To one small business owner, the message was clear: contract reviewers or face irrelevance. Many small businesses find themselves in this precarious position, where reviews are a necessary evil to doing business. Too many reviews, and you risk a bad reputation. Too few, and Web surfers may not think much of your business at all.
But don’t contract a writer just yet. It seems that Yelp’s CEO, Jeremy Stoppleman, is engaged in an aggressive sting operation. For Yelp, reviews aren’t just a feature. User generated content is the lifeblood of the service, which catalogues billions of reviews from users around the world. These stings aim to “out” business owners who incentivize reviews, a practice Yelp’s terms of service explicitly forbids.
Join Pierre Zarokian, our CEO, as he discusses these dramatic changes to Yelp’s terms. If you are concerned about reviews online for your business, this free article from Search Engine Watch is a must read.