The Vancouver Indy Coffee Scene

Yelp is Evil - Credit: East Bay Express

I joined Yelp weeks ago just to see what it was all about. I hadn’t really done anything with it until I was contacted by Crystal H. last week, who looks like a normal user but is actually staff for Yelp and has the title of new community manager for Yelp Vancouver.

She asked where all the great coffee places in Vancouver was and was dieing to know. So I told her about the coffee blog and how it wasn’t a money-making venture, but it was a site I was working on.

She checked out the blog, loved it and then told me she got a lot more traffic from Yelp then she ever did from Twitter.

I thought great, I will share my content with Yelp and get some reciprocal links to improve my authority on Yelp as a strong and competent reviewer and everyone will be happy.

I had heard some news about Yelp’s odd review removal policy back in February, but after reading the FAQ’s I though it might had seen the light.

In the two days I was actually posting by Yelp I added four new locations and out of the 16 places I had reviewed I also already had three Useful and one Cool rating on my reviews. Instant feedback that I was doing something right. I had added about 300 words to each review, photos, and star rating and then at the bottom a link to this blog.

I was told by Crystal H. that Yelp doesn’t really like posted links ( yet still allows users to submit them). I was also told I should really yelp about more then just coffee, (which is complete reversal to what she originally asked for) I was also told I should really put some Yelp Bling on my site to show where I have been on and what I have reviewed on Yelp.

Within 48 hours of being asked to submit my two years of cafe review knowledge I was banned from the site in an email from Sydney at Yelp HQ.

Hello,

I’m writing to let you know about our decision to close your account. Your user account was flagged by the Yelp community, and our support team has determined that your account has violated Yelp’s Terms of Service (http://www.yelp.ca/static?p=tos), specifically for using your account for commercial or promotional purposes.

While we don’t provide additional details about account closures, please know that we review every situation with great attention and take this matter very seriously.

Regards,
Sydney
Yelp User Support

I wasn’t given a warning, probation told to take down what they considered offending content, I was just not wanted around anymore and deleted from the system.

While I haven’t lost any sleep over this blogger Vancouver Eats agree that is just absolute BS. I will wear it with a badge of honour. It is the first social network I have ever been banned from, and yes, my parents are very proud…

But I am left with food for thought:
• Crystal H never gives a bad review about anything, thinks everything is great.
• Yelp wants you to put all its badges on my site and yet absolutely nothing in return.
• I saw very little transparency in the authority of reviews on Yelp, there could be hundreds of shills.

Will I ever return to Yelp if asked back? Nope… it was about as fair and balanced as Fox News during the Bush Administration.

But in my next post I will talk about how to do this properly and how to do it right, and why we’re adding Urban Spoon to our sites social network.