We’re living in an era where everything gets reviewed, whether it’s your microwaved dinner in a restaurant or the Uber driver who comes to pick you up looking hung over. There are many review platforms out there, the most obvious ones being Google and Facebook, but one older review website which is still hanging in there is Yelp. Despite it not being the top dog as in yesteryear, businesses still care what you say about them on Yelp, and many consumers make their buying decisions based on Yelp reviews. Here is how to add or remove a Yelp review.
Read more: The best business apps for Android
QUICK ANSWER
To add a Yelp review, make an account on the site and go to the Yelp page for the business you want to review. Give the business a star rating and write your review. Reviews usually appear on the page more or less straight away. To remove a Yelp review requires the original reviewer to voluntarily delete it. Yelp will not delete reviews at the request of a business.
JUMP TO KEY SECTIONS
How to add a Yelp review
On the web
Obviously, you first need a free account. Go to yelp.com and click the red Sign Up button at the top-right corner.
You can make a free account by signing up with your email address, or by granting access to Facebook, Google, or Apple. Click the red Sign Up button at the bottom when you’re done.
An email will now be sent to you with a verification link which you need to click to activate your account. Then you’re in.
To start your first review, search for the business you want to review. Then click the correct result. If you have trouble finding the right one, you can also look at the map and click the pin in the right geographical area.
On the business page, click the red Write a review button. You can also add photos that you made of the business by clicking Add photo. This can be pictures of the interior or exterior.
On the review page, write your review and click the red Post Review button at the bottom. Be sure to click Read our review guidelines first to ensure that your review does not run afoul of any of Yelp’s rules.
Go to the business page now and see your review.
On the app
The Yelp app has the same signup and log-in boxes as the web version. So sign up with your preferred method, verify your email, then go to the business you want to review. The nice thing about the smartphone app is that, if you switch on your GPS, it can see where you are, and recommend highly-rated local businesses.
It also helps to find the business you’re looking to review much easier if you are still on the premises. Just tap Current Location.
You will be presented with a list of options. Tap the business you’re looking for, or pinch in and out of the map to tap on a pin.
On the business page, tap Add review and write your review just as you would on the Yelp website.
How to delete a Yelp review
Just to be clear, the only person who can delete a Yelp review is the person who wrote it. If a business owner doesn’t like a review, they can’t pay Yelp to remove it. Yelp will only consider removing it if it runs afoul of their guidelines, such as something profanity-laden, racist, prejudiced, full of irrelevant details, and so on.
But if you write something perfect that follows the rules, it will stay online, regardless of what the business in question thinks of it. You can’t be forced to remove something if you don’t want to.
On the web and app
To delete a Yelp review on the web and the app, go to the review in question and click the three horizontal dots to the right of it. Click Remove review.
Yelp will now ask you for a reason why the review is being removed. If you’d rather not get into the reasons why, just select Other. Click Remove Review and it will come off immediately, although the review may still appear on places like the Wayback Machine.
It depends on your point of view. Many people still use Yelp to read business reviews and make decisions based on those reviews. However, you could argue that Google and Facebook are more powerful platforms to leave business reviews on these days.
No, Yelp will not remove reviews for money, and they will only consider removing reviews if they violate the guidelines in some way. If the review meets Yelp’s guidelines, the only way it can be removed is if the reviewer voluntarily removes it.
