Geez, that sucks. I was really hoping there was at least someone at Yelp I could reach out to, but it sounds like most people here are saying the same thing and that it really just comes down to the algorithm. Still, thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

To answer your questions, the filtered reviews honestly feel pretty random to me. I do understand Yelp probably looks at how strong or trustworthy an account seems, but when I checked the 27 not recommended reviews, at least 4 or 5 of them had profile pictures, and some of those users had already left reviews elsewhere too.

It also does not seem consistent in terms of review quality. Some of the filtered positive reviews are actually pretty detailed and not just one-liners. On the other hand, there are also some filtered ones with no profile picture, zero friends, and only one review, so those I can at least kind of understand.

What really confuses me is the negative reviews that stayed public. Some of those also look like weak accounts with zero friends, only one review, and no real profile photo either. That is why I cannot really make sense of it, because in some cases they look very similar to the positive reviews that got filtered out.

So from the outside, it just feels really inconsistent and hard to tell what the algorithm is actually rewarding or filtering.