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I'm a fairly avid YELPer, but I've heard rumors of their demise. I don't know if they are true or not, but just wondering what other locals use to find good places to eat?
I used to use foursquare a lot, but the upgraded or merged with another site a while back (year or two) and I kinda lost momentum with them...
I liked Urbanspoon a good bit and found it often less snarky than Yelp. Now that it's been acquired by Zomato, the prior ratings of restaurants didn't convert very well to Zomato's rating system. It's probably going to take awhile for the ratings of all the restaurants to get back to what they actually should be.
The problem with Yelp and TripAdvisor is that the 'reviews' are totally unverified. You don't know if they are current employees trying to increase business, ex-employees trying to screw their boss, regular guests, one time visitors (very frequent on TripAdvisor) or what. There is zero authentication of those reviews.
ChowHound is another animal. I was a frequent and ardent user of Chowhound back in the day when Jim Lefferts was the owner of the site - around 1993. No, I'm NOT kidding. Since he sold it, it's no where near as good as it used to be, but still well worth visiting for opinions.
Local blogs (you need to use google to find them) usually provide the best information. HOWEVER, (and I used caps purposefully), many of those bloggers are NOT anonymous. They get free meals for good reviews, and print bad reviews when they have a personal issue with the owner or manager.
I lost faith in OpenTable, Gaydot and Zagat years ago. (Zagat awarded Outback with the Best Steakhouse Award. I like Outback - but BEST???? Gimme a break.)
For hotels, I do look at TripAdvisor. BUT I back it up by looking at Booking.com and Expedia, specifically looking at their verified reviews. BIG DIFFERENCE.
I use Yelp regularly for restaurant reviews here and everywhere else - had not heard that rumor, ugh! But yeah I take it with a grain of salt and head to places with many reviews or reviews from people I've followed for a while. I love Chowhound as well but I like to look up a certain restaurant.
Yelp can be awful around here, though. My doggie day care has a ton of filtered reviews and I'm sure they're real - they were probably flagged by a competitor.
I use Yelp regularly for restaurant reviews here and everywhere else - had not heard that rumor, ugh! But yeah I take it with a grain of salt and head to places with many reviews or reviews from people I've followed for a while. I love Chowhound as well but I like to look up a certain restaurant.
Yelp can be awful around here, though. My doggie day care has a ton of filtered reviews and I'm sure they're real - they were probably flagged by a competitor.
I generially use Yelp something like this. I use it to identify restaurants "near me". If possible, I'll use google to drill a little deeper and find stuff, but the problem with google and local blogs (alone) is that they really don't give you what's nearby, and if you don't know the lay of the land, then it can be tricky.
Locally, yelp can put me on to what is nearby (and it's usually just a reminder of a place I've been meaning to try), when travelling it is a huge help.
Thanks to all who answered. I think if I cobble it ALL together, I have my answer. (and maybe Yelp will either survive, or get absorbed by another site...)
There is no perfect "review" site out there. I've found problems with all of them - consistency is key though and if a restaurant gets generally good ratings across multiple review sites, I will give it a try.
The problem with Yelp and TripAdvisor is that the 'reviews' are totally unverified. You don't know if they are current employees trying to increase business, ex-employees trying to screw their boss, regular guests, one time visitors (very frequent on TripAdvisor) or what. There is zero authentication of those reviews.
ChowHound is another animal. I was a frequent and ardent user of Chowhound back in the day when Jim Lefferts was the owner of the site - around 1993. No, I'm NOT kidding. Since he sold it, it's no where near as good as it used to be, but still well worth visiting for opinions.
Local blogs (you need to use google to find them) usually provide the best information. HOWEVER, (and I used caps purposefully), many of those bloggers are NOT anonymous. They get free meals for good reviews, and print bad reviews when they have a personal issue with the owner or manager.
I lost faith in OpenTable, Gaydot and Zagat years ago. (Zagat awarded Outback with the Best Steakhouse Award. I like Outback - but BEST???? Gimme a break.)
For hotels, I do look at TripAdvisor. BUT I back it up by looking at Booking.com and Expedia, specifically looking at their verified reviews. BIG DIFFERENCE.
Yelp is way worse than Tripadvisor due to their shake down ways of doing business. Pay us and all your good reviews will be at the top and the bad ones will somehow not. Don't pay and suddenly all your good reviews evaporate.
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