SEO - Laced Media

One of the biggest consumer review platforms online is filtering your reviews. Yelp developed its own algorithm in hopes to filter out fake or spam reviews in order to publish a more reliable customer review source. Unfortunately, some of those positive “legit” reviews are being filtered out as well.

Why Does Yelp Filter Reviews?

Yelp tries to filter reviews that it thinks are likely to be fake or spam. These could be reviews Yelp thinks are malicious, inside influenced, an individual who has never visited the business, or competitors attempting to damage the business’s reputation. Consumer Reviews are highly important to any business and can heavily influence a potential customer to choose you, or look elsewhere.

Yelp will filter out reviews good and bad based on some of these factors:

A reviewer with no photos, profile info, or profile picture
Lack of details in the review
A reviewer with only 1 review
Reviews from an account consisting of all 1 star or 5 stars
Frequency of reviews

How Do I Get My Yelp Reviews to Show?

A few recommendations you can try to help get those customer reviews to show on your Yelp listing:

Click the buttons: Cool, Useful or Funny for the 5 star reviews – normally located at the bottom of the review
Add the reviewer as a friend
Send a message to the reviewer
Respond to the review – I always recommend replying to your reviews, especially the harmful 1 star reviews

Interacting with the reviews and the Reviewers tell Yelp these are “legit” and hopefully sway them to start showing. You’ll want to focus on the 5-star reviews to interact with since this encourages visibility. The more people do this, the better. The customer can also increase the power of their opinion as well with the suggestions below.

How to Show Yelp My Reviews are Legitimate

As a consumer, I would want my review I spent time writing to show. Here are a few recommendations to share with your customers to beat the Yelp Filter:

Write more reviews ( a lot more)
Fill out your profile and add photos
Connect with other members on Yelp
Write more details in your review
Leave “Tips” for the business you’re reviewing too
Become a part of Yelp Elite

Though doing these will never guarantee your reviews will show but it’s a step in the write (pun intended) direction!

Need some guidance with reviews and reputation management? Contact us to find out more on how we clean up an online reputation.

Learn How Customers See Your Business In Google Search

Many companies want to know how well they rank in a Google Search for services and products they offer. A majority will Google themselves to see where they rank — and can be very disappointed. Google uses a wide range of factors to deliver customized results with every search. Googling yourself will not give reliable results on how customers see your business in Google search based on customized search.

Customize Search To Answer Your Questions

Google’s has refined their search results in such a way that it uses data you never thought it would. The goal for Google search is to deliver an answer to a questions or provide the best possible result to a search. So, Google will use information it has collected over time and include it in any of the future searches. Keywords Googled, phrases, or even websites visited.

How Does Google Know...

Google search has an extremely complex algorithm. Its purpose is to index (record and categorize) the world wide web. There are a lot of variables that go into how Google will return a search results list. Google is very hush hush on their algorithm though sometimes someone spills the beans. Here are a few examples of what may impact page rank in the search results for search queries:

Metadata, Descriptions, Headings and Titles
Previous searches and relative keywords
A well structured website with link building
Geolocation in reference to what is searched
and endless more factors…

What is An Algorithm?

Google algorithms is a computer programming that is set to deliver information in a very complex and specific way. Google’s search engine returns millions of results for you to choose from but how does it know what to list and what order to list it in? An algorithm.

Tips On Finding Your Current Position in Ranking

When Googling yourself, try using a Private Window or Incognito. This will eliminate some factors Google will typically use in search to make the results more relevant to your previous searches. Though this is not an indefinite way to see how you truly show for your potential customers, it’s closer to what they may see when Googling services you offer.

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Yelp’s Algorithm & Why Your Reviews Don’t Show