Yelp's Consumer Alert Label On Business Profile Reviews

[Mike Friedman]

I hope they find more ways to catch people doing this, but that sort of warning can be pretty damaging to a business. I would imagine they will only do it in cases they are 100% sure, like this one. Although, I guess I could see someone trying to act like a business owner and posting fake ads like this to damage another business. Call it Negative Yelp Local SEO. Coming to a WSO soon.

 

 

 

Jun 9, 2015 • 8:12 am |  (0)by Barry Schwartz   | Filed Under Local Search Engine Tips & Optimization

 

It seems Yelp is now labeling reviews on business profiles that they think have fraudulent and paid for reviews.

 

The Local Search Forums notes some business profiles showing the warning.

 

The warning hides the reviews on the profile with a "Consumer Alert" box. The box then reads:

 

 

We caught someone red-handed trying to pay someone to write, change, or remove a review for this business. We weren’t fooled, but wanted you to know because these actions not only hurt consumers, but also honest businesses who play by the rules. Check out the evidence here.

 

You can then click on the "Show me the reviews" button to see them.

 

 

The very interesting part is if you are the business owner, Yelp will now show you evidence of the payment attempts for the reviews.

 

Yelp will share a screen shot of the evidence and one shared such an example in the thread:

 

 

That is pretty transparent and it would be cool if Google went as far as to show you detailed examples of when you break their guidelines.