Ep 78: Yelp selling its business data, Google’s Review Spam algo nukes many legit reviews, Tik-Tok for brands

Part 1 David: Yelp has recently publicized their newest revenue stream; selling merchant data to marketers. It seems sleazy and is likely just a money grab by Yelp

Part 2 Mike: Day in and day out, small businesses are flocking into the Google Business Profile forum to complain about their legit reviews being nuked by Google’s effort to limit review spam.

Part 3 Greg: Tik-Tok is still not being heavily used by brands. Brands can create their own content or team up with Tik-tok creators, for which Tik-tok has created a marketplace. In travel, restaurants and beauty site visitors are using Tik-Tok for discovery. Many small businesses have done well there but brands have an opportunity to leverage this audience which is shunning search.

Does the increasing use of Tk-Tok and the increasing complaints about Google's quality indicate a green field moment where Google competitors might succeed?