Did Yelp Change their Review Filter?

Posted on | March 5, 2010 | No Comments

They'll let anyone Yelp these days!

Yelp, the local review website, may have recently changed their algorithm that blocks some reviews from being displayed publicly. This algorithm looks for fraudulent Yelp accounts and fraudulent Yelp reviews. I assume this has been very effective for them, keeping the local business reviews pure and uninfluenced. They protect their system from being gamed by business owners looking to improve their Yelp rankings, by posting positive reviews. The algorithm would look at several factors including a valid email account and overly positive review.

But recently I’ve been noticing a lot of positive and negative reviews appearing on businesses from brand new Yelpers. These visitors appear to have signed up, just to leave a review and thats it. Normally single reviews or first time reviews are red flagged by Yelp, or seemed to have been flagged before in the past. Yelp algorithm was strong, but effective in detecting these types of reviews.

But perhaps the algorithm was too strong prompting a change. I’ve know legitimate reviews would get caught in Yelp’s algorithm. I know this because when I tried sending a friend what I found to be a humorous review for a business we went. My friend could not find my review in the few reviews the business had. But when I looked at the business page, I clearly saw it as the top review. I discovered this was because I was logged in. For that business, the review count and the overall review rating would change.

I would hope Yelp will perfect their review algorithm so that legitimate reviews are counted, and bogus reviews are discarded. Yelp has been in trouble with their review system before, and in one case offering to remove negative reviews if the business advertised with Yelp. This of course brings up the legitimacy of the quality score that Yelp assigns to businesses. Are they hiding negative reviews cause businesses advertise with Yelp, or are they hiding positive reviews because a business doesn’t advertise with Yelp. I think only Yelp employees know that one.