How To Remove Negative Yelp Reviews
Written by: Adam
December 8th, 2021
Table of Contents
Angry Yelp Reviews: The Power of Online Reviews
Customers Check the Yelp Review Site More Than Ever
Third Party Review Platforms to Monitor
Fake Reviews on Yelp And Why You Need To Remove Fake Ones
Encouraging Positive Reviews: Tips
Can You Remove Yelp Reviews Yourself?
Remove Yelp Reviews With Online Reputation Management
Contact NetReputation Today
The best way to remove negative Yelp reviews from the web? Contact our Review Management and Removal Team today!
Tired of bad Yelp reviews driving away your customers?
If you’re looking for helpful information on how to remove negative Yelp reviews, you’re in the right place.
And get ready, because there’s a lot to cover.
NetReputation’s team of review management experts have helped thousands of business owners protect their brands and their reputations with our comprehensive negative review removal services. In this guide, we will explore how you can remove the reviews that are harming your brand.
Angry Yelp Reviews: The Power of Online Reviews
Today’s consumer review sites make it easy to complain about a local company’s customer service or unfair prices. As a result, any company is subject to a negative review at any time.
Online reviews are a driving force in consumer purchasing behaviors; positive reviews and negative reviews have the ability to shape business decisions. With Yelp standing out among third-party review sites, understanding how to remove negative reviews can protect your online reputation.
The biggest problem with bad reviews is they can harm your brand and bottom line in a big way!
And even though transparency can help with marketing and PR, it can also be a hurdle when dealing with a bad online rating.
Customers Check the Yelp Review Site More Than Ever
In the modern digital landscape, reviews do more than allow customers to share their experiences. They also directly influence shopping behaviors.
Consider these online review statistics:
- 34% of all shoppers indicate they always read online reviews before visiting a business.
- A whopping 91% of consumers read online reviews at some point during their purchasing journey.
- 94% of consumers have avoided a given business when confronted with bad reviews.
- Customers are over 20% more likely to leave a bad review than a good one.
- Good reviews are as important as personal recommendations about a business. In fact, about 39% of consumers indicate that positive reviews are more trustworthy than word-of-mouth recommendations from friends.
- 58% of customers would pay more to support companies with good reviews.
- Every negative review has the potential to drive as many as 22% of customers away.
- More than one bad review can increase customer losses to over 59%.
More customers than ever turn to online reviews before visiting a business. The more positive reviews your business has, the more likely it is to attract new customers. The more negative reviews have the opposite effect, driving customers to your competitors in droves.
Your online reputation is at stake when your business has even one negative Yelp review. This makes it crucial to know how to delete Yelp reviews and handle negative testimonials as quickly as possible.
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Third Party Review Platforms to Monitor
As you work to keep your reputation intact, there are many online review sites that should always be on your radar. Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tripadvisor, and of course, Yelp, all feature comments that can provide valuable insight into brand perception. But they can also damage your business. A single bad Yelp review may impact your business by as much as 20%. Conversely, positive Yelp reviews have the potential to improve your business, build trust with consumers, and help your brand to stand out.
Although Yelp dominates in the online review space, the Google review platform has been gaining market share over the past several years. Google reviews and business ratings feature prominently in search results. As a result, negative online reviews tend to stand out in search, influencing customer behaviors.
Anyone can write reviews on these sites — even people who have never visited your business. Because of this, fake review and false review posting have become a growing problem for many local business owners. Over time, these false reviews can harm your business prospects.
So let’s look at Yelp’s review removal guidelines and why every business owner should learn about removing defamatory and fake reviews from Yelp.
Fake Reviews on Yelp And Why You Need To Remove Fake Ones
In order to remove Yelp reviews, you must first know what this review platform is and how it works.
If you ever searched for online reviews on a restaurant, bar, or cafe, chances are you stumbled across Yelp. Founded in 2004, Yelp publishes crowd-sourced reviews and ratings about businesses and operates online reservations. The goal of the platform was to provide a place for customers to leave honest reviews about their experiences. The vast majority of people with a Yelp account review businesses with fairness and with accuracy, but this isn’t always the case.
As we will learn, many people have used Yelp to hurt a business’s online reputation by posting false or negative reviews.
Yelp can be a great way to discover not only new restaurants and bars, but also shops, hairdressers, and spas in your local area. In the last few years, Yelp has earned a lot of members and online recognition. For the small business owner, Yelp has unlocked new opportunities with customers in their local areas.
Yelp works by encouraging people to share their experiences with local businesses with others. Customers can also give places review stars, with 1-star reviews the lowest and 5 stars the highest.
But since we can’t have positive experiences all the time, much of what appears on Yelp is highly negative. In fact, customers with a poor experience are far more likely to post a negative review than a satisfied customer is to share their positive review with others. Some of the time, customers will only review a business if their experience was negative.
