Reviews, filters and the like

One of the things I've been doing this year is encouraging happy clients (and they've all been happy, save one who didn't like the fact he owed the IRS money) to post reviews of me and my office on Yelp.com.

That stops right now.  Why?  Because all three of the positive reviews that clients of mine wrote were "filtered", which means they no longer are part of the office's overall rating; and people don't see them unless they click on a link to "filtered" reviews.  People do not normally do this.

None of these three people were "unreal".  They weren't bots, they weren't employees of the company trying to boost the store's ratings.  I myself was going to join Yelp and start rating the businesses I patronize but no more.  As far as I'm concerned, they should change their URL from Yelp.com to YelpSucks.com.

Now I get it that businesses take to trashing their competition, particularly restaurants.  But clearly their filter isn't working if it's taking legitimate reviews and basically ignoring them.  I dropped them an email but they say they don't respond to emails.

So, avoid Yelp.com.  Don't post reviews, don't read reviews and find alternative sites.  They are out there.