Lovely to hear, Robert! Couldn't agree more that being nice goes far in making the business world so much pleasanter for everybody

Hey Robert,

Thanks for clarifying about not cutting and pasting. I didn't think it likely that you'd do that, but just wanted to be sure

If Yelp publishes policies like the ones I've quoted, then I feel you should have a case for holding them accountable for sticking to what they say. These are their own policies - if they believe in them, they should uphold them. And should be willing to explain to customers the reasons why they have done something that appears at variance with their own stated guidelines.

I really do hope you will get an answer!

Really good discussion going on here, gentlemen! Everyone on this thread likely agrees that Yelp's policies have made them the focus of a great deal of controversy over the years.

Their official stance on removing reviews for paying customers is:

Will Yelp remove or reorder bad reviews if a business pays for advertising?

No. You can’t pay us to remove or reorder your bad reviews — it’s just that simple. It’s worth pointing out some additional checks and balances that we build into the system: among other things, our sales team doesn’t have the administrative privileges that might allow them to remove a bad review for an advertiser; similarly, the folks who do have those privileges don’t have anything to do with sales and aren’t compensated on the basis of sales performance ... Our recommendation software treats advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same. You’ll find plenty of Yelp advertisers with negative reviews, and plenty of non-advertisers with five-star ratings across the board ... In short, there is no relationship between reviews and anything having to do with Yelp Ads or the Yelp Ads sales process. Period.

(see: https://biz.yelp.com/support/common_questions)

My read of this is that Yelp is declaring that money can't influence review take-down because their sales department doesn't handle taking down reviews - but - that there are staff members who do have the privilege of taking down a review.

Robert, two things about what you've documented here are standing out to me:

1. It sounds like the company in question had multiple negative reviews that have now been removed. To me, this indicates some sort of close manual management going on on Yelp's side in conjunction with this business. Could legal issues be involved? Could there be some kind of extenuating circumstance that would warrant a general take-down of all negative reviews for the business in question? Maybe like a change of management, or legal pressure, or something along those lines?

2. You mentioned that you multi-posted your review. I am failing to find the guideline on this, but I am positive Yelp has a policy against re-publishing Yelp reviews on third party sites. Could it be that your mutli-publishing approach might have fallen afoul of this and looked to Yelp like you were re-publishing content (your review) that they consider to be theirs? Could this have happened with any of the other reviews that were taken down? Just a thought!

I think you've done the smart thing by personally asking Yelp for an explanation of what happened. It would be very educational, I'm sure, if you could share the reply you receive with the community as, clearly, there are some hard feelings about situations like this. Thanks for starting a good discussion!

Hi Mike,

If the numbers exist anywhere, Google can decide to pull them. You should search Google for the existence of these phone numbers anywhere on the web (just to be sure they're not only in the PDFs) and then remove those numbers if having them pulled by Google in this manner is having a negative enough impact. Eventually, you should see them drop off.

Hi Ruben,

I've not personally used Yoast, but here is a resource for you documenting how to do so for multiple locations:

http://kb.yoast.com/article/114-configuration-guide-for-local-seo

And here's a blog post on same:

https://yoast.com/local-seo-v1-2/

I hope others who have actually worked with this will chime in

Hi Courtney,

Yes, that's correct. The process is outlined in the Google Places Quality Guidelines (see: https://support.google.com/places/answer/107528?hl=en). If you're not familiar with these, they are the main starting point for understanding Local SEO, as Google sees it. Google's guidelines regarding this are as follows:

• Businesses that operate in a service area should create one listing for the central office or location and designate service areas.  If you wish to display your complete business address while setting your service area(s), your business location should be staffed and able to receive customers during its stated hours. Google will determine how best to display your business address based on your inputs as well as inputs from other sources. Learn how to add service areas to your listing.
• If you don't conduct face-to-face business at your location, you must select "Yes, this business serves customers at their locations" under the "Service Areas and Location Settings" section of your dashboard, and then select the "Do not show my business address on my Maps listing" option.

Hope this helps clarify your client's options. Additionally, if you're just getting your feet wet with Local SEO, please take advantage of the super free education offered in our new Moz Local Learning Center:

http://moz.com/learn/local

Hi Courtney,

No - the client can participate in Google Places for Business if they are willing to put their home address in the dashboard and then take the necessary steps to hide it. So long as it is hidden, no one should show up at their house. They can then get listed at the other directories highlighted in Phil's article that also allow the home address to be hidden. What they can't do is try to set up a Google listing using a P.O. box, because it's simply not allowed. If their concern is keeping their address hidden so that people won't come to their home, it's completely possible to do so and this justifiable concern should not exclude them from building citations; it will merely limit the number of citations they build to being on those directories that permit the address to be hidden. Hope this makes sense!