals that use online resources,” Mr. Schur said, “such as those that post comments on news articles or consumers who choose to describe their business experiences online, which may be squelched through manipulations of our judicial system.”

Read the latest news and tips

Small business owners, and those who work in the tourism and service industries, know the power of online reviews. While some negative reviews cast wild generalities over specific situations, they aren’t to be dismissed.

The opinions of complete strangers have an incredible impact on consumers. Understanding how these reviews and their corresponding platforms work is critical for businesses looking to maintain a positive public reputation.

A few questions we’re frequently asked are, “Can I remove bad reviews, or can I pay to have them removed?”

Unfortunately, there is no current method to remove negative reviews from Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, or the other major review platforms. This does not mean, however, that there’s nothing you can do about them.

Here is a video from January 2020 discussing online reviews!

What about “reputation management” companies, who claim to remove bad reviews?

At Signalfire, we’ve received many emails from so-called “Reputation Management” companies, and we can assure you that these should be filed away with the notes from a Nigerian princess needing to transfer all her family’s wealth to you. They’re simply a scam.

Google, Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other top review sites hinge their credibility on delivering honest, untainted reviews. Some even go as far as to blacklist businesses that attempt to manipulate the system by writing false reviews or paying someone to boost reviews unfairly.

Yelp, for example, actually has a reporting form for solicitors promising to remove or manipulate reviews, which can be found here.

But this still begs the question…what can I do about bad reviews?

Storytime: A True Bad Review Example

Our owner, Matthew Olson, once took a short vacation with his family. His (then eight-year-old) son was developing into quite the foodie, particularly when it came to seafood.

Like any contemporary parent, Matthew whipped out his smartphone and began Googling great area restaurants that served seafood. His heart sank when he saw the only seafood place in town rated a measly 1.5 out of 5 stars.

Scanning reviews from Google, Yelp, and TripAdvisor, the outlook went from discouraging to downright disastrous. Overpriced. Poor quality. Bad service. These things formed a trifecta of terror for a family looking for a relaxing meal.

Obviously, this should’ve been a major concern for the seafood restaurant…but where were they? The reviews were anywhere from two weeks to three years old. No one from the establishment had responded to the negative feedback, giving the impression that they simply didn’t care.

Don’t be reactive, be responsive

It’s important, as a business owner, to monitor and respond to online reviews – both good and bad – in order to connect with your customers and give context to their comments.

You will undoubtedly come across instances where reviewers launch a full-on assault on your business’s integrity. The comments, themselves, are out of your control, but you can control your response.

Avoid reacting defensively. Instead, apply the “customer is always right” mentality, and offer an honest apology. Bad reviews often result from customers who simply want their opinion to be heard. Show your customers you care they had a poor experience, and present an option to mend fences.

Examples of these options could be refunding money, offering a coupon toward future visits, or simply a promise to fix the issue internally. This is an opportunity to show customers you’re willing to take responsibility for mistakes and go the extra mile to avoid them in the future.

In the case of the seafood restaurant, Matthew would’ve dismissed the negative reviews had someone from the restaurant taken the time to comment. Even a simple, “we’re sorry, we’re trying to do better” would have turned his minivan right into the parking lot.

It pays to respond.

Ask bad reviewers questions

Some reviewers will report false information about your place of business. Most review websites do have a button that will flag the review as inappropriate, but the platforms take quite some time to act (if at all).

The best course of action is to try and respond in a way that makes the fabrication obvious. “Who was your server?” “Which room did you stay in?” “When was your appointment?”

By responding with a question, it proves that you’re paying attention to the accusations and would like more information in order to remedy the situation. This should, of course, be proceeded by an empathetic comment such as, “We’re sorry you didn’t enjoy your stay,” or “We’re very sorry you feel that way,” to avoid sounding abrasive.

Once you’ve spoken with a bad reviewer (and let’s say you’ve provided a solution they’re happy with), another important question to ask is, “Would you consider removing your review?” This is your only chance to have a bad review taken down, so don’t ask until you’re sure the reviewer is happy. You have to earn the ask.

Take a proactive approach to bad reviews

Again, it’s better to be proactive with your responses, rather than reactive. So if you know that bad reviews are part of owning a business, shouldn’t you have a plan to combat them?

One of the best ways to keep customers from coming across negative reviews is to simply bury them with significantly better ones!

Put together a plan to suggest customers leave online reviews, after every transaction or interaction. This will increase the number of customers who participate in the review process, resulting in more positive reviews.

Be sure to have your own processes in place to support great customer experiences, and the rest will take care of itself!

The Signalfire team has put together a couple guides to crafting helpful responses as well as the importance of getting your listing correct.

How Can I Learn More About Managing Reviews?

No one can guarantee bad reviews will disappear, but you can certainly impact the attitudes of those reading the reviews by acknowledging, thanking, and responding to reviews, especially the good ones!

We’ve compiled several links for additional reading, ordering them by review platform. Click Below!

Free Book Preview No BS Guide to Direct Response Social Media Marketing

When co-founders Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons conjured up the idea for Yelp during a startups incubator four years ago, they didn’t think people would care to review businesses. Now Yelp is one of the most popular online customer review sites. It’s succeeded in translating word-of-mouth to the World Wide Web and has transformed the way people interact with businesses.

The site can be a great way for entrepreneurs to promote their business. Since anyone can enter a business on Yelp, it’s a good idea for business owners to check out the site and see what’s there.

Yelp was launched in 2004 in San Francisco and now covers the entire United States. It includes every type of business imaginable. Users rate a business’ services on a one- to five-star rating system. Eighty-five percent of all its reviews are three stars or higher with 67 percent rating at four or five stars, so for the majority of businesses the feedback is good. For businesses with reviews that seem a little lackluster, there are tricks to boosting your star rating.