That said, what can you do when your Yelp reviews are mostly negative? Or if those complaints are from fake customers or competitors smearing your brand and long-term reputation? The Yelp review environment is managed by a complex Yelp review filter, but individuals with a grudge have found ways around these controls.
Unfortunately, it’s not uncommon for unhappy customers or ex-employees to write malicious reviews online. That’s why knowing how to remove negative Yelp reviews is something every business owner should take seriously.
Encouraging Positive Reviews: Tips
The first step in ensuring a positive online presence is to encourage customers to leave reviews. Customer reviews are the cornerstone of a robust digital footprint; reviews posted by customers build trust and also help to build brand awareness.
How can you encourage your customers to generate positive reviews? The answer is simple: deliver superior service. Happy customers often want to share their experiences with others, legitimate reviews that showcase how great your company is can help you stand out in online searches. For search engine optimization, reviews stick out when they are positive.
Yelp’s algorithm singles out favorable reviews, positioning them at the top of any business profile on the platform. To get more positive Yelp reviews, ask your customers to post. Make the posting process easy by sharing links to your Yelp profile in emails, on receipts, and on your website. This way, customers can leave reviews whenever they visit your business.
Can You Remove Yelp Reviews Yourself?
Yelp removes certain reviews automatically. For example, fake content or language that violates Yelp’s community standards will often be deleted. Yelp’s content guidelines and Yelp moderators do a pretty good job of filtering reviews for accuracy and truthfulness. Filtered reviews are one way to ensure that the review site is doing what it can to provide users with valuable insights about businesses in their area.
Unfortunately, many fake reviews also go undetected or somehow fool Yelp’s review moderators. The Yelp filter is relatively accurate, but the sheer volume of reviews on the site can overwhelm even the best moderation system. How Yelp can identify a legitimate review from one that is false, defamatory, or misleading is a closely-guarded secret. In general, however, the Yelp review filter relies on context clues and user intent to make this identification.
But here’s the thing. Although great for customer research, Yelp may also legally store content about your brand for as long as it wants. This means they can also keep fake reviews about your business without much, if any, repercussions.
And, of course, this can be expensive, tiring and many times, useless.
The first step in removing bad Yelp reviews is to report them to Yelp. And if the site listens to your request, this is by far the easiest way to reach your goal. For the Yelp review filter and for most review sites, reviews may be flagged for removal if:
- Someone posts a fake Yelp review.
- Someone posts a review on the wrong business page.
- Someone attempts to post too many reviews at once using spam tactics.
- Multiple reviews for a given business come from the same IP address.
- The negative reviews contain defamatory, false, or misleading content.
- Reviews include personal details that violate personal privacy laws.
Again, review moderation is not foolproof. Still, flagging a Yelp review can help remove bad Yelp reviews before they can impact your online reputation.
Online Review Management on the Yelp Platform
The Yelp community can be helpful when it comes to removing a review. Strict community guidelines help to protect businesses from spammy or fake content. Legitimate reviews are the goal of the platform. If the Yelp review filter spots a false or defamatory review, you may ask to have the review removed.
But if your plea is not answered, you can then reach out to the commenter and ask them to remove the offending comments. The best way is to try to talk to them in person or over the phone and get to see their side of the story too. Your own business is at stake, and sometimes reaching out directly to the Yelp reviewer can have a powerful effect on building or rebuilding trust in your company.
Be empathetic, apologize, and find out what caused the problem in the first place. If a customer is honest and right in their complaint, understanding what went wrong can provide valuable insight into your business.
In some cases, you can turn an angry customer into a happy one and a negative review into a positive opportunity.
But if the reviewer refuses to take it down, you may have to pursue other options.
Remove Yelp Reviews With Online Reputation Management
Removing or answering reviews by yourself can often be frustrating, unsuccessful, and time-consuming.
And when the process gets to be too much, reaching out to an online reputation management business is likely your best course of action. NetReputation’s team of review management experts can request reviews to be taken down and to help you develop strategies for communicating with customers.
The most efficient way to delete bad reviews from Yelp and other review sites is through a well-defined brand management plan and focused online reputation management services. Every business review can have profound effects on your company. By leveraging the tools in your business Yelp account, you can regain control over your ratings and spot the unflattering or false reviews missed by the Yelp review filter.
And with proven suppression and review removal services, you can take control of unwanted Yelp reviews and achieve a higher online reputation score.
At NetReputation.com, we can help turn your negative Yelp reviews into opportunities for growth and success on the web. With cutting-edge review and reputation management solutions, we work to create a positive, profitable Yelp presence that puts you in the online driver’s seat.
Contact NetReputation Today
Are customers leaving reviews that stand in the way of your business growth? Need help removing Yelp reviews and building a better brand online? Our team is here to help. We have helped thousands of clients just like you.
Contact us today to learn more! Simply call (844) 917-0925 or fill out the contact form below for a free consultation with one of our review management experts.
