Your CartThe Problem with Yelp: Filtered Reviews
By Jonah Kaimana | January 9, 2012
A quick glance at the Yelp reviews page for Discover Hawaii Tours isn’t enough. You might think that just 7 people have reviewed us since 2010, but that’s not true. In fact, there are over a dozen Yelp filtered reviews just below the surface—and Yelp doesn’t want you to see them.
(Looking for reviews of Discover Hawaii Tours? Click here.)
Yelp filtered reviews:
What you see is not what you get
In fact, we’ve had over 20 reviews in the past 2 years. The problem with Yelp reviews is that Yelp filters out what they believe to be “not useful and trustworthy.” In other words, Yelp filtered reviews are unreliable. But this isn’t exactly true.
A guessing game at best
It’s not an exact science. In fact, Yelp admits that their filter algorithm ”sometimes affects perfectly legitimate reviews and misses some fake ones, too.”
Let’s check out examples of useful reviews of Discover Hawaii Tours that have been filtered.
A Yelp filtered review for Discover Hawaii Tours by Kimberley M.
Kimberly’s Review = Filtered
Kimberley M.’s Discover Hawaii Tours review was filtered a few days after she posted it to Yelp.
Why? No one but Yelp knows for sure, but it might be because Kimberley only has 3 Yelp friends and has written 7 reviews so far. However, her reviews for other places aren’t filtered, so why only filter it for Discover Hawaii Tours?
A few reasons why we think Kimberley’s review is reliable:
- Length: Kim’s review is 540 words long! That’s a lot to write about.
- Unique advice: Kim suggests that people should tip their tour guides—and uses two paragraphs to do so.
- Variety of other reviews: Kim has written reviews in Utah, Massachusetts, and Hawaii.
Long reviews hardly count
We understand that short reviews might be unhelpful. However, it seems that a review’s wordiness should be compared to all of their reviews. In other words, if a Yelper has written a variety of lengthy reviews, wouldn’t a short review be justified by their contributions across the site?
Here are two examples:
Two filtered Yelp reviews for Discover Hawaii Tours.
If you look at the rest of Alex D.’s reviews, you can see that he doesn’t say much more than a few paragraphs in each review. But Megan M. has written over 40 Yelp reviews, and many are over 300 words long.
Business-customer interactions? Filtered.
One review we take pride in was written by Christina M. Unfortunately, it’s filtered, too.
Christina had an issue after she booked a tour the day before her requested tour date (we recommend booking at a least a week in advance), so she wrote a 1-star review. We responded publicly, apologizing to Christina and offering her another option:
A filtered Yelp review for Discover Hawaii Tours by Christina M. The business-customer interaction here is invaluable to people researching which tour company to choose.
We responded, and Christina was happy.
But that still wasn’t enough.
Christina was happy with our response, and she took us up on our offer. In fact, she booked two more tours a few weeks later! But did Yelp notice this conversation between customer and company?
No.
At the very least, Yelp needs to revise their algorithm to automatically unfilter any reviews where a business publicly interacts with a reviewer.
The irony
By filtering out our interaction with Christina M., Yelp has failed its mission. The first sentence in Yelp’s official blog post announcing why Yelp has a review filter says:
“Here at Yelp, we’re trying to connect people with great local businesses.”
It seems nothing is farther from the truth.
What can you do instead?
Check out our Reviews page, where you’ll find customer feedback from across the internet. It’s the best source of customer feedback of our tours anywhere online.
About the author
- More at
So sorry to see you are dealing with Yelp’s slamming protocol also. I just discovered I had a presence (unsolicited) on Yelp and that a disgruntled potential patient (I am a chiropractor) was upset that I would not give him a free consultation had posted a one star review. I was so upset…and discussed it with patients who were outraged and posted their own reviews…..so far out of five positive reviews only one got posted. This is totally bogus…I am all in for any lawsuit or legislation that will prohibit this obviously biased reviewing. Just want to say you are not alone and that others are standing by your side!!!
Pingback: Yelp vs. TripAdvisor: Which reviews should you trust? - Hawaii Blog
Yelp has filtered all of my of my companies reviews. I am a air conditioning and heating company in Spring. This is really frustrating because they are legitimate reviews. Their filter is completely bogus.
This completely blew me away. I have pushed Yext to no end for my customers that I do website development for. Just earlier today one of my clients told me about missing reviews. It was then when I found the filtered reviews. This is completely unfair and at some point will cost Yelp big time.
It is also the same problem with Google places. Both are not credible at times.
Yelp’s review filter is definitely a joke. I have reached out to many business owners, including my own, about fitlered reviews. I’m amazed at HOW MANY filtered reviews meet Yelp Requirements per Yelp’s guidelines and Terms of Service. A few here and there, I could understand. However, thousands? Makes me raise an eyebrow.
Additionally, Yelp has no true appeal process for removing reviews that are obviously unfounded or fake. I came across one review that said, “I have never been here, but will never visit because of the Reviews on Yelp.” Yelp clearly states that a reviewer must have FIRST HAND knowledge of the company they are reviewing. How, then, could this review be posted and unfiltered? The business owner even tried to have it removed, but to no avail.
Yelp has to workout something seriously as the filters are not appropriate of yelp…reviews are the true mirror of any business services if they presented them in a wrong perspective our whole attempt to make it succeed will lost