Getting Started on Yelp

Stoppelman, Yelp’s CEO, gives the following tips for business owners to set up and manage their Yelp business page:

1. Get set up on Yelp. Anyone can look up any business on Yelp in the U.S. and write a review, for free. Anyone can add a business. A new business listing is confirmed through a phone verification system. When a listing is added, a phone number is associated with your business. The system will call that number, and then give you a code to verify you’re the business owner. After claiming your page you can begin to receive e-mail alerts when people review your business. You’re also able to see how many people have viewed your page and respond directly to reviewers in an e-mail.
2. Get set up onYelp for Business Owners. “We wanted to bring businesses into the fold, into conversations that are happening every day,” Stoppelman says. Prior to Yelp for Business Owners, which launched in April, business owners would sometimes sign up as regular Yelp users in order to reach out to reviewers, whether to thank them for a positive review or address a negative one. “We knew that was happening, so we wanted to make it more formal and make it more clear for the consumer,” Stoppelman says.
3. Manage your reviews. If you think a review may violate guidelines, it can be reported and removed. If it’s a case of an angry customer and the business owner knows what the situation is and what happened, Stoppelman recommends messaging that user. “Talk about that situation, deal with it head on. If the person ends up being happy, they can update their review.”
4. Business owners can privately e-mail each reviewer. But as part of a built-in spam prevention tool, they’re allowed to send only one e-mail to each reviewer until that reviewer writes back. Then they’re allowed to send one more e-mail, and so on, giving the consumer the power to decide whether they want to receive messages. Reviewers can also block a business from e-mailing them in case they care to write a reply to that business but prefer not to be contacted again.
5. Never sign on under another name to comment on your Yelp page. You can risk your business’s reputation two ways: by posting glowing reviews of your own business under an assumed name and by publicly replying to reviews–especially negative ones–on your Yelp page. In fact, one of the goals of the Yelp for Business Owners site was to help curb people’s desire to immediately respond to reviews directly on their page by allowing the business owner to send an e-mail privately to a reviewer.

“Consumers do need to come first. If they’re not comfortable sharing, then the site stops working . . . if someone can make a snarky comment back at you, that might have a shouting down effect. It doesn’t reflect well on a business either,” Stoppelman says.

In any public review forum, there’s a chance that an audience could be misled by false reviews. Yelp mitigates that by giving reviewers identity. Those with the best reviews are rated by other users and boosted into the Yelp Elite Squad.

Manage Your Reviews, Both Positive and Negative

“We’re anchored by real people. Anyone can click through and see who they are and see how many reviews they’ve written,” says Stephanie Ichinose, Yelp’s communications director. “That transparency helps the community understand who’s talking about the business and how much we should value that particular opinion. And there are a lot of faceless reviews; it goes in both ways.”

Rather than be alarmed by negative reviews, Ichinose recommends a business owner read reviews in the same way a consumer would read them.

“Look at them in aggregate. Take a step back and see if there are any trends,” Ichinose says.

If there are trends that point out something negative–Ichinose gives the common complaint of loud music playing in a business as an example–that’s when to take action to remedy the situation in your business.

Based on Experience

For Annie Decamp, owner of Palo Alto, California-based jewelry business Decamp, tracking her page led her to discover a whopping 8 percent of her sales come from Yelp. That realization caused her to advertise on Yelp in order to get the extras–a link to the Decamp website on her business’s Yelp page and a rotating slideshow of photographs instead of a static one.

But for her, it took some experimenting until she found a Yelp subscription she was comfortable with. She signed up for a pricier package but decided to cut back to a lower-cost one in February.

“I would recommend starting with the lowest one. Pay attention and track it for awhile and know how many people are using it,” Decamp says.

She recommends starting a customer mailing list, and promoting your Yelp page there as well as in newsletters. “It’ll say, ‘We’re now reviewed on Yelp,’ or ‘Please review me on Yelp.'”

She and her employees also ask callers where they heard about Decamp. “A lot of times they’ll say Yelp,” Decamp says. “I think of everything in a marketing sense, so I need to understand where customers are coming from and I need to know what I’m paying for.”

Decamp follows through by contacting everyone who’s reviewed her business with a thank-you e-mail.

“It’s a very personal site. The people that I don’t know–I think that’s a really big thing for them to take the time to do that.”

Responding to reviews is a great way to learn from and connect with your customers. You can respond to reviews through your business account with a Public Comment, a Direct Message, or both.

The easiest way to respond to reviews is to imagine the reviewer is standing in front of you. Just like a face-to-face interaction, your best bet is to be sincere and open-minded when responding. It’s also important to be careful. Just like a text message, your meaning could be misinterpreted by the reviewer or others. Be thoughtful in your response.

Three things to remember when you respond:

1. Your reviewers are your customers.
2. Timely responses can help you mend relationships and create loyal customers. Respond quickly. No one likes to wait-especially if they’re raising a concern.
3. Your reviews are some of the most valuable feedback you’ll receive as a business. They can offer deep insights in ways you can improve and grow.

Before you respond, remember that you have to upload a real photo of yourself to your Business User’s Account. This makes your response more personal. Make sure your photo shows your face and doesn’t include too many people.

Start With A Public Response

A great way to show your commitment to customer service is to reply to a review with a public comment. The Public Comment feature lets you to post a reply that lives beneath the review and can be seen by anyone on your page.

If a review has incorrect information, this is a good chance to correct it. While you should always take the high road and respond considerately, correcting incorrect information is okay. Remember, it’s not just what you say but how you say it. Since everyone can see your Public Comment, respond in a way that will impress your potential customers.

Responding To Reviews

Responding to reviews is as simple as offering a warm and personal thank you. Skip the templates and avoid firing off canned responses. Crafting a response that shows you appreciate that person’s business and review goes a long way. A pro tip is to limit your response to a sincere thank you-that’s it. Don’t use your response to offer marketing incentives like gift certificates, event invites, or to add the reviewer to a mailing list. Gifts or invitations come across like bribes or payment for the review, and violate Yelp’s policies. Also, try to avoid any urge to react to minor complaints in an otherwise great review. Remember, this customer already likes your business-just use this opportunity to thank them and introduce yourself.

If you’re crunched for time and can’t craft a personalized response, use our Thanks button to thank the reviewer. A personal response is best but this will certainly do in a pinch.

Responding To Difficult Feedback

Responding to a review with critical feedback can be tricky. You want to act quickly because it’ll improve your chance to turn the situation around, but also take your time to think of the right thing to say. First, read the review. Then reread the review. Reread it again. On your third take, start looking for the value. Ask yourself: What did the customer expect? Why did they expect that? Where was the misunderstanding? Why did that occur? What changes can I make to make sure that this situation doesn’t happen again?

After rereading the review a few times, you’ll almost always find helpful information. Looking at difficult feedback as an insight into how you can improve will make a big difference. It will help you craft your response.

It’s a good idea to start with a public response that includes a thank you, even if you disagree with the review. Look at it this way, the reviewer took the time to share what went wrong. There are lots of consumers who won’t take the time to give you those insights. Your reviewers are giving you the chance to improve.

When To Use A Direct Message

Direct messages go right to a Yelp reviewer’s inbox and allow you to message them in a non-public way. Direct messages can be used after your Public Comment as a way to continue the conversation. Remember, the same rules that apply to a Public Comment apply to a Direct Message. Direct messages should only be used to find out more information and provide resolution for an issue. You shouldn’t use the feature to pester a reviewer to change their review. It’s just another tool to help you better service your customer.

If you have a Facebook business Page (and if you don’t, you should), you have probably made good use out of the reviews feature. Facebook reviews allow consumers to give you a 1-to-5-star rating, with or without an added explanation.

As you’ve been monitoring these review, you may have noticed that some poor reviews have trickled in, and they’ve hurt your overall star rating… uh oh. Today we’re going to show you why online reviews matter and the options you have for removing bad reviews on Facebook. After reading this article, you should have a better handle on how to manage your company’s image on Facebook.

How to Remove the Review Section from Facebook

While removing Facebook reviews might seem like a good option for someone who’s received numerous negative reviews, keep in mind that you also won’t have positive reviews to show, either due to the methodology. In order to remove all negative reviews, you have to remove the entire reviews section from your Facebook Page. We don’t recommend doing this since having online reviews (good or bad) still increases your chances of landing customers. Nevertheless, we will teach you how to remove the Reviews section from your Facebook business Page.

How to Remove the Review Section from Facebook

1. Go to your Facebook Page
2. Click on “Settings”
3. Click “Edit Page” in Facebook settings
4. Scroll down to “Reviews” and click “Settings” next to it
5. Move the slider to OFF
6. Click “Save”

Remember that disabling your reviews does not delete them, it just hides them. If you decide to enable your reviews again, the same reviews will come back up.

How to Delete Negative or Fake Facebook Reviews

If you’re like us, chances are you don’t want to remove ALL the reviews from your Facebook Page. After all, you probably have some really great reviews there! So you may be wondering how to only delete the bad or fake/spammy reviews. Well, as of right now, that is unfortunately not an option on Facebook.

You cannot pick and choose which reviews you delete. While it is frustrating, just think about how much it is helping honest businesses like yours from being in the same group as frauds who only publish positive reviews. In the long run, the bad guys will get weeded out, and you’ll rise above if you continue making customers happy. One or two bad reviews won’t kill your street cred.

However, you do have one option: Reporting reviews. You can report a fishy review to Facebook so they can investigate whether or not it should be taken down.

How to Report a Facebook Review:

1. Go to the review
2. Click the “. . .” in the upper right-hand corner
3. Click “Report post”

Impact Online Reviews Have on Businesses

Public sentiment can have a big impact on your company’s success. No matter what type of service or product you provide, if people talk about it, others will listen. Obviously, that’s not good for business if you’re getting bad online reviews. As a business with a website, it’s important that you garner online reviews—people want to get opinions on whether or not they should give you their money, and reviews are often a big proponent in the decision-making process.

In fact, 90% of customers read 10 or fewer reviewers before trusting a business! And, to add to that, they spend about 31% more money if a business has excellent reviews. (See more online review stats here.)

While most companies would love to receive positive reviews 100% of the time, it’s just not realistic. And, unfortunately, on average, one negative review can cost you, 30 customers. Ouch. So, how can you fix this situation if it happens? Well, you can start by removing reviews on Facebook. Here are your options for handling and removing negative Facebook reviews.

How to Manage Facebook Reviews

Since you can’t just remove the bad ones and reporting reviews might not be effective for you, your best bet for handling your company’s Facebook image is to learn how to properly manage and reply to Facebook reviews.

If a customer leaves a positive review, it is recommended that you at least “like” their review, and then possibly thank the reviewer. Doing so will encourage them to continue speaking highly of you. If you’re not sure how to word your responses, we’ve compiled useful positive review response templates as well as handy tips.

As far as negative reviews go, believe it or not, it’s still best to respond to them rather than let them fester. Responding to negative reviews not only gives you the chance to apologize but in some cases, you’re also able to give your side of the story if appropriate. By handling your negative reviews with class and honesty, you’re showing potential customers that you’re willing to take responsibility. It also shows how great your customer service is. These negative review response templates and tips will help you navigate nasty comments with ease.

To use your positive reviews to your advantage, we suggest promoting them. Broadly has a special service that helps turn positive reviews into clickable Facebook ads, amplifying those stellar results you always promise. Let your best reviews outshine the few bad eggs.

Of course, the best way to keep managing your online reputation is to continually ask for reviews from happy customers. Eventually, you’ll have so many great reviews, the bad ones won’t even matter!

Whether good or bad, getting Facebook Reviews is crucial if you want to boost your customer base. Just remember that, even though you can’t remove the bad ones, you can still change the narrative with a well-thought-out response. And you can get even more positive reviews with the help of Broadly.

