Yelp no longer a reliable source of information

I can't say I've had any problems with Yelp on the above level but I rarely use one source to decide where I'll spend my money.

For restaurants I tend to use reviews written by professional critics found in newspapers, local high production magazines, Zagat's, and travel magazines. Much the same resources for hotels although since I worked in the industry I've a pretty good idea what chains I prefer to stay in.

For me sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor are for a different on the ground review and I read them after going thru my first sources. Maybe they'll tell me something about what side of the hotel has more sunlight,post personal pictures, etc.

I accept that when posting on individual based review sites some people have an axe to grind and others are less than articulate. Good example: "We had a great time and will go again!!!!". I read those reviews as various forms of fluff and rarely retain them in my brain.

Angie's List is a site I've never been interested in paying for the privilege to use.

wa8yxm wrote:
.........

If you wonder what a dingbat is.. May I suggest GOOGLING it..

I did and I didn't see Archie Bunker anywhere. :B

Did learn something though.

Most sites if you post a review something like this (NOTE: I am censoring this myself)

Those )@#($U@#)@(*#$ Idiots are so clueless that they can not find their @W@ with both hands and a Mirror.

Well it is going to either get edited, or deleted.

This is actually a good thign... And many post that way.. Only without the Dingbats, they post the un-postable words the dingbats replace.

If you wonder what a dingbat is.. May I suggest GOOGLING it..

The thing I like about tripadvisor and rvparkreviews is that I can see all the reviews of someone who reviewed a place. That way I can see if they panned all the other places nearby and raved about a specific one. That tells me they're biased. I also like to see if they have reviewed a place I have been to.

Yelp doesn't give you that ability. Why not let you see what else the reviewer has reviewed?

Whether it be Yelp or any other review system, they are all severely flawed. You can't really see it unless your the owner of the business being reviewed.

TucsonJim wrote:
I've placed a lot of reviews on Yelp, some postive and some negative. I just checked and my negative reviews are still there. What are you basing your accusation on?

there was a very long discussion on CNBC about this exact thing recently. The big problem is competing businesses loading the reviews against their competitors, and this is especially bad with restaurants. Obviously this affects investors which is the reason for the discussion on CNBC. Yelp is having a very a hard time with credibility because of all this, and it may be the reason some negotiable reviews are being pulled as suspect trolling.

Speaking of "biased" reviews, I challenge anyone to find one product on the Camping World website with a bad review as indicated by a score of one star. I've posted a couple of negative reviews on that site, and they were never posted.

moderation is not a bad thing. It exists here on this forum, for good reason.
rvparkreviews.com is a trusted source, also moderated.
tripadvisor.com is not moderated, so reviews there ,I believe, are less trustworthy, due to the angst factor of reviewers not having a 'cooling down' period or concern of second party review.
Reviews become much more like ratings when tempered with time and knowledge of potential moderation to screen out unfounded lambasts, as well as screening out suspected associated business reviews.
It is a fine line to walk on, for a review site to be indemnified from moderation.
Max

Usually I have problems with posts like this,but I have had a couple of my Yelp reviews disappear also. I'm not sure why as both of them were good ones. I contacted them and they said that one was removed by mistake and the other said something that wasn't allowed. I rewrote the second one and it was posted. The one that I really have a problem with is Trip Advisor as they sensor your reviews before putting them up. I did have an older one disappear from that one and it was a bad one. I'll wait for judgement on both of them as I just got back from a week in Leavenworth Wa and will be putting up a couple of bad ones and a couple of good ones.

I can also see good and bad reviews. Can you give an example of what you see.