Review websites, such as City Search, Yelp, Yellow Pages, etc., are a mixture of both good and bad for businesses. They can be important, but they can also be very dangerous as well.
If legitimate customers post legitimate and honest reviews, then great.
However, review websites tend to be filled with dishonest posts; fake accounts and untruthful reviews to try to harm competition.
For example, we found one local business - a Cincinnati heating and air conditioning company - that had a great review posted about them on a review website. However, the same author who posted the glowing review, also did a great review of a pizza establishment in Seattle.
In another instance, we found a different individual did a review for an HVAC company in Cincinnati; followed by a car purchase review in a different state; followed by a review for a home alarm system in Oklahoma; followed by furniture purchases in Oklahoma.
Fake.
If you read review websites, consider one simple piece advice:
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet.
Unfortunately, businesses need to participate in review and mapping websites. At the very least, business owners should "claim" their business listing, address, telephone number, URL (think link building) and other important information.
If you refuse to do the basics, don't worry, someone else (perhaps a false reviewer) will be more than happy to input your business information for you, which will probably include incorrect spellings, wrong address, etc.
There are review services that will post fake reviews for your company.
Run from these.
Fake reviews - good or bad - are very dangerous practices and are a violation of the Federal Trade Commission's disclosure guidelines.
If someone writes a false review about your business, you should follow the website's "rules of conduct" by reporting the false review, or "flagging" it for review by the site.
If the review website doesn't respond, then consider responding to the reviewer. If the reviewer doesn't respond, write something to the effect of "we responded to the individual who wrote this false review to try to solve their problem, but they refused to allow us the opportunity to help them."
See what Google has to say about review websites.
Unfortunately, you can't ignore review websites. However, play by the rules and try to be nice!