• Author Zac Johnson
• Type article
• Provider Business 2 Community
• Image

Yelp is one of the most popular sites on the internet for when it comes to searching for reviews and finding local restaurants and businesses in your area. The problem with review sites like Yelp is that any negative reviews posted on the site can really go a long way in ruining your reputation, and it’s extremely easy for anyone to create an account and post whatever they want.

Writing Fake Reviews on Yelp? You Might Get Sued!

ABC News has just reported that Yelp is now suing one of the users of their site after accusing them of posting fake reviews to their site. We’ve listed the highlights of this article and process throughout the post for easier reading.

Julian McMillan, who owns McMillan Law Group in San Diego, was served with the lawsuit last week. The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco last month, claims firm employees “pretend to be clients and review their own employer on Yelp.” The lawsuit names employees who have provided positive reviews on the McMillan Law Group Yelp page.

One of these reviews, as described in the lawsuit, states: “The entire firm staff was very helpful. I never felt uncomfortable asking questions throughout the process, and the staff was very informative. I was kept in the loop throughout my filing. I certainly recommend McMillan Law Group for a quick, efficient and pain-free bankruptcy experience. I am now back on my feet again financially thanks to the firm.”

So what does this mean for your business, especially if you have an existing business listing on their site?

First of all, as much as you would like to have positive reviews on your site, stay away from any fake review services or posting fake reviews of your own. The last thing you want to do is jeopardize the legitimacy and reputation of your business by trying to look just a little bit better. This will also keep you out of harms way when it comes to Yelp suing their users for any fraudulent activity.

However there is a lot more to this case than just McMillan and his reviews on Yelp. It was also brought to light in the article that McMillan has sued Yelp in the past and now this counter lawsuit is just in retaliation.

“They’re an Internet bully and they abused their dominant Internet position for advertising contracts,” he said. “Here they are trying to squash my freedom of speech in small claims court, which awarded me back $2,700 for my advertising contract.”

It’s also important to note that this isn’t the first time Yelp has tried to sue someone over fake reviews.

This is Yelp’s second complaint it filed against a business related to deceptive reviews. Yelp sued BuyYelpReview.com, a company that was selling fake reviews to businesses in an attempt to help them suppress their bad reviews, the Yelp spokeswoman said.

With millions of users and reviews already active and live on Yelp, it’s surprising that this is only the second time the issue has come up. There is no doubt that some of the reviews on Yelp are negative, simply because there are so many businesses and reviews listed. The question is, how can you keep your company listing safe from your competition posting negative reviews for your business, while also keeping your online reputation in tact?

More Social articles from Business 2 Community:

Image Credit David Berkowitz

There’s long been a concern among “local” business owners and marketers that Yelp might filter or otherwise remove your hard-earned reviews if you copy and paste them onto your site. Yelp’s a killjoy, so there’s some basis for that assumption.

But it turns out Yelp is fine with your publishing Yelp reviews on your site (and sometimes elsewhere), under a few conditions.

I couldn’t find the official policies on that practice posted anywhere, and a recent conversation on Google+ got me wondering, so I asked. Here’s what Lucy at Yelp HQ told me the other day:

We have a few common sense guidelines if you want to use your Yelp rating and reviews in basic marketing materials, including your own website:

DO ask the reviewers themselves before using their reviews. You can contact them by sending them a “Private Message” on Yelp through your Business Account.

DO stick to verbatim quotes, and don’t quote out of context. If a review has colorful language that doesn’t suit your needs, you should probably move on to the next review.

DO attribute the reviews to Yelp using the Yelp logo (e.g.,”Reviews from Yelp”), and do attribute the reviews to their authors and the date written (e.g.,”- Mike S. on 4/5/09″). Yelp logos can be found at

DON’T distort the Yelp logo or use it in any way to suggest that Yelp or its users are affiliated with your business or helped create your marketing materials. Your business and your marketing need to stand on their own.

DON’T alter star ratings. Average star ratings change over time, so you also need to include the date of your rating nearby (e.g.,”**** as of 5/1/09″).

While we would hope not to, we reserve the right to change these guidelines from time to time or rescind our permission for any or no reason.

Reasonable enough, except for that last clause. It also squares with what I’ve found to be true of reviews (Yelp and Google+) regardless of policy: they just don’t get filtered if you repurpose them.

What’s been your experience with reusing reviews? Do you ask customers first? Have you run across businesses who flagrantly go against Yelp’s reuse policies? Leave a comment!

John, a restaurateur in the San Francisco, was listed on online directory Yelp.com like many other businesses. He had a few hundred visitors from Yelp, his fair share of reviews but as a sales person from Yelp would point out on a regular basis

“..You have a few bad ones (reviews) at the top. I could do something about those.”

When John asked exactly what could be done, Mike the salesman response was:

“We can move them. Well, for $299 a month.”

Mike cleverly also considered the fact that many of the bad reviews are moved to the top intentionally so as to give reason to the phone call. He says:

“When you do get a call from Yelp, and you go to the site, it looks like they have been moved,” John said. “You don’t know if they happen to be at the top legitimately or if the rep moved them to the top. You don’t even know if this is someone who legitimately doesn’t like your restaurant. … Almost all the time when they call you, the bad ones will be at the top.”

John was one of many others interviewed by San Francisco newspaper East Bay Express about Yelp’s, six claimed similar stories and likened Yelp to the Mafia.

Yelp deny they do anything about negative reviews, even placing the issue on their FAQ page and CEO Geoff Donaker has said their sales representatives don’t have the ability to move or remove negative reviews.

Yelp need to be careful. The company isn’t short of competitors (Yell.com, TimeOut, Trusted Places and Qype) and with their recent international expansion they have the potential to fall hard.

It is fact that Yelp businesses can highlight a favorite review to appear at the top of the page about their business – nothing wrong with that. Businesses are also able to purchase a single “sponsored review” at the top of the page, however aside from that, the order of all other reviews is based on a secret Yelp algorithm, Yelp spokeswoman Ichinose said.

“To be explicitly clear, the algorithm is an automated system. There’s no human manipulation of that. … If we were to start doing that, that would erode the trust we have with consumers.”

So it’s clear that Yelp officials emphatically deny the removal of negative reviews for advertisers. How on earth do they explain peoples stories?

In an East Bay Express interview with CEO Donaker blows it all of as a big misunderstanding.

“Do I think that sales reps call are saying, ‘We’ll move your bad reviews’? No. But I think it could be true — when you get to pick your favorite review and put it to the top, if I said it a little different way, it might sound a little nefarious.” Donaker conceded that Yelp could do a better job of training its sales team to be “crystal clear about what you get and don’t get.”

A former Yelp advertiser Mary Seaton said she took the company up on its offer to move her negative reviews if she advertised. Seaton says she paid $350 a month for six months and during that time her negative reviews were removed and old positive reviews showed up.

Greg Quinn, general manager of Anabelle’s Bar and Bistro in San Francisco, said that around January 2007, a Yelp sales rep was trying to entice him to advertise. Quinn noticed that some of his negative reviews had moved further down on the page. Quinn says the salesperson called him up and said ‘Did you notice what I did? Well, we can keep doing that for you.’

Sadly, this is all apparently legal and according to a senior San-Francisco based attorney – web sites are allowed to present information however they wish. Although business owners may feel like they are extortion victims, the actual act of manipulating reviews to make people is not illegal and therefore little can be done about the matter. That said, word spreads fast, particularly online and if Yelp develops a mafia like reputation – it won’t be long before competitors use that to their competitive advantage (as they should).

A big thank you to Mona for pointing this out.

Pssst, hey you!

Do you want to get the sassiest daily tech newsletter every day, in your inbox, for FREE? Of course you do: sign up for Big Spam here.

Cumulative number of reviews submitted to Yelp from 2009 to 2019 (in millions)

You need a Single Account for unlimited access.

Full access to 1m statistics

Incl. source references

Available to download in PNG, PDF, XLS format

Access to this and all other statistics on 80,000 topics from

$468 / Year
$708 / Year

* “Represents the cumulative number of reviews submitted to Yelp since inception, as of the year end, including reviews that were then being filtered or that had been removed from our platform. As of December 31, 2011, approximately 18 million reviews were available on business profile pages, approximately 5 million reviews were being filtered and approximately 1.8 million reviews had been removed from our platform. We define a review as each individually written assessment submitted by a user who has registered by creating a public profile on our platform.”

Social Media & User-Generated Content

Instagram accounts with the most followers worldwide 2020

Social Media & User-Generated Content

Number of monthly active Instagram users 2013-2018

Social Media & User-Generated Content

Daily active users of Snapchat 2014-2020

Social Media & User-Generated Content

Instagram: distribution of global audiences 2020, by age and gender

Did you know that you could be sued for writing a negative review of a business on Yelp? It’s true. A Virginia-based building contractor has sued one of his former customers for writing a blistering review of his business on the popular review website. According to the Washington Post, Christopher Dietz seeks $750,000 in damages in an Internet defamation lawsuit filed against Fairfax County, Virginia, resident Jane Perez, who claimed in her Yelp review that Dietz caused damage to her home, failed to complete work he said he did, and stole her jewelry. Dietz is also seeking a preliminary injunction against Perez to keep her from writing any more Yelp reviews.

Dietz’s suit against Perez is far from the first lawsuit filed for negative Yelp reviews. Doctors have done it. Dentists have done it. Owners of wedding venues have done it. And unless you’re careful, that restaurant you just called “filthy” might sue you, too. Here’s how to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Speak the truth

You might think that the First Amendment protects your right to say what you like about the businesses you patronize. And for the most part, that’s true. There are, however, limits to free speech in the U.S., and one of those limits is laws against defamation.

Defamation applies to any statements that make someone else look bad to the public. Most of the time, a defamatory statement must be false for the courts to rule it against the law.

So, the number one rule when writing reviews on Yelp or elsewhere online is to be 100 percent factual in your criticisms. Don’t say that a waiter spilled scalding coffee in your lap if he didn’t, or that you were overcharged when you weren’t.

Opinions are better than hard facts

To avoid stepping into factually ambiguous territory, color your review with opinions and emotions rather than exaggerations on the facts.

For example, I once took my dog to a trainer for agility lessons. During a class, the trainer pulled a choker collar extremely tight around my dog’s neck just after feeding him a treat. He immediately stuck out his tongue and the cheese fell out of his mouth, then he cowered away in fear. I was livid, and immediately left the class.

Now, what I might want to say in a Yelp review is that the trainer “abused my dog,” “choked him,” etc. But a better, equally effective way to criticize this trainer would be to say that “it looked as though she choked my dog,” and that her training methods “made me feel extremely uncomfortable.” These qualifiers – looked, feel – allow me to get my point across while avoiding accusing the trainer of something that I might not be able to back up in court. And opinions are, of course, protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Getting SLAPPed

Of course, nothing you do can stop someone else from filing a lawsuit to silence a bad review that might negatively affect business. But there are state laws in place that can.

Lawsuits of this nature are called “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation,” or SLAPP. They are filed for the sole purpose of shutting people up by imposing the crushing cost of a legal defense. In response to these speech-chilling lawsuits, a number of states – around 30 so far – have passed anti-SLAPP legislation, which makes it easier for courts to dismiss instances of SLAPP. And while the Federal government has not yet passed anti-SLAPP legislation, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on a variety of cases that help bolster the legal fight against SLAPP.

To get a better understanding of anti-SLAPP laws, click here.

