Highest Rated Comments


jeremy_stoppelman98 karma

Yes. This was recently examined in an HBS study. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2293164 (See section 3.4) ... You can also run a test yourself on Google to see if advertisers are given preferential treatment. For example: https://www.google.com/#q=site%3Ayelp.com%2Fbiz+%22yelp+sponsor%22+AND+%22this+place+sucks%22 (Why are these advertisers not "deleting" the negative reviews if this is a feature they've supposedly paid for?)

jeremy_stoppelman52 karma

What part of that is bullshit?

jeremy_stoppelman35 karma

“Rogue salespeople” acting in their own interests against Yelp’s training and policies could, in theory, promise a potential client anything -- but they have no way of fulfilling that promise. We haven’t built a product that allows businesses to remove negative reviews and a "duped" advertiser would obviously realize that right away and let us know. We have 57,000 paying advertisers who know what they get and that's not it.

jeremy_stoppelman30 karma

Actually there is not "massive evidence" and in fact lawsuits about this have been repeatedly dismissed for lack of evidence. http://officialblog.yelp.com/2011/10/case-dismissed-again.html