There is a lot of controversy surrounding the reviews of local businesses on Yelp. One of the major concerns is the posting of fake reviews. Some businesses try to game the system by posting favorable reviews of their own profiles, or hire others to post favorable reviews on their behalf. Another issue is some businesses take it a step further and post negative reviews on their competition's profiles.
About a year and a half ago Yelp began issuing Consumer Alerts when it catches a business posting fake reviews. These Consumer Alerts are public notices placed above the Yelp profile with a link to the evidence discovered by Yelp.
Yelp has also conducted "sting" operations to catch businesses red handed trying to elicit fake reviews. In a Telegraph article by Sophie Curtis, Yelp CEO, Jeremy Stoppelman, was interviewed about how these sting operations are improving the quality of the reviews in Yelp. Mr. Stoppelman has directed his company to take a more proactive approach to dealing with the solicitation of fake reviews--many of which are solicited through Craigslist. Review filters are not enough.
Matt McGee, the Editor-In-Chief of Search Engine Land, estimated that Yelp has issued about 300 such Consumer Alerts in the past six months.
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