Yelp Filters Reviews for These Users [VIDEO]

Make sure your Yelp views do not get filtered and put into Yelp’s “Not Recommended” folder. I’m Matt Jones, I’m your professor of reputation knowledge and I’m here to talk to you more about that. If you’re a business owner, one of your biggest complaints on Yelp is that you get reviews on Yelp, but they’re put into Yelp’s “Not Recommended” folder. And if you’re not sure where that is, scroll down on your Yelp profile, and on the bottom page, or towards the bottom of the page, there’s a little grayed-out section and that’s where the filtered reviews are for you. There are certain things that we know that if a Yelper does, their reviews are probably going to be put into this folder. Here’s what you can make sure to NOT do in order to make sure that your reviews are getting posted on Yelp. Again, if you’re soliciting reviews from your customers, please make them aware of some of these rules so that their reviews are seen and also for the world to be able to see them.

The first thing is: you need to make sure that you have friends on Yelp. Yelp will actually say these are some suggested friends when you’re creating your profile, but you want to make sure to link up with those people and send them friend requests. Another thing that you want to do is you want to have a complete profile. One of the pains with Yelp is that when you are setting up your profile, there are quite a bit of questions that they’ll ask you, and you want to make sure that you complete that profile and answer those questions. Because if you do, your reviews are going to be given more weight and they’re much less likely to be put into the dreaded “Not Recommended” folder.

Another thing you want to do is have a profile picture, make sure that that’s there. You want to have reviews. If you’re a first-time Yelper and it’s your first time writing a review on Yelp, there’s a really good chance that your review is going to be put into that “Not Recommended” folder. Make sure that you do a few reviews and have several business reviews under your belt. If you do have one review and you post that, and your review gets put into that filtered folder, the more reviews that you leave for companies and the more of the other information that you do that we have pointed out and will point out, your review can actually bounce out of that “Not Recommended” folder and go into the regular area where reviews are seen by the general public. Just because you do have a review that goes in there, doesn’t mean that it’s going to be there forever, if you continue to bolster your profile and make sure that Yelp sees you as a legitimate reviewer.

Another thing you want to do if you have a one-star review or a five-star review, we know that those are much more likely to be filtered than stars that are in the two to four range. If your first Yelp review is something superlative, that’s great. You might want to continue everything else and make sure that know that you’re probably going to go in the “Not Recommended” folder, but as you complete other reviews, there’s a good chance that it will bounce out. But if it is, especially a one or five-star review for that very first one, there’s a really good chance that it won’t be seen by the general public. Also, if your review is too short, that’s also something we’ve seen as being a problem, so make sure that you include details, adjectives, and generally more vivid description of your experience, so other customers and other Yelpers can see in graphic detail what your experience was with any given company. And then also, if you’re a business owner and you see a review that went into your “Not Recommend” folder, we’ve seen this happen, if you send that person a friend request or you send them a message and have a little bit of dialogue back and forth, we’ve noticed that Yelp will see that communication as being more legitimate, and that’s one way that you can help get that not recommended review into the recommended area of your Yelp profile. Of your business profile, excuse me.

So that’s it, make sure you get those done. Make sure your clients are aware of these rules, and we’ll continue to update them as we do more research and find out some of the discoveries for ourselves on how you make sure that your reviews are optimized on Yelp. I am Matt Jones, with WebPunch, we will help you knock out your competition one review at a time. See you next time.