I like Yelp. The review site can be a nifty way to check out a restaurant before risking a meal.
But is Yelp also a shakedown racket for merchants? Some restaurant owners say the San Francisco company is unusually aggressive in trying to get businesses to pay hundreds of dollars in monthly "sponsorship" fees to improve their ranking in search results and to move their most positive review to the top of the page.
They also say paying Yelp is often the only way to counter negative reviews posted by rival eateries -- a common digital-era practice, business owners say, in the highly competitive restaurant industry.
"We felt like we had no choice," Jamie Inzunza, owner of Mamma's Brick Oven Pizza in South Pasadena, said of the $350 she pays Yelp every month. "We decided that we had to spend all this money to protect ourselves once the bad reviews started appearing."
Jeremy Stoppelman, Yelp's chief executive, said that with more than 5 million reviews on the site, it's only natural that some businesses would be displeased with what's being written about them. About a third of the reviews are for restaurants.
Stoppelman said Yelp doesn't strong-arm merchants and that the site's sponsorship program -- its main source of revenue -- doesn't offer "pay for play" to advertisers.
"There are a lot of reasons for business owners to spread false rumors about Yelp," he said. "Those that get a bunch of negative reviews suddenly have a bone to pick with us."
Tell that to Tom Mulvihill, owner of Thai Issan restaurant in Cerritos. He received a letter from Yelp last summer informing him that his business had earned a rating of four stars out of five.
"It's official -- people on Yelp love you!" the letter said.
Shortly afterward, Mulvihill said he received a call from a Yelp saleswoman urging him to pay a minimum of $150 a month for sponsorship.
"She said sponsorship would allow us to hide the negative reviews and elevate the positive ones," he recalled.
Mulvihill declined. Three weeks later, he said, his restaurant's rating dropped from four stars to 3 1/2 , where it remains today.
Hardball sales tactics? Maybe. Or maybe, as Stoppelman said, "reviews come and go for businesses all the time."
Also, for every disgruntled business owner out there, there's another who's had a good experience with Yelp.
