Slashdot Mirror
Small Restaurant Out-Maneuvers Yelp In Reviews War
An anonymous reader writes Yelp has, for the past year or so, garnered a reputation for extorting businesses into paying for advertising on their site. Allegations include incessant calls for advertising contracts, automatic listing of a business, and suppressing good reviews should a business decide to opt out of paying Yelp for listing them. One small Italian trattoria, however, may have succeeded in flipping Yelp's legally sanctioned business practices in its favor. The owners of Botto Bistro in Redmond, CA, initially agreed to pay for advertising on Yelp one year ago apparently because they were tired of getting calls from Yelp's sales team. But even after buying advertising, the owners claim that they kept receiving calls. So they started a campaign to get as many one-star reviews as they could, even offering 25% discounts to customers. As of this writing they have 866, and a casual perusal of them reveals enthusiastic tongue-in-cheek support for the restaurant. One-star reviews, once Yelp's best scare tactic, is now this particular business's badge of quality. And they didn't even have to pay Yelp for it.
No not really, but here are some Yelp reviews anyway, just from this weekend:
(one star)
Your food seems delicious, but that you do not offer shipping to Canary Islands (Spain).... That I cannot accept...
C'mon what kind of service do you offer if you don't deliver to 10000km afar?
I better go to another place!
(one star)
Don't try the pizza, it's so good you will come back every day, it completely ruined my social life cause each night I only want to go there
I hate this place!
(one star)
Great food, great drinks, great service awesome experience overall. However...
- No pet giraffes or tigers allowed inside
- No shower in the bathroom
- No gym inside to work out after meal
- One time they wouldn't serve me because I was completely naked and very drunk
- Food is not free and I have to pay for it
- They always get your order right
So for these reasons I hate this place and will not return for a day or two.
(one star)
I have never been here before.
In fact, I have never heard of this place before. But, it is SO AWFUL that I am going to refuse to get within 500 miles of it. Therefore, all because of how bad this restaurant is, I am going to have to cancel my plans to visit the Bay Area. In fact, this place is so bad...so I have heard...that I may have to move out of the state due to the embarrassment of being in the same state as this place.
(one star)
Too much integrity. No thanks!
How can I be sure that you care about your food if you won't be manipulated by the Yelp powers-that-be?
How can I trust that you care about quality if you won't spend your time whoring yourself online for 5-star reviews?
How can I expect you to care about your staff and their families if you won't give money to Yelp instead of them??
(one star)
Can't stand this place. Came here and asked if I could substitute the pizza dough with cardboard... they could not accommodate me.
BRB going to Dominos.
There's a business in Redmond WA that pays Slashdot "editors", including Timothy, for early access to stories and posting rights. It gives their Social Media Managers the opportunity to preemptively direct unflattering topics into safer channels.
I just did.
If you think I voted for Trump because of this post, you're wrong. I voted for Dr. Jill Stein of the Green Party. Again.
When the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, did Timothy give up? No!
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
It only goes to -1...so sad.
><));>
From now on I will apply Swedish laws on all my meatballs!
Wow, can you imagine such a place?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
Since when is 200k a small town? If I can't take a piss in my back yard, it's not a small town. That's Shatrat's Piss-Test of Town-Significance.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0