u/Striking_Vast7229

The system is intentionally designed on purpose to lower your rating so business owners panic and potentially buy stuff from yelp and their advertising services. There are literally thousands of posts in this subreddit about business owners feeling duped by yelp. It’s basically a racketeering scam that targets small business owners.

Here’s how it works; They slowly remove some of your 5 stars reviews to unrecommended, but the 1 stars stick to recommended forever. This phony algorithm intentionally manipulates & lowers the business rating.

I witnessed this algorithm target me in 2025. From February to july, my business rating went from 4.7 to 4.3 because they would literally start to move all the 1 star reviews to recommended & would hide random 5 stars one by one. Keep in mind my business hasn’t received a new review on yelp since 2023. That’s how sneaky & shady the algorithm is. They can lower your rating at any time.

Yelp is a complete joke and they’ve been on the way down for a while, so i wouldn’t worry about them too much. On google reviews, i still get a new review every few weeks. It’s been 3 years on yelp for me with no new reviews on my business.

P:S this subreddit is filled people that work or are associated with yelp and their only job is to do damage control. They’ll downvote the truth and upvote lies with their alt accounts

Extra P:S (any real business owner reading this)
do not bother wasting your time in here. until you realize how many people in here are associated with yelp doing damage control, this subreddit will feel very dystopian. They’ll give you vague answers and bully you with downvotes and other hostile tactics to make it seem like you’re the problem. It’s one of the fakest subreddits ever and just proves just how shady yelp is if they have to actively lie and bully to do damage control. Non of these people vouching for yelp even own businesses. It’s a waste of your time going back and forth with them.

The system is designed on purpose to lower your rating so businesses owners panic and potentially buy stuff from yelp. There are literally thousands of posts in this subreddit about business owners feeling duped by yelp. It’s a racketeering scam. They will slowly remove some of your 5 stars to unrecommended, but the 1 stars stick to recommended forever. This intentionally manipulates & lowers the business rating.

They did this to me in 2025. From February to july, my rating went from 4.7 to 4.3 because they literally started to move all the 1 stars to recommended & hiding the 5 stars. Keep in mind my business hasn’t received a new review on yelp since 2023.

Yelp is a complete joke and they’re dying out quickly. Don’t so you don’t worry about them anymore tbh. On google i still receive one new review every few weeks. I haven’t received a new review on yelp in almost 3 years.

P:S this subreddit is filled people that work or are associated with yelp and their only job is to do damage control. They’ll downvote the truth and upvote lies with their alt accounts

Extra P:S any real business owner reading this, do not bother wasting your time in here. until you realize how many people in here are associated with yelp doing damage control, this subreddit will feel very dystopian. They’ll give you vague answers and bully you with downvotes and other hostile tactics to make it seem like you’re the problem. It’s one of the fakest subreddits ever and just proves just how shady yelp is if they have to actively lie and bully to do damage control. Non of these clowns even own businesses lmfao why would why waste your time arguing with lying non business owners. Save yourself the grace and just move on mentally from yelp. Pretend it doesn’t exist anymore