[nocoment]

I think the point was that Yelp's algorithm is not clear and is >rumored< to be biased to raise their own income.

While google is higher profile and would not keep an intentional practice secret for long, it is also not an entirely neutral party.

For example, changing it's algorithms to move businesses lower than other sites (review, blog, forum, etc) may make sense from the user perspective to a degree. But taking that even further works against both the customer and businesses to google's monetary benefit. Then the businesses must purchase SEM from google for searches that were directed at finding the business.

Dropping organic list algorithm changes whenever they hurt SEM profit combined with A/B testing to raise conversion rates/revenue on the advertising could end up with an effective extortion racket simply because that is optimal when you have a monopoly.

[markdown]

I appreciate your viewpoint, but I'll argue that were Google to do that, it still wouldn't be extortion.

There is a ethically a world of difference between:

a.) Having the option of paying to appear higher in the rankings (IIRC Yahoo used to do this way back when) and...

b.) Getting a call from Yelp informing you of some "anonymous" negative review posted about your business, with the offer of "making it go away" in exchange for cash.