Local Internet Marketing seems to be about numbers, those pesky algorithms that have haunted up for over a decade now, with little answers.
Let’s all welcome YELP to mysterious algorithm game.
You see, YELP, in their own words is
Yelp is the fun and easy way to find, review and talk about what’s great – and not so great, in your area
It’s a wonderful site. It makes sense. Except they needed to be different than the Yellow Pages. Heck, Yelp was founded in 2004 and by this time they already had A LOT of competition. Their difference?
See, YELP is a site to find local reviews about your local establishments. I can leave a review, you can leave one. I can leave a review about myself, or a negative review about my competition. This isn’t good.
This is where the Review Ranking Filter comes in. YELP, and competing sites, need to figure out through a computer algorithm how to eliminate the bogus results. This isn’t a problem, Google has solved the Internet problems, right?
Yeah right. Google is good, but they are far from a perfect search engine. They are still struggling a lot in Local, a lot!
This doesn’t mean YELP isn’t working with their review filter. It doesn’t mean they have it figured out either.
We’re doing A LOT of testing on this topic. Very little is published on the topic. YELP has provided a little video that discusses…nothing! They are as quiet about their algo as Google, rightfully so, it’s their competitive advantage.
So, how do you explain an account that has all 7 reviews filtered versus another account with 8 reviews that aren’t filtered? Well, it’s likely easy to explain, until you explain the 7 reviews are genuinely the most honest, value added reviews we could create, and they are ALL filtered. The other account with 8 reviews are bogus, they are all made up. Yeah, we’re toying with the system.
What does this tell us? Not much, until the full report is released.
We have learned A LOT. We feel we have cracked the code and understand exactly what is involved and we will be releasing an entire step-by-step process and factors involved in this mysterious algo.
LMS students are already enjoying this material and their clients are ethically managing their online social profile and winning the game at social review ranking.
If you’re not a student, get on our list. Sure, the answers require a paid membership, but those on our list will be given key ingredients in order to demonstrate we know our stuff.
If you’d like to learn more about becoming a LMS Member to enjoy the benefits, take some time to learn about the Marketing Local Business Online coaching course and the LMS Membership.
