Anyone Heard of This?

[EmptyNest]

I installed Google Analytics on our association web site last week. And today one of the top referrers this week is a site called: http://www.yelp.com/
I have never heard of it. There are reviews of B & B's there. I didn't search much..and some are pretty old but some up to date as well.
Just wondered if anyone had heard of or seen it?

 

[Morticia]

I've seen that a few times as well.

 

[muirford]

I have heard of it only because someone who stayed here posted a review there. I also noticed that the person who sent me the unhappy blog comment about a local restaurant posted that comment on yelp. It seems to be a bit more of a local phenomenom.

 

[stephanie]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market.

 

[swirt]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.

 

[stephanie]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.

 

[egoodell]

It looks to me like it's just for the Bay Area in San Francisco. I can't see anything for Virginia in it...??
Riki

 

[stephanie]

It looks to me like it's just for the Bay Area in San Francisco. I can't see anything for Virginia in it...??
Riki.

Looks like it accesses your cookies to figure out where you are. Did you do a search in SF recently?
Toward the top, you'll see "Other Cities" and then a "More" link that will give you a drop down of their popular cities, or you can search for something in Cville by typing it into the "Near" search field.
It creepily knew where I was and where I've recently searched.

 

[swirt]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.

 

[swirt]

It looks to me like it's just for the Bay Area in San Francisco. I can't see anything for Virginia in it...??
Riki.

Looks like it accesses your cookies to figure out where you are. Did you do a search in SF recently?
Toward the top, you'll see "Other Cities" and then a "More" link that will give you a drop down of their popular cities, or you can search for something in Cville by typing it into the "Near" search field.
It creepily knew where I was and where I've recently searched.
.

It figures out where you are by doing a geo-location of your computer's ip address. Sites can only read cookies that they put on originally...they can not read cookies from other sites.

 

[stephanie]

It looks to me like it's just for the Bay Area in San Francisco. I can't see anything for Virginia in it...??
Riki.

Looks like it accesses your cookies to figure out where you are. Did you do a search in SF recently?
Toward the top, you'll see "Other Cities" and then a "More" link that will give you a drop down of their popular cities, or you can search for something in Cville by typing it into the "Near" search field.
It creepily knew where I was and where I've recently searched.
.

It figures out where you are by doing a geo-location of your computer's ip address. Sites can only read cookies that they put on originally...they can not read cookies from other sites.
.

That makes sense. Only slightly less creepy, though.

 

[EmptyNest]

It looks to me like it's just for the Bay Area in San Francisco. I can't see anything for Virginia in it...??
Riki.

You have to search for a city or whatever in VA to find it.

 

[hawley]

I checked out our town and there are alot of reviews out there. They mostly seem to be pretty young reviewers from what I could tell.

 

[Morticia]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.

That's very interesting because I went and looked the other day under 'my town B&B' on yelp and I wasn't on there. If I ask specifically for my inn, I find it.

 

[Morticia]

It looks to me like it's just for the Bay Area in San Francisco. I can't see anything for Virginia in it...??
Riki.

Looks like it accesses your cookies to figure out where you are. Did you do a search in SF recently?
Toward the top, you'll see "Other Cities" and then a "More" link that will give you a drop down of their popular cities, or you can search for something in Cville by typing it into the "Near" search field.
It creepily knew where I was and where I've recently searched.
.

Looks like it accesses your cookies to figure out where you are. Did you do a search in SF recently?
Toward the top, you'll see "Other Cities" and then a "More" link that will give you a drop down of their popular cities, or you can search for something in Cville by typing it into the "Near" search field.
It creepily knew where I was and where I've recently searched.

I think it defaults to SF. I haven't looked for anything there and that was the default page I got when I typed in 'yelp.com'.

 

[Morticia]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.

I don't see the link to my site on there. Do I need to set up a business owner's acct?

 

[stephanie]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.

