Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

I don't know if he's just being coy by saying this is an accident on Yelp's part.

The actual reviews are here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/royal-transportation-moving-and-stor.... It's pretty obvious there is something fishy about the unfiltered reviews. Each reviewer first left a one line review "Amazing!!! one of a kind..one of the best sushi place" and "the best of the best" before their very detailed, glowing review of the movers. If that's what it takes to fool the spam filter then something is very wrong. By contrast one of the filtered reviewers has ten measured, thorough reviews but his review has been banned for ToS violations.

Yelp really needs to disclose which vendors have a business relationship with them. They should also make the filtered reviews easier to see (place the link next to the unfiltered review count) and remove the damn CAPTCHA. I regularly try to check the filtered reviews but can't because the CAPTCHA is too difficult to read.



Damn, I never new there was a CAPTCHA.

really really really makes me suspicious. Just did a check to make sure that google does not integrate yelp reviews (it does not) since that is what I mostly use.

also worth noting that "bob" liked the company so much he cross-posted his review to google.

Rather interesting to see his google review history, as long as we are speculating . . .

http://maps.google.com/maps/user?uid=213714492309658467573&#...

_____

edit: also a bit of fun to compare these two reviews:

http://www.mymovingreviews.com/movingreviews/myself-and-my-f...

http://www.yelp.com/biz/royal-transportation-moving-and-stor...


Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I was unable to find the sushi reviews here... Is Yelp changing the reviews as we read them?


Click on Abigail and Bob's names for their review history.


Gotcha. Damn, I see what you mean. If that's all it takes to game the system, it's amazing that their system isn't completely overwhelmed by fake reviews...


That's literally jawdropping for me. I would have thought it a fantastic business... and then to find that all the filtered reviews are 1 star... unreal.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: