So, a buddy of mine Chuck Reynolds, showed me this, (he got it as a friend request on Yelp) and I just had to blog about it … holy crap is this what spam is evolving to on Yelp? I hope not, and I am most certainly hoping that YELP, did not in fact, recommend this. I can’t imagine them doing so .. This is just a flat out lie claiming Yelp told you to do this …. so funny because of how much it goes against everything I know Yelp to be …. and that Dylan (from Yelp) and Will Scott (Search Influence) ever fought about at conferences 🙂
People, this is NOT THE WAY TO GET YELP REVIEWS!!!! (here’s more info on that) I really wanna blog more about this, but holy crap this is bad and I have lost my will today. Targeting Elite’s? Wow … just wow.
Yeah it surprised me a bit to get it as well :/ I’ve had stuff come my way before due to the Elite status but this one was pretty blatant lol
WOW. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Yelp did NOT recommend this. That it’s just one of the most insane spam efforts ever.
@Chuck Reynolds
@Alan Bleiweiss
I am almost at a loss for words on this one … it’s like people don’t even try to get the network anymore … they move right into spamming without any effort at all. LOL
Interesting. I saw something yesterday (should have taken screen shot) with an offer of $100 per review written on yelp, sent via FB. It’s gonna get worse before it gets better.
@Michael Dorausch Yea, Mike you are right. It was only a matter of time. I am sure there are plenty of elites out there taking advantage of the system too. I guess it goes both ways … always does. I wonder if Angies List sees less of this because of the paid membership … just thinking outloud how one could avoid this? I guess a good start would be to have more engineers than sales people on staff 🙂
My very favorite is “Yelp told me if…”. That’s the best. Really legitimizes the effort.
There are so many better ways to buy Yelp reviews, for instance:
– Yelp Deals
– Hosting an Elite Event
– Check-in specials
Well, it depends on who at yelp they were talking to. I have talked to Google tag/boost reps that told me to do things that were waaaaay against guidelines because of lack of training and wanting a sale.
Do I think a yelp sales rep might do this? Yes…but not with Yelp’s permission.
Yelp Elite know the rules so there would be no benefit in saying “yelp said this was ok”. Better spam would have just been to offer the deal and not even mention a conversation about yelp.
@Will Scott
HAHAAHA love that Will, now if only we could get Dylan to respond to that … or ANYONE from Yelp I’d be happy.
@Mike Ramsey
What’s funny on Facebook I am friends with several of the top Yelp peeps and they all say NOBODY AT YELP would ever advise this (which is probably true) but just funny because you and I both know that kind of stuff happens all day long … it’s Wills point of how many sales people vs how many engineers they have. think about that.
Interesting, Yelp is been of great help for our own work but when you see something like this – makes one wonder about their practices.
Thanks for sharing this info
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They could have had the decency not to confuse “their” and “they’re” in their/they’re “Yelp” message