Do you remember last year when that dentist from Minnesota killed the lion in Africa? I was curious as to if the public would go to the Yelp page for his business and trash him. They did just that. I followed his reviews for a week and the one-star reviews just piled up. Other then manually flagging these reviews because the review “… doesn’t describe a personal consumer experience”, I was curious if Yelp was going to step in and filter the “attack” reviews. For the past year if a business owner made the news for being horrible, the same thing usually happened.

Locally, the El Sombrero Mexican Bistro in Las Vegas was under fire because Donald Trump paid them a visit. I only ran across this due to a story in the Las Vegas Review Journal yesterday written by Colton Lochhead, featuring the headline, “Las Vegas restaurant still cookin’ despite Hispanic community stir from Trump visit“.

So once again, in conducting research for our reputation marketing business, I went to the Yelp Page for the El Sombrero Mexican Bistro to see if the political attack reviews were hot and heavy. I was surprised to the the following pop up window:

I had never seen a notification like this from Yelp ever. I was pleasantly surprised to see Yelp proactively protecting the online integrity of a small business from non-consumer reviews. Once you click “Got it, thanks!” and you are taken to the page this statement is in the header:

Living in Las Vegas and as a “Foodie”, I love going out to family owned, small, off the strip restaurants. I am also an active Yelper. Locally and when I travel, I rely on Yelp for trying new places. When the general public starts attacking a business due to politics it skews the online review process of whether the El Sombrero Mexican Bistro is a great place to eat.

FOOD not Politics

With that said, if you are a Yelper and ever see a post that does not represent an actual consumer experience, you can flag the review like I did here:

If you are a small business owner, whether a presidential candidate visits you or not, you should always be aware of your online reputation.

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