Keep it quick

To sum up, Yelp provides consumers with a great service. But it can be abused by patrons and businesses alike. If you have a negative experience with a business, keep the facts simple and straightforward, and don’t exaggerate. If you don’t believe the straight facts properly express the severity of a situation, feel free to give a scathing opinion to avoid fudging the objective facts in a potentially slanderous way.

0 людей подписали. Следующая цель: 50 000

Doctors and other healthcare providers are reviewed on online review sites, similar to other businesses. We, however, are not like those other businesses. These online reviews are an open forum to the public written by patients, who are allowed to share their stories and photos explaining their experiences that they had with their doctor. Often these reviews are negative and accuse the doctors of complications or mismanagement from medical visits, treatments and procedures that they have had. Unlike other businesses, we, the doctors, are not allowed to respond, to defend our case or share any facts or photos to the public because of HIPAA and medical privacy laws. We, the doctors, find this extremely unfair and unjust. If patients are allowed to review us, then we should be able to defend the review and be able to state publicly our side of the story.

This is a clear cut prohibition and violation of our rights to defend ourselves and to protect our names and reputations. These reviews that are often one sided, impact our livelihood and medical practices. They also cause emotional distress to the doctors, who cannot explain their side of the story that is out in the public forum for others to read and believe. Also, many doctors fearing poor reviews will overprescribe and overtest just to “satisfy” patients. We, the doctors, should not be pressured to do things to get good reviews. We want to provide medical care not customer care. This affs the care to our patients and society as a whole.

We ask for immediate withdrawal of ALL doctors and providers, who are affected by HIPAA and medical privacy laws, from being reviewed on these online review sites. Until we can defend ourselves, a review should not be posted to which we cannot respond.

Welcome to the Consumerist Archives

Thanks for visiting Consumerist.com. As of October 2017, Consumerist is no longer producing new content, but feel free to browse through our archives. Here you can find 12 years worth of articles on everything from how to avoid dodgy scams to writing an effective complaint letter. Check out some of our greatest hits below, explore the categories listed on the left-hand side of the page, or head to CR.org for ratings, reviews, and consumer news.

Yelp Ordered To Remove Allegedly Defamatory Reviews Of Law Firm

Two years after a California lawyer won a default judgment against a former client accused of posting defamatory reviews of the law firm on Yelp, those reviews remained online. However, this week a California appeals court ruled that Yelp must finally remove these reviews.

This case goes back to 2012, when a woman hired the law firm to represent her in a personal injury claim. That relationship only lasted a handful of weeks before the client and lawyer parted ways.

Shortly after the lawyer ceased representing the woman, she allegedly published a review on Yelp, giving the firm one out of five stars, and stating that her lawyer deserved an even lower rating than that. The review accused the lawyer of “making a bad situation worse,” and failing to speak with both the client and insurance company because “her mom had a broken leg.”

The law firm first asked the woman to remove the review, which they contend contained defamatory and false statements. In response, the woman refused to remove the Jan. 2013 review, and allegedly threatened to post an updated review, and to have another review posted by someone else.

The law firm alleged that the woman — or possibly someone she knew — subsequently posted a second review in Feb. 2013, which the firm also said was defamatory and false.

The lawyers then sued the woman, accusing her of defamation, trade libel, false light invasion of privacy, and emotional distress. In Jan. 2014, after the defendant failed to respond to the complaint or show up at court, the court awarded the law firm nearly $558,000 in damages and ordered that Yelp remove the reviews in question.

Yelp, which was not a party to the original defamation lawsuit, objected to the order, saying that the law firm had failed to actually prove that the reviews are defamatory. The site filed a motion to vacate the judgment, arguing that Yelp had standing to bring the motion as an “aggrieved party,” even though it was a nonparty in the lawsuit.

The court denied the motion in Sept. 2014, and Yelp appealed. This week, a state appeals court once again came down in favor of removing the reviews.

“Throughout proceedings in the trial court and on appeal, Yelp has endeavored to blur the distinction between the judgment entered against [the woman] which awarded Hassell damages and injunctive relief, and the removal order in the judgment which directs Yelp to effectuate the injunction against [the woman],” reads the order [PDF].

The judge disagreed with Yelp’s contention that removing the defamatory statements would “injuriously affect” the review website.

“Yelp’s claimed interest in maintaining [its] Web site as it deems appropriate does not include the right to second-guess a final court judgment which establishes that statements by a third party are defamatory and thus unprotected by the First Amendment,” the court ruled.

And, while the removal order may aggrieve Yelp, it did not impose liability on the company, as Yelp has never been accused of wrongdoing in this case.

A Yelp spokesperson tells Courthouse News that the ruling “undermines the free speech and due process rights of consumer reviewers and the online platforms that host their content.”

“It gives those who dislike certain speech — here, a lawyer who was upset at reviews from her clients — the ability to require their removal while denying the website hosting that speech the ability to defend its editorial rights to publish the speech or rebut the claims,” the spokesperson said.

Want more consumer news? Visit our parent organization, Consumer Reports, for the latest on scams, recalls, and other consumer issues.

Did you know that you could be sued for writing a negative review of a business on Yelp? It’s true. A Virginia-based building contractor has sued one of his former customers for writing a blistering review of his business on the popular review website. According to the Washington Post, Christopher Dietz seeks $750,000 in damages in an Internet defamation lawsuit filed against Fairfax County, Virginia, resident Jane Perez, who claimed in her Yelp review that Dietz caused damage to her home, failed to complete work he said he did, and stole her jewelry. Dietz is also seeking a preliminary injunction against Perez to keep her from writing any more Yelp reviews.

Dietz’s suit against Perez is far from the first lawsuit filed for negative Yelp reviews. Doctors have done it. Dentists have done it. Owners of wedding venues have done it. And unless you’re careful, that restaurant you just called “filthy” might sue you, too. Here’s how to make sure that doesn’t happen.

