Now, don’t get me wrong for all I know this is something else. This is all merely something I just noticed and am incredibly uncertain about, see below and judge for yourself. Normally I don’t write these kinds of articles here, and it admittedly has bothered me enough. Considering that this ad is normally on this website, I’m putting this here to basically say: Buyer beware.
There is this ‘University’ (well, claimed to be university) that advertises a lot on my websites. I finally was curious enough to Google them, and lo and behold I found Yelp reviews and they are all incredibly positive. I read all of them and got to to bottom where it wanted me to verify I wasn’t a robot to see the rest of the reviews.
Last I checked it wasn’t indeed a robot, so I entered the code to reveal the rest of the comments, thinking of course they were simply older and less relevant.
What did it show?
All the negative reviews.
Strange I must add, mainly due to the ‘Review Filter’ heading they have (completely copy/pasted from the website):
Review Filter – Huh?
Yelp has an automated review filter to keep the site’s content as useful and trustworthy as possible. Read More
Erm, but the reviews that were filtered out were the negative reviews.
Before:
5 Star Review:
I have graduated from **** in 2005 and highly recommend it. I am thinking about going back for a Master’s degree in Internet Marketing. Full Sail is one of the best entertainment / arts schools in the world with cutting edge equipment and technology. It can be a very hard school, and therefore a lot of people badger the name when they don’t make it past the core classes. It won’t guarantee you a job, but it will give you all the tool and resources to launch your career in one of the most fascinating industries. Be ready to work very hard.
And:
5 Star Review:
****actually invests in giving each student industry relevant technology to work on that will still be relevant after graduation. My wife ended up dropping out, now she’s going to start at Full Sail in March I believe. She’ll be in Computer Animation, and from what the course adviser said they get even more cool toys than what we get, so that she can scan illustrations and such. I don’t think any competitor does that. Your stuck with whatever computer you had before enrolling, so
everybody is using different technology, which skews performance towards those with the most money. The instructors are definitely good, too. Although I can’t compare to any other online or physical colleges, everybody seems to be working in the field they teach.
Basically the whole comment was how you would be getting a super awesome laptop and some considerably expensive programs. Okay, well sure no problem.
A lot of schools do that. Some high schools as well, I sort of understand the logic behind it (really just to level the playing ground and all) but either way the whole review was just… off. It basically made it sound as if getting new gadgets was the only fantastic part.
I do get that, and can see how it’s a bonus, but for the most part anything relevant to the educational part was.. light.
After the filter turned off:
1 Star Review:
I was a potential student for the online graphic design degree program. I am a veteran at which my school is being taken care of by the Veteran’s Administration so the only thing I needed to do was find a school. I have to say that I was very impressed by their website but I was extremely unimpressed by the admissions, financial aid department. I practically did all the paperwork to include FAFSA but when I did have a question I would never get a return phone call or email. after a week of no responses I went somewhere else, but usually when schools know I am a guarantee student and the money is for sure they bend over backwards, it was major red flags for me when a school lacks communication because if they can’t get back to me now for simple forms I doubt they are much help once I am a student. So I have to say def looks the part but acting it is a whole other story.
And:
1 Star Review:
The production company I work for was looking for graduate cadidates [sic] and we reviewed a couple people from ***. Each of them had completed a degree program but their reels were surprisingly paper thin and the work were only so, so. I heard **** charges $72,000 now, I could use that money, make my own movie and learn more myself. How the hell did they to graduate? Watch out for institutions that are in the business of making money not education.
While those are only two examples picked out, there are others from students and whatnot as well.
To get (finally) to the point, does yelp hide the negative reviews? After all, if someone is just doing a very quick search, they are fairly unlikely to enter the captcha. It has a noindex for the bots out there so they cannot ‘see’ the page. However, the before view (before the captcha) doesn’t (I’ve checked), so all bots can read are those glowing bits and pieces.
