Yelp: It’s gotten worse since Google made changes to comply with EU rules

Lee Duna@lemmy.nz to Technology@lemmy.world – 139 points –
Yelp: It’s gotten worse since Google made changes to comply with EU rules
arstechnica.com
13

If Google was actually presenting information based on quality, Yelp would never be included. As mediocre as anyone else might be, Yelp is the worst by a huge margin.

Quora is somehow always in the first page near the top of results on questions, generally directly adjacent to the hallucinated "people also asked" list.

Quora is the absolute worst for gaming Google search.

When I'm desperate for a answer, I click it only to find NO ANSWER, just my question and the "people who asked".

One of my first jobs in tech was being low IT support at a chain of restaurants around 2011, and being sent any 'vendor calls'. Apparently customer service thought Yelp was a vendor, and I got on a phone call with Yelp reps literally suggesting that they can help "improve our reputation" and "without Yelp pro support, it could really tank our visibility".

In other words, it's a racket.

uBlacklist add-on, block yelp, quora, pinterest.

Yelp still exists?

Yelp as a restaurant finder isn't completely awful

IIRC that was it's original mission

This is the best summary I could come up with:


To comply with looming rules that ban tech giants from favoring their own services, Google has been testing new look search results for flights, trains, hotels, restaurants, and products in Europe.

The results, which Yelp shared with European regulators in December and WIRED this month, put some numerical backing behind complaints from Google rivals in travel, shopping, and hospitality that its efforts to comply with the DMA are insufficient—and potentially more harmful than the status quo.

Yelp and thousands of others have been demanding that the EU hold a firm line against the giant companies including Apple and Amazon that are subject to what’s widely considered the world’s strictest antitrust law, violations of which can draw fines of up to 10 percent of global annual sales.

Google spokesperson Rory O'Donoghue says the more than 20 changes made to search in response to the DMA are providing more opportunities for services such as Yelp to show up in results.

Google, which generates 30 percent of its sales from Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, views the DMA as disrespecting its expertise in what users want.

Companies such as Yelp that are critical of the changes in testing have called on the European Commission to immediately open an investigation into Google on March 7, when enforcement of the DMA begins.


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