Speak the truth

You might think that the First Amendment protects your right to say what you like about the businesses you patronize. And for the most part, that’s true. There are, however, limits to free speech in the U.S., and one of those limits is laws against defamation.

Defamation applies to any statements that make someone else look bad to the public. Most of the time, a defamatory statement must be false for the courts to rule it against the law.

So, the number one rule when writing reviews on Yelp or elsewhere online is to be 100 percent factual in your criticisms. Don’t say that a waiter spilled scalding coffee in your lap if he didn’t, or that you were overcharged when you weren’t.

Opinions are better than hard facts

To avoid stepping into factually ambiguous territory, color your review with opinions and emotions rather than exaggerations on the facts.

For example, I once took my dog to a trainer for agility lessons. During a class, the trainer pulled a choker collar extremely tight around my dog’s neck just after feeding him a treat. He immediately stuck out his tongue and the cheese fell out of his mouth, then he cowered away in fear. I was livid, and immediately left the class.

Now, what I might want to say in a Yelp review is that the trainer “abused my dog,” “choked him,” etc. But a better, equally effective way to criticize this trainer would be to say that “it looked as though she choked my dog,” and that her training methods “made me feel extremely uncomfortable.” These qualifiers – looked, feel – allow me to get my point across while avoiding accusing the trainer of something that I might not be able to back up in court. And opinions are, of course, protected by the U.S. Constitution.

Getting SLAPPed

Of course, nothing you do can stop someone else from filing a lawsuit to silence a bad review that might negatively affect business. But there are state laws in place that can.

Lawsuits of this nature are called “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation,” or SLAPP. They are filed for the sole purpose of shutting people up by imposing the crushing cost of a legal defense. In response to these speech-chilling lawsuits, a number of states – around 30 so far – have passed anti-SLAPP legislation, which makes it easier for courts to dismiss instances of SLAPP. And while the Federal government has not yet passed anti-SLAPP legislation, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled on a variety of cases that help bolster the legal fight against SLAPP.

To get a better understanding of anti-SLAPP laws, click here.

Keep it quick

To sum up, Yelp provides consumers with a great service. But it can be abused by patrons and businesses alike. If you have a negative experience with a business, keep the facts simple and straightforward, and don’t exaggerate. If you don’t believe the straight facts properly express the severity of a situation, feel free to give a scathing opinion to avoid fudging the objective facts in a potentially slanderous way.

Yelp plays a major role when it comes to maintaining the reputation of your business. In fact, many business owners are shocked when they experience the ramifications of a single negative Yelp review. Customers retreat, sales slow, and business suffers.

Continue Reading Below

Luckily, there are a number of ways to control what shows up in Yelp when someone searches for information about your company. The main strategy for keeping Yelp ratings high is to emphasize the positive reviews from the start.

If, like many small business owners, you have a business listing on Yelp but the reviews are less positive than you’d like, here are four proven ways to increase your star rating.

1. Move Positive Reviews Out of the Filter

This is the big one. When it comes to improving your Yelp rating, the first step should be checking the filter for positive reviews that are stuck, and therefore hold no standing in the overall score. Yelp uses an algorithm to hide (filter) reviews that it thinks are either inauthentic or just don’t add value. These reviews can be accessed at the bottom of the company page.

Many companies listed on Yelp have a number of positive reviews from real customers that are stuck in the filter. If your business currently has 3 stars, for example, bumping a few 5-star reviews out of the filter and onto the main page could gain a full star or more. Yelp often filters reviews they think are spammy or fake. To avoid this situation and get those positive review out in the open there are a few steps you can take.

First, follow Yelpers with positive filtered reviews. One way to help a Yelper appear more authentic is to make their profile appear more realistic. Follow the Yelpers stuck in your filter and it might be enough to make their reviews visible.

If that doesn’t work, try reaching out through the Yelp messaging platform to those people who have left positive reviews that are stuck in the filter. Let them know that you appreciate their feedback and you hope they’ll update their review and hopefully get put back on the main page.

If the above techniques have done nothing to boost your overall rating, your best bet is to message these Yelpers with specific instructions for making their review appear more legitimate:

1. Ask them to add a profile picture. Images make a user look more engaged with the site and less likely to get filtered out.
2. Ask them to “check in” on their mobile phones from a few local places. Again, this indicates to the Yelp algorithm that they are human beings who engage with the app consistently.
3. Ask them to be active. Although your end goal is to get the review for your business out of the filter, it helps if the Yelper is a frequent user. If they write a handful of reviews, it is more likely to get the review of your business up onto the main page.

These are the best strategies for moving positive reviews out of the filter and increasing the yelp rating for your company. Once you’ve accomplished this, there are a few other options for enhancing the reputation of your business.

2. Turn to Friends and Family

If you simply need more positive content in general on your business’ page, ask friends and family for positive reviews. In many cases, your close friends and family members are your biggest fans and most loyal customers anyway. Ask them to leave reviews that highlight some great things about your product or service. On a fairly new Yelp page, those first positive reviews have a lot of staying power. They’ll work to counteract the occasional negative review that pops up down the line.

3. Look to Loyal Customers

If you have customers you’ve worked with for years, or you frequently get positive feedback from a particular client, ask them to post those kind words on your Yelp page. Back before review sites were popular, shopkeepers and merchants would say, “tell your friends.” This is similar to today — only now, the way people tell their friends about a business is through sites like Yelp.

4. Ask Your Vendors

Your vendors often closely understand you, your business, and your work efforts. Although they may not exactly be customers, they are certainly well positioned to leave a review of their business dealings with you.

Just ensure that they are honest in the review and have them talk about how they “worked with your company” rather than pretending to be a customer. There’s nothing wrong with explaining your relationship and leaving a high rating as long as it’s truthful. Each vendor you have can do this for your business.

