How to Remove Bad Reviews From Yelp?

Business owners with a rating drop on Yelp can also see a sales drop shortly after. 

Yelp is a popular online platform attracting many people to check out reviews and information about local businesses, salons, restaurants, etc. It provides a wide range of scope to budding business owners and offers tremendous growth opportunities.

A recent study showed that 97% of Yelp users successfully purchased from a business they found on Yelp. In another survey conducted in 2014, Yelpers posted around 26,380 reviews per minute on the platform. Companies that have experienced negative or fake reviews may wonder how to remove bad reviews from Yelp.

For any local business, it's evident that Yelp matters. In this article, we will discuss removing bad reviews from Yelp and boosting your rating.

How do you find out who wrote a Yelp review?

Some reputations suffer due to negative Yelp reviews on the platform, affecting the businesses' scores and ultimately boiling down to an overall loss. Customers and competitors sometimes leave fake reviews about other platforms to destroy their reputation and gain an edge.

It helps them steal the customers of competitors and make profits. Hence, it is imperative to remove bad Yelp reviews so that any underhanded competitor cannot get an undue advantage.

Click the reviewer's profile to find out who wrote a Yelp review. You can then see personal details about them, such as other companies they have reviewed, where they are located, and photos of the person. 

If you do not recognize the name or they are located far away from your local business, this may be a fraudulent review.

How to Spot Fake Yelp Reviews

Even with the Yelp filter on work, some fake and false reviews somehow slip through the cracks, deteriorating the business's image. However, one should know how to spot and report counterfeit reviews to keep themselves safe from competitors and such sleazy acts. 

The following are the red flags that can help one sniff fake reviews instantly:

Frustrated ex-employees

After employees are fired or mistreated at the workplace, they try to get back at the organization by leaving bad reviews with fake profiles. Disgruntled former employees are often found to be the source of misleading and fraudulent reports. They try to slander the business for the sake of taking revenge. One should look out for such signs and look into the job review sites to get to the depth of matter from one's end.

Competitors or rivals

The business competitors can also leave nasty reviews on Yelp to snatch the customers of the rival. It is also a common occurrence to slam the business of others and garner more potential customers. People often pay others to make fake profiles and leave negative reviews via made-up accounts.

Accidental posts

Customers can also make honest mistakes. An unsatisfied customer can get confused between the names or pages of two businesses and leave a negative review on the wrong business page. It can happen accidentally but still fulfill the purpose of sabotaging one's company.

How to Remove Bad Reviews From Yelp

Only original authors can remove legitimate Yelp reviews. If a business wants to remove a Yelp review from the source, it must solve the customer's issue and ask them to update their rating. However, fake or false reviews are different. 

Business owners can take the following steps to report a review to Yelp.

Claim your business page.

The first and foremost step is to claim the page on Yelp to respond to the reviews. Only after the claim can one reply to the fake reviews or report them to Yelp.

Flag the review

There is an option on Yelp to flag the reviews that violate their content guidelines or the TOS (Terms of Service). You should flag reviews or contact the support team at Yelp and file a complaint. Subsequently, the group would take steps to deal with the matter. Yelp support will decide within 48-72 hours after reporting the review.

Legal action

One can also take legal action against such acts. A bad review can be considered defamatory if it states false facts that harm the reputation of a person or business. If the statement can be proven to be true, the business will be on the hook for the legal fees accrued by the reviewer. 

You should always try to work it out with the customer before taking legal action. 

Hiring a ORM service

A negative review removal service can help you work with Yelp to get the review removed. Reputation management companies often are already familiar with all strategies to remove a bad review on Yelp. They can help you report the review, respond to negative reviews, and collect more positive reviews to increase your rating. 

Working with a reputation management company can provide the resources to focus on fixing bad reviews, while you focus on growing your business and providing excellent customer service.

Does The Yelp Algorithm Remove Positive Reviews?

The review filter of Yelp hides irrelevant content on its own. Yelp is like other platforms that fetch reviews from people about businesses. It has also set some content guidelines that decide the kind of content that can flow on the platform. Especially for words that would be filtered out. The Yelp algorithm analyzes the reviews coming from people and hides or removes those that violate the guidelines. 

Yelp claims they filter out hate speech, threats, obscenity, and bigotry to discourage the flow of harmful content on the platform. However, most of this content will get past the filter unless you report the review to their support. In the past, Yelp has been accused of extortion and making customers pay them to remove reviews on their business page. 

Recently, Yelp has added a section for “reviews that are not recommended”. This hides reviews from users that are not established reviewers, experiences that are not detailed, and reviews that Yelp finds not useful. There is no definitive proof that Yelp hides positive reviews in this section unless you have a paid sponsorship.

Restoring Your Business on Yelp

A 2018 study showed that 84% of people trust online reviews just as much as personal recommendations, while 20% of online reviews are fake.

With 145 million monthly visitors, Yelp has earned many audiences. Unfortunately, repairing your rating on Yelp is not a piece of cake.

Also, no hard and fast rule identifies whether a review is authentic or fabricated. However, be it a small venture or a large organization, sliding profits is essential, and for that, one needs to sort out the difference between real and fake reviews.

Business owners need to develop a proactive review request strategy to get more positive reviews on Yelp. This can entail emailing customers who recently visited with a link to your Yelp business page, adding their review widget to your website or email, and asking happy customers to share their experiences. 

Without a review management strategy, you will leave your Yelp rating to chance. You leave your company to receive a review only when a customer has had a negative emotional experience. 

To learn more about managing Yelp reviews or speaking with a review specialist, call us today at 855-750-0583.

How to Handle Negative Reviews?

Being on the receiving end of critical feedback is disappointing. However, one should handle the bad Yelp reviews by considering them a constructive improvement. It is crucial to respond to them with a calm mind and apologize for the customer's dissatisfaction. The response to bad reviews should end politely, ascertaining better customer service in the future.

It is natural to slip up sometimes. There can be many reasons, like customers over-expecting or cashiers making an honest mistake while billing and anything of that sort. Thus, criticism would boost profit and improve the business, leading to satisfied customers. In hindsight, a page crowded with positive reviews only would also appear to be suspicious and fake. Having a balance in reviews goes a long way. Remember, trust and reputation go hand in hand.

NewReputation has helped hundreds of brands build a better online reputation. Contact us today to receive a free proposal to remove a negative review from Yelp.