THere's a consensus in the auto shipping community(and other service-oriented industries) that Yelp reviews are incorrectly prioritized and filtered. But this is not new. There are several cases of complaints and evenreports. 2015 was a disappointment for manyFTC closed its caseagainst Yelp without any action. But theThe complaints keep coming. In the thousands for the FTC.
It is such a concern in the auto transport industry that some of the biggestdominant players known to be very reputable wrote articleson their own websites, which explain the problems encountered in car shipment reviews on Yelp.
Montwaywhich is possibly the largest car carrier in the country right now,dedicated aentire article on your own websiteexplain what positive reviews are suppressed and how they are criticized for it.
Founder and PresidentMike Rupers de Direct Express Auto Transportwhich is also a major player in the industryhat summer pronounced directlyYelp ist „Pay to Play“,It is cited with great consensus that Yelp grants paying advertisers preferential filtering of car shipment reviews. It also shows what looks a lot like a false review and alsopublished on the company blog.
Ship a Car Inc. also gets involvedwith your own frustrationwith Yelp referral"...the average consumer who reads Yelp reviews has no idea that this algorithm exists or that it is suppressing positive reviews."
Roadrunner AutotransporteI did the same type of post at the end of last year.They state what we all agree on:“Yelp is extremely strict and vigilant about removing positive reviews. They rarely filter and remove negative reviews.”
Trying to defend ourselves toowe build our ownna National Express. We also feature it on our reviews page.
Unrecommended ones are also sorted so negative ones appear first
what is it?even more terrible kick in the faceAs for these reviews, the “not recommended” section shows the few bad reviews first and then the good ones!
That's how it isa double whammy for anyone who inadvertently trusts Yelpor think it's true. They see these few one-star reviews as "not recommended" at first, until they get to the many positive ones.
It doesn't take more than a simple search to find so many people constantly complaining about what it has done to their business.
Bad reviews have to be real, good reviews have to be fake
It's really the biggest trend you'll see in Yelp reviews for auto transport companies. A free pass is usually given if it's a one star review most of the time.
Their short video on how their "amazing algorithm" works talks specifically about how they don't want people to brag about fake reviews, making their business look better than it actually is. However,says a yelperthis feature Yelp filtered out 67% of reviewss, (and mostly the good ones, of course.)
Yelp was not initially designed for external services and seems to be even more difficult for them.
Yelp is location-based. They check you based on your physical location most of the time.When you go to a cafe or restaurant, Yelp knows exactly what you're doing. You see you're taking a picture, the picture has GPS, your phone has GPS, obviously you're sitting there.If you take a picture of the ugliest wilted steak you've ever had and post it from there, you'll be dining there.
With service-based businesses, especially ones where the customer doesn't show up or check in, it's much harder to validate.
I noticed that most service oriented companies have the same argument about Yelp. Restaurants too, of course. Cafeterias do this too. But it's very common in service companies, which tend to be the most bothered.
In this regard, the "bad review must be real and a good review must be false" is the most widespread,they also filter out non-advertisers.
I also believe that service-oriented companies are such a small part of their numbers that they won't be interested in helping anytime soon either. Car shipper reviews make up this pile.
But what they also don't want to see is that their flawed system (intentionally or not) is seriously undermining the livelihoods of hard-working people who provide jobs and have families of their own.
From plumbers, mechanics, air conditioning technicians,Car transport companies are this "small" assessment groupIn comparison, it's not worth your time.
I can't ask for reviews, but does it matter?
Yelp doesn't want you to ask for reviews. All the others have a link that you can email people that will take them directly to your profile so they can write about you.
But to be honest, I don't think it matters. Because customers tell us they will leave us feedback all the time and they rarely choose this site. I really don't know who uses them. here in floridaI've always seen their signs at restaurant entrances. Now I see Uber and Postmates.
I know people who used to use them a lot but don't find them useful anymore. I don't see many millennials doing that, at least here. Which can bode well for the future.
Maybe it's just where I am in the country, but at least our customers don't use that platform as often. For example, we have car shipment reviews totaling about 70 or so reviews on one site, a dozen more on another, and about 10 on Yelp.
No end of Yelp in sight
Trust me, I'm always looking for messages saying that Yelp is having problems. As your stocks crash, your business crashes, whatever. You know what, now it's not.They even do grocery delivery, which further proves that this isn't their niche, so they need to get out.
Yelp needs to get out of these niches
The first thing you see at the top of the site now is food delivery talk. Which further shows what their niche is. Restaurants, cafes and bars.
For example, I know our company. We do a great job. We're not always perfect, we don't always get it right, nobody gets it right. But we try our best and you can't scold all the other sites that have great reviews that talk about us with a minimum of maybe 4 and a half stars everywhere except Yelp of course.
Site is strong in the wrong niches and needs Google and Bing to step in
You betIf you ask someone where they would look for something like an engine or car transporter, they wouldn't say Yelp. However, as they appear close to number one, people will check, and this is often the main problem.Get out of the top 10. You are not relevant.
Their website is so strong that if you type any company name into their database with the word “car transport reviews” they will come up at the top. This is absolutely devastating, especially when it is 100% true that the reviews are incorrectly filtered.
Since one star ratings are supposed to be real, here come the trolls
I wouldn't necessarily say that's the exact term for them, but I'm referring to competitors.Competitors can easily create a fake profileand leave a bad review once a week if you wish.
EsThis happens all the time. if you look at themAlmost all of the poor auto shipping reviews on Yelp largely come from accounts that were new and had no friends and reviewsin another place. But it has to be real, right? You can't do anything. I report our own fakes and they literally get back to you with a meaningful response stating that they have determined they qualify.
Yelp needs to provide service-oriented businesses with the ability to opt-out
In particular, if you were a service-based company, you should have the right to cancel your platform.I don't serve churros, I ship cars.Delete our profile and your comments will no longer be visible in search. If you want a special file, sure. But no search content.
But at least one file will be buried in a few yearsand all real and actual reviews that are correct will leave those false ones in the past.