Yelp’s mission is to connect people with great local businesses.
Having a great reputation on Yelp shouldn’t be about which business has the time and resources to ask the most people to write reviews. In fact, asking for reviews goes against Yelp's policies. Great Yelp reviews and ratings should come from consumers who had a great experience that they’re inspired to tell others about.
How reviews are recommended
Yelp's recommendation software is designed to highlight helpful and reliable reviews from people who want to share their genuine experiences. The recommendation software is entirely automated and applies the same objective rules to every business, evaluating all reviews on our platform based on hundreds of signals of quality, reliability, and user activity on Yelp.
How our recommendation software works
The recommendation software is fully automated and looks at every review on Yelp worldwide, regardless of the location of the Yelp user or the business. It’s designed to recommend the reviews it determines to be the most reliable, and those it doesn't recommend include reviews that may be unfairly biased (such as those written by people likely affiliated with the business or potential competitors) or may have been solicited. It applies the same objective rules to every business and treats reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same.
There’s no connection between advertising on Yelp and how the recommendation software treats a business’s ratings and reviews. Reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers are treated exactly the same.
The recommendation software works in the background to showcase the reviews that it determines are most helpful. We don’t recommend every review and the reviews that are recommended for any business can change over time as Yelp’s software learns more about the reviewer and the business.
No employee at Yelp or anyone else has the ability to override the decisions that the software makes. This is done intentionally to avoid conflicts of interest.
Reviews that are not recