They say that, but they decide which reviews are legitimate, and they're more likely to decide that positive reviews are legitimate, if a business is paying them.
On the other hand, my experience pre-pandemic was that Yelp had the only reliable database of local USA businesses' hours of operation (there is probably now no way to know other than phone calls).
>>So THAT'S what all the humans at Google are up to
How cute. You think that these are humans calling from google. No biological human has represented google by phone since the 90s. It is all androids and chatbots.
That's nice they call. I'm aware of a variety of business listings they helpfully automatically update to be wrong. The only way to know is to check back often.
> They say that, but they decide which reviews are legitimate, and they're more likely to decide that positive reviews are legitimate, if a business is paying them.
Do you have any evidence of that?
I have several unsolicited 5-star reviews for my business that have been flagged as "not currently recommended." Yet despite fighting off their sales reps for years my business is the best rated business in my city in my category.
Based on my experience, the Yelp hate is just sour grapes from businesses that are reluctant to bend over backwards to make every customer happy.
> sour grapes from businesses that are reluctant to bend over backwards to make every customer happy.
Not too many business that do that stay in business for long. "The customer is always right" if not taken with many grains of salt will bury you when you get just the right customer (who will directly reference the mantra).
It's certainly a challenging way to run a business. I don't recommend anyone blindly pursue that strategy.
One key to making it work is to invest in long term relationships with your clients. A transaction with a client you have an established relationship with is much less risky than a transaction with a stranger.
Just bc this one person didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. They’ve definitely taken my negative reviews down or made them invisible so I stopped using them
They say that, but they decide which reviews are legitimate, and they're more likely to decide that positive reviews are legitimate, if a business is paying them.
On the other hand, my experience pre-pandemic was that Yelp had the only reliable database of local USA businesses' hours of operation (there is probably now no way to know other than phone calls).