Yelp was founded in 2004 as a forum for crowd-sourced reviews and has always been known for standing behind the customer. Yelp’s algorithm, in which it decides which reviews to bring to the top of a company page, has always been questioned by small and mid-sized business owners. Is there any controlling Yelp? In many cases, Yelp will allow users to stand behind their reviews, but there are some examples where they will side with a business owner and take down a post.
According to Yelp’s Content Guidelines, there are scenarios that present themselves where a business owner can fight back. We ran into a situation with one of our clients where a review had nothing to do with the user experience and the person hadn’t done business with the company. In just one day we contacted Yelp’s Customer Support, showed them the review in question, submitted the post for final review by a Yelp moderator and successfully confirmed that the review was rescinded. Below are some cases directly from Yelp’s Content Guidelines that demonstrate when Yelp may stand behind the business owner.

Can I report a review if the person who posted it didn’t buy anything?

Yelpers are allowed to post reviews as long as they had some kind of consumer interaction with the business. Usually that means that they bought something, but it can also include a broad range of other consumer experiences like browsing the store or calling to ask about pricing.

Business owners should feel free to use their business accounts to publicly or privately respond to any inaccuracies in the review.

Can I report a review that doesn’t focus on the core consumer experience?

Yelpers should share the full range of their likes and dislikes about a business as long as they relate to their own experiences as a consumer. Comments and concerns about a business’s politics, corporate philosophy, or employment practices should be directed to Yelp Talk, not a consumer review.

If you see a questionable review, please report it. Our moderators will focus on whether the reviewer describes a personal consumer experience or if their comments are overshadowed by other commentary. By and large, however, we typically let people stand behind their reviews.
Although we rarely end up reversing our original decision, it doesn’t hurt to have someone else take a second look. If you’d like to have us re-evaluate something that you’ve already reported, please contact our Support team.