The lack of transparency isn't surprising to me, as that's basically industry practice when it comes to the "special sauce" algorithms that power these recommendation engines (google, tripadvisor, whoever).
But the extortion part does surprise (horrify?) me. I'd love to see some more concrete proof that advertising on yelp results in a friendlier filter function for that business. I assume that there is enough publicly available information (just by scraping their site) to establish some kind of correlation between advertising and filter-friendliness, if one exists. Any of you up for the challenge?
I'd settle for seeing those communications w/the sales team referenced in the article, though.
If that correlation existed, it wouldn't still indicate causation, i.e. that advertising causes the filter bias to change. Maybe the companies who eschew planting fake reviews are also the ones who are willing to pay for advertising.
Yelp has repeatedly, strenuously denied the extortion claims, yet the accusations continue to come. I think a phone recording by one of these accusers would be an excellent smoking gun. Or if someone here calls on behalf of a restaurant or other business (that they have a stake in and has filtered reviews), they could report back to us on what happened. In the meantime, I'm inclined to apply the "innocent until proven guilty" principle in favor of Yelp.
Very true! Thanks for gently pointing out that hole in my logic. The leap from correlation to causation is a very big one. Anyhow, like you, until I see something other than restaurateurs complaining, I'll give Yelp the benefit of the doubt here.
You don't actually need to make the filter friendlier to advertising. Rankings change every time they re-run the algorithm. You hint that things will be better if I advertise; 50% of the time, that's true.
But the extortion part does surprise (horrify?) me. I'd love to see some more concrete proof that advertising on yelp results in a friendlier filter function for that business. I assume that there is enough publicly available information (just by scraping their site) to establish some kind of correlation between advertising and filter-friendliness, if one exists. Any of you up for the challenge?
I'd settle for seeing those communications w/the sales team referenced in the article, though.