Removing Negative Yelp Reviews

We’re often asked about removing negative Yelp reviews.  With an established business and an updated Yelp account with positive reviews you can expect to begin to collect Yelp leads especially when you purchase Yelp ads.  But if you’re a business owner and you don’t have a Yelp account and you have multiple unfavorable ratings then do not hire a firm to remove those reviews.  First of all Yelp says it can’t be done and that firms like YelpBooster (aka YelpMotion) that say they sell five-star Yelp reviews and first-page placement in search engine results are fraudulent claims. According to Yelp, “The company’s solicitations were extremely misleading. Even worse, they suggested falsely they were affiliated with — or even calling from — Yelp.”  Yelp maintains that, “there are still plenty of third-party companies offering to remove bad reviews, recommend certain reviews, or boost your ratings for a fee.”  But it just can’t be done according to Yelp and even if there is a work around, if/when Yelp locates it they’ll place a  Consumer Alert on your business page.  As we’ve noted many times, if you have a number of negative reviews on Yelp that’s not a Yelp problem that’s a “You” problem.  Create your account, we can help you, and then respond to negative comments with an offer to make good or just ignore them and start a Yelp campaign to reverse online public opinion as displayed through Yelp.  As is our general policy, there are no shortcuts to earning business online outside of spending money with advertising and social media networks.  So do your best to be a good company, play by the rules, and eventually you’ll be rewarded.