Yelp is a critical tool when it comes to gaining new customers. It’s not uncommon for a number of happy customers to be undermined by a single scathing 1-star review. Don’t let a low star rating cause a dip in profits. Try the above strategies for Yelp success.

Breaking News Emails

SAN FRANCISCO — Online review site Yelp.com cannot be ordered to remove posts against a San Francisco law firm that a judge determined were defamatory, a divided California Supreme Court ruled Monday in a closely watched case that internet companies had warned could be used to silence online speech.

Justices agreed in a 4-3 opinion, saying removal orders such as the one attorney Dawn Hassell obtained against Yelp “could interfere with and undermine the viability of an online platform.”

The decision overturned a lower court ruling that Yelp had said could lead to the removal of negative reviews from the popular website and leave consumers with a skewed assessment of restaurants and other businesses.

Hassell said Yelp was exaggerating the stakes of her legal effort.

Her attorney, Monique Olivier, said in a statement that the ruling “stands as an invitation to spread falsehoods on the internet without consequence.”

She said her client was considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Hassell’s 2013 lawsuit accused a client she briefly represented in a personal injury case of defaming her on Yelp by falsely claiming that her firm failed to communicate with the client, among other things.

Byers Market Newsletter

This site is protected by recaptcha Privacy Policy | Terms of Service

San Francisco Superior Court Judge Donald Sullivan found the online statements defamatory and ordered the client and Yelp to remove them. Hassell said the client failed to answer her lawsuit or remove the posts, so she had to seek a court order demanding that Yelp do it.

A second judge and a state appeals court upheld Sullivan’s order.

Supreme Court ruling on internet sales tax may impact consumer spending

“Ms. Hassell did exactly what she should have done,” Olivier said Monday. “After both the defamer and Yelp refused to remove untrue and damaging statements, she obtained a judgment against the defamer, and sought to enforce that judgment by requiring Yelp to remove the defamation.”

Yelp said the lower court ruling would give businesses unhappy about negative reviews a new legal pathway for getting them removed.

Aaron Schur, a deputy general counsel for Yelp, wrote in a blog statement that Monday’s decision assures online publishers in California that they “cannot be lawfully forced to remove third-party speech through enterprising abuses of the legal system.”

Internet giants Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft said in a letter to the California Supreme Court that the lower court ruling “radically departs from a large, unanimous and settled body of federal and state court precedent” and could be used to “silence a vast quantity of protected and important speech.”

Three of the California Supreme Court justices agreed with Yelp that the removal order violated a 1996 federal law that courts have widely interpreted as prohibiting internet companies from being treated as the speaker or publisher of users’ posts.

“In substance, Yelp is being held to account for nothing more than its ongoing decision to publish the challenged reviews,” Chief Justice Tani Cantil-Sakauye said in an opinion joined by associate justices Ming Chin and Carol Corrigan.

Associate Justice Leondra Kruger agreed that the removal order against Yelp was invalid, but for a different reason.

In a dissenting opinion, Associate Justice Mariano-Florentino Cuellar said nothing in the 1996 federal law allows Yelp to “ignore a properly issued court order meant to stop the spread of defamatory or otherwise harmful information on the internet.”

“Even — indeed, perhaps especially — in a society that values free expression, people expect courts and statutes to offer them minimal protections from disparaging misrepresentations or abject lies deliberately circulated to the public,” he wrote.

The dissent raises important questions about how to govern the internet, said Eric Goldman, co-director of the High Tech Law Institute at Santa Clara University School of Law.

Still, Goldman said the court of appeal ruling upholding the removal order against Yelp was an “outlier” and would have led to “open season on internet companies.”

Share this story

Share All sharing options for: Supreme Court won’t hear a lawsuit over defamatory Yelp reviews

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

The US Supreme Court has declined to hear a case regarding whether Yelp is culpable for removing defamatory reviews from its site, resolving a case that could have affected web platforms’ legal protections. Today’s list of Supreme Court orders denies a complaint brought by Dawn Hassell, an attorney who requested that Yelp take down false, negative reviews about her practice. This means that a California Supreme Court decision will stand, and Yelp isn’t liable for the reviews.

Hassell v. Bird was filed in 2016 as a complaint against one of Hassell’s former clients, not Yelp. However, Yelp protested a court order to remove the reviews, arguing that it was protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. (Yelp has said it independently removes reviews it finds to be defamatory since they violate its terms of service.) Lower courts disagreed, but in mid-2018, the California Supreme Court ruled in Yelp’s favor. Then, the firm of Charles Harder — a member of President Donald Trump’s legal team who’s known for high-profile defamation lawsuits — petitioned the Supreme Court to hear a complaint against Yelp.

Section 230, which holds that web platforms generally aren’t liable for content posted by their users, is a major pillar of internet policy. But a handful of lawsuits are probing its limits. Dating app Grindr is currently facing accusations that it failed to stop a stalker from harassing his target through the app. And the Wisconsin Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case involving firearm classified advertising site Armslist, which was sued after a future mass shooter responded to an ad on the site.

The policy has also been under fire in Congress. In early 2018, the Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act (FOSTA) made platforms liable for content that promoted sex work. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), who co-authored Section 230, has warned that further changes could be on the way unless web platforms take greater responsibility in moderating content “for the benefit of society.” (A handful of Republican lawmakers, meanwhile, have falsely claimed that Section 230 only protects politically “neutral” platforms.)

Yelp praised the California Supreme Court’s decision last year, calling it a win for “those of us who value sharing one another’s opinions and experiences” on the internet. It commended today’s decision as well. “We are happy to see the Supreme Court has ended Hassell’s efforts to sidestep the law to compel Yelp to remove online reviews. This takes away a tool that could have been easily abused by litigants to obtain easy removal of entirely truthful consumer opinions,” a spokesperson told The Verge.

Harder, meanwhile, has previously called Yelp’s argument an “outrageous” misreading of the law. The firm did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Update 3:00PM ET: Added statement from Yelp.