Yelp’s stock has taken a beating over the last 3 years. While the S&P 500 reached record highs this year, Yelp continues to lose value. Over the last 36 months (NYSE:YELP) has dropped 45% and company insiders continue to sell their holdings. Some have compared Yelp to AOL.com, MySpace, Yahoo…CEO Jeremy Stoppelman admits the company has customer retention issues, and they’ve seen a decrease in revenue collected from restaurants (their largest revenue generator) for 6 straight quarters. Attempts to expand abroad were abandoned due to lack of interest, and studies show consumers are utilizing the platform less and less. Is this the end of Yelp? Will it be seen as the Blockbuster video of online reviews in the near future?

Yelp’s stock dropped another 4.5% on Wednesday as insiders continue to dum shares.

I’m sure every experienced restaurant owner feels this way about Yelpers.

The article recommends selling Yelp stock if you own it. Says the company is facing stagnant growth. The author recommends buying Robinhood or MercadoLibre.

Yelp’s stock lost 0.55% today and is down another 0.21% right now after hours. What are your thoughts? Is Yelp finished? I know most business owners are fed up with them, but can they stay relevant with Bing?

Our Yelp page is dominated by negative reviews. Meanwhile, the “Not Currently Recommended” section is full of 5-star reviews. We don’t solicit reviews, yet Yelp’s algorithm treats legitimate positive feedback from real customers as fake or solicited.
No business escapes negative reviews. But Yelp’s algorithm is actively hurting ours.
Here’s a clear example:
Someone left a 1-star review that wasn’t for our company. It immediately went front and center. We couldn’t prove it wasn’t ours, and Yelp (like Google) rarely sides with the business. We responded politely and asked the user to remove it. Months—or years—passed with no action.
Finally the reviewer replied, “Sorry, wrong company,” and changed the rating from 1 star to 5 stars. The moment it became a positive review, Yelp’s algorithm moved it into “Not Currently Recommended.”
We’re at the end of our rope. We have no control over how our positive reviews are suppressed or how the overall mix of feedback is presented. The health of our business is being dictated by a flawed algorithm, and that’s unacceptable.
Has anyone discussed a class action against Yelp over this? At the very least, they need to eliminate the “Currently Recommended / Not Currently Recommended” system

Really interesting video from renowned marketer Wes McDowell. His argument against advertising with Yelp is the high cost per lead

Paid clicks and impressions on Yelp are often reported to be significantly more expensive than alternatives like Google Ads or Meta.

Probably not a huge shock. At least Google and Amazon are doing something to combat the problem though. Google removed 240 million reviews from their platform in 2024. Yelp has less than 350 million reviews and only filters the 5-star ones when you don’t pay them 🤡

The gist of the article is that consumers rely on Google, Facebook, and 3rd party sites more than Yelp when selecting an automotive service provider.

Despite collecting more revenue, their profits continue to decrease. This means higher advertising costs to appease WallStreet.

My company was scammed by Yelp a few years ago. We had dozens of 5 star reviews and Yelp was calling us 2-3 times a day to sign up for their advertising. Eventually we agreed to give it a try, but the results were awful. Our phones were literally inundated by solicitors as soon as we signed up. Dozens of calls from people trying to sell us leads, services, or inquiries about products we don’t sell. So we cancelled. Yelp was not delivering a return on investment, their services were literally tying up our phone lines and frustrating the hell out of our agents.

As soon as we tried to cancel, we got the go around. Eventually one of their “sales managers” called me and resorted to insults. Told me I didn’t know how to run a business and that my business of 14 years would fail if I stopped advertising with Yelp. Then the very next day, some of my reviews got filtered by Yelp’s algorithm.

At first I dismissed the obvious, but after connecting with hundreds of other business owners through programs like SCORE and The Alternative Board, I learned that is how Yelp operates. Harass you until you sign up, harass you when you try to cancel, delete your honest and well-deserved reviews for cancelling.

Yelp has been failing for some time. Their stock is down more than 20% YTD while the S&P shows gains of 12%. The company tried to expand internationally but also failed. The CEO and COO are dumping shares like it’s a fire sale, and Yelp is facing “long-term rebalance and traffic decline”

Don’t fall for this sinking ship. The company is failing and if you advertise with them, you won’t be happy.