That's very interesting because I went and looked the other day under 'my town B&B' on yelp and I wasn't on there. If I ask specifically for my inn, I find it.
.

Just went to your town, clicked on Hotels & Travel, and yours came up, but on one of the later pages. Only 2 in your category have reviews, so I bet you'd shoot up to the first page as soon as you get your first review.
Here's a possibility. On your town's homepage, there's a "Today in Talk" bar on the right side where people post questions about the area. You have tourists asking where to stay in ME who aren't getting responses. Bet they'd love it if someone personally invited them over to her B&B!

 

[stephanie]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.

I don't see the link to my site on there. Do I need to set up a business owner's acct?
.

I don't see the link to my site on there. Do I need to set up a business owner's acct?

You can add your website by clicking on "Edit business info" under your contact info. I think anyone can do that and then it gets checked for accuracy. Not sure what the free business account gets you, but it's free, so can't hurt.
Let us know how it goes if you do join!

 

[Morticia]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.

That's very interesting because I went and looked the other day under 'my town B&B' on yelp and I wasn't on there. If I ask specifically for my inn, I find it.
.

Just went to your town, clicked on Hotels & Travel, and yours came up, but on one of the later pages. Only 2 in your category have reviews, so I bet you'd shoot up to the first page as soon as you get your first review.
Here's a possibility. On your town's homepage, there's a "Today in Talk" bar on the right side where people post questions about the area. You have tourists asking where to stay in ME who aren't getting responses. Bet they'd love it if someone personally invited them over to her B&B!
.

Just went to your town, clicked on Hotels & Travel, and yours came up, but on one of the later pages. Only 2 in your category have reviews, so I bet you'd shoot up to the first page as soon as you get your first review.
Here's a possibility. On your town's homepage, there's a "Today in Talk" bar on the right side where people post questions about the area. You have tourists asking where to stay in ME who aren't getting responses. Bet they'd love it if someone personally invited them over to her B&B!

Thanks. I try to keep up on the TA question section. I'll keep this one in mind.

 

[swirt]

I've seen and used it a few times. I usually prefer other online review sites, but yelp seems to be growing pretty quickly. It's like other review sites (Citysearch, for one) in that you can find and review restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. I hadn't found the lodging section yet, but it looks very well populated in the NYC area.
Yelp seems to me less moderated and more organic than other review sites, and has a bit of a community aspect woven in (users can develop their own personalities, upload avatars, etc.) which feeds their reviews database quite effectively.
It attracts a similar user group to Facebook, I imagine, so could be quite useful for pulling in the younger, tech savvy market..

That's a good assessment Stephanie.
.

Glad to be of service every once in a while! You guys are all my b&b celebrities, so I only aspire to your expertise.
By the way, Swirt and Bree, you're on there too! They must pull in business data from another source like Google Biz. No reviews yet, but you're searchable and on the map. I just tried clicking on the "Is this your business" link and it looks like it's free for businesses to join (no description, but you can add a web link!).
Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?
I often search for "restaurant name" or "hotel/b&b name" on google if I can't find satisfactory or consistent reviews on my usual websites. Yelp comes up fairly often for urban or suburban areas. Not sure how it fares in more rural areas, since the content is populated by an active online community.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.
.

Even if you don't get reviews, the link could help your SEO, right Swirt?

Sadly no. The links to businesses that Yelp uses are indirect links. If you hover over them the status bar on your web browser will show that the link is to a Yelp page which then redirects to the business website.
That doesn't mean it is not worth having. It could bring humans to your site even if the search engines don't see it as a direct link.

I don't see the link to my site on there. Do I need to set up a business owner's acct?
.

I don't see the link to my site on there. Do I need to set up a business owner's acct?

It is a lot like Google local...you click on "Is this your business" and the system calls you while you are on the website and you punch in a verification number. The system then sends you a verification email that you have to click on and after that you can eidt your listing to include a web address and upload photos with captions.
It is worth doing and only takes a couple of minutes for the whole thing.