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Real Estate Agents Are Losing Yelp Reviews Going Into 2019

By
Property Manager with personal

A good friend of mine who I help with YouTube videos is a broker. He rarely pays attention to reviews, but we're in a smaller town and even having just a few provides the highest rating around. However, this is obviously not the case in more competitive cities.

If there's one thing I've learned about online marketing with my broker buddy, it's that it is important for him to be everywhere. He's on Zillow, Realtor.com, Loopnet, YouTube, blogs on his site, and, of course, he's on Yelp. Well, I've also learned that having more inventory helps as well, but of course not everyone has 50+ active listings at any given time.

Real estate brokers and agents in more competitive cities do rely on reviews, and one of the places they receive reviews is on Yelp. Indeed, Yelp is more popular for cafes and restaurants, however all businesses use Yelp reviews, and search engines such as Bing and Yahoo display those Yelp reviews. That's why all real estate agents with a Yelp presence should be aware of The Yelp Review Purge of 2018.

I'd encourage you to read the above referenced article. To make a long story short, Yelp has suddenly made a drastic change to the way reviews are displayed. "Recommended review" counts are way down. Some real estate agencies are seeing a 50 - 75% reduction in recommended reviews. I believe Yelp is filtering positive reviews. That's based on a phone conversation a client and I had with them. I also dug up a tweet where they stated that positive reviews may set off their filter.

Anyways, as we go in to 2019, it's a good idea to obtain as many reviews as possible in as many places as possible. I just purchased a second home myself, and I can tell you, as a client, that I do look at real estate agent's Zillow pages, and the number of recent sales, total sales and review numbers are indeed important to me. I do not personally look for agents via Yelp, but some people do, and the new algorithm is something to be aware of.

Gita Bantwal
RE/MAX Centre Realtors - Warwick, PA
REALTOR,ABR,CRS,SRES,GRI - Bucks County & Philadel

Welcome to active rain. Thank you for sharing. Good luck in achieving your goals 

Dec 18, 2018 02:51 AM
Nina Hollander, Broker
Coldwell Banker Realty - Charlotte, NC
Your Greater Charlotte Real Estate Broker

How interesting. I've never been much of a Yelp user. Meantime, welcome to the Rain.

Dec 18, 2018 04:10 AM
Joan Cox
House to Home, Inc. - Denver Real Estate - 720-231-6373 - Denver, CO
Denver Real Estate - Selling One Home at a Time

Leonard, like Nina, not much of a Yelp user, so thanks for sharing this information.  Welcome to ActiveRain! 

Dec 18, 2018 07:13 AM
Leonard Raleigh

Thank you. Yeah, it is definitely more important to restaurant owners...

Dec 20, 2018 11:26 PM
Mike Baltierra
Rise Realty - Eastvale, CA
Full Service at Your Service Realtor-Eastvale CA

I've looked into Yelp because it does come up on the first page when searching basically anything even Realtors. I had 8 reviews which are all gone now. If your clients are not Yelping that is reviewing other businesses don't bother asking for reviews for you. It's also very expensive to advertise on unless your doing 50 plus transactions year. You definitely need a profile on it since it's free. Post your best picture and only one since they pick the picture.

Dec 18, 2018 07:43 AM
Leonard Raleigh

The change appears to really be whacking Yelp pages which had all positive reviews. I can't prove that, but I can't disprove it either.

Dec 20, 2018 11:24 PM
George Souto
George Souto NMLS #65149 - Middletown, CT
Your Connecticut Mortgage Expert

Leonard Raleigh welcome to ActiveRain, and congratulations on successfully posting your first blog on this site.

Dec 19, 2018 12:33 PM
The Woodland Team of Texas
The Woodland Companies - Austin, TX
Land Specialists

Welcome to ActiveRain, I hope that your participation here helps your business to grow.
Btw, I followed your blog, and would be honored if you followed mine.
Thank You!

Dec 20, 2018 11:10 PM
Katerina Gasset
The Gasset Group & Get It Done For Me Virtual Services - Provo, UT
Amplify Your Real Estate & Life Dreams!

Welcome to ActiveRain. This is a great place to learn about real estate and get support for you as an agent or broker. (P) 

 

Make sure to become a Rainmaker if you are not one yet because that is how you will get a strong link back to your website. 

 

The public, consumers consisting of buyers and sellers of real estate will only see your posts if you have a Rainmaker account. 

 

I wish you luck on your online journey of marketing! 

Dec 21, 2018 07:32 PM
Bob Crane
Woodland Management Service / Woodland Real Estate, KW Diversified - Stevens Point, WI
Forestland Experts! 715-204-9671

Welcome to Active Rain, looking forward to reading many more of your posts, let me know if there is anything that I can do to help as you get started here.
All the best of success to you.
Bob

Jan 24, 2019 09:08 PM