Yelp continues to play catch-up with some of its competition in the local search landscape. The company's latest move is the announcement of "Check-in Offers." If you're familiar with the premise behind Foursquare's business users rewarding "mayors" and others who check-in to local businesses, you'll be familiar with Yelp's product. The idea is the same: Local businesses using Yelp's business tools can reward customers when they check-in via Yelp's mobile apps. Check-in offers is available now in the countries where Yelp offers a business dashboard, namely the US, Canada, UK, and Ireland. W [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social | Facebook | Foursquare | Search Engines: Deals & Coupon Search Engines | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Top News | Yelp

Local search powerhouse Yelp is planning to go public at some point in the future. That's something that Yelp COO Geoff Donaker confirmed during his keynote conversation today at our SMX East conference in New York City. "We don’t see any reason not to be an independent company for years to come. Will we go public at some point? Certainly that’s the intention," Donaker told Search Engine Land Executive Editor Chris Sherman. Donaker explained that Yelp's fund raising event earlier this year -- an investment of up to $100 million from Elevation Partners -- will allow the company to re [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Yelp

Good morning! It's almost time for day two of SMX East to begin and the plan is to live blog this morning's keynote conversation between Yelp COO Geoff Donaker and Search Engine Land Executive Editor, Chris Sherman. But first, I'm the master of ceremonies and so I need to run up to the stage and do some introductions. Back in a moment! Okay, that was quick and painless. So here we go! Nice to have a keynote on local search, which is a subject near and dear to my heart. Chris asks first for some background on Yelp and the focus on local search. Geoff Donaker: Yelp is the place you go w [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News | Yelp

Earlier today it was reported that Yelp's content had been removed from Google Places -- though not from Google.com results. What's going on exactly? Here's Google's  public statement about it: "Place pages organize relevant information about a wide range of places and locations, and they surface great sources of information like reviews and photos about 'places' ranging from restaurants to parks to landmarks to cities. Regarding the presentation of Yelp review snippets, neither of us was happy with the data as it appeared, so we reclassified results from Yelp while we reviewed our [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News | Yelp

There's nothing that jaded and weary conference goers love more than to see some "red meat" conflict between panelists during a session. And that's what TechCrunch's Erick Schonfeld repeatedly tried to elicit in an on-stage interview of Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman and Google's John Hanke during the Social Currency CrunchUp event yesterday in Palo Alto California. Schonfeld baited Stoppelman and Hanke a number of times with questions about the aborted Google acquisition of Yelp, Apple CEO Steve Jobs' remark that "Search is not where it’s at [in mobile]," as well as Google's crawling and us [...]

Related Topics: Channel: SEM | Google: AdWords | Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile | Search Engines: Location / Checkin Services | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News | Yelp

With several lawsuits pending and words like "extortion" being thrown around like baseballs on opening day, Yelp is making changes that it hopes will end the confusion (and lawsuits) over how it operates. The first change -- and most important one, in my opinion -- is that advertisers will no longer be able to choose a "favorite review" and have it featured above all others on the business profile page, as shown here: The connection between reviews and advertising is what seemed to cause much of confusion and misunderstanding among small business owners. In the recent lawsuits, plain [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Legal: General | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News | Yelp

It must be the season for litigation. Two class action law firms have filed suit in Los Angeles federal court claiming that Yelp has attempted to "extort" money from small businesses by offering to remove negative reviews in exchange for payment. The suit contends: Yelp runs an extortion scheme in which the company’s employees call businesses demanding monthly payments, in the guise of "advertising contracts," in exchange for removing or modifying negative reviews appearing on the website.  The plaintiff, a veterinary hospital in Long Beach, California, asked that Yelp remove a false and d [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Legal: General | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Yelp

Something apparently happened. First TechCruch reported Yelp was going to sell to Google for $500 million or more. There was a frenzy of speculative coverage (including by me) that followed this initial report. The NY Times appeared to independently confirm that Yelp was going to sell. And I spoke to someone (not at Yelp) who confidently said that a deal was happening though he indicated its particular form might be different than what was reported. Back in the hall of mirrors TechCrunch is now saying that the deal is not happening, that "Yelp walked away" and that the "deal went sideways." [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Local | Google: Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Top News | Yelp

TechCrunch is reporting that Google is "advanced acquisition negotiations" to buy Yelp for $500 million or more. TechCrunch has been generally correct about many of the rumors it has reported recently (i.e., Google Phone) so we should take this seriously. Yelp has raised a little over $30 million over several funding rounds. Revenues are heading toward $50 million according to several sources. If the price suggested by TechCrunch is correct, it would be about 10X estimated revenues. There has been an imbalance between Yelp's success as a consumer brand and destination and its ability to [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Mobile | Google: Maps & Local | Search Engines: Maps & Local Search Engines | Search Engines: Mobile Search Engines | Top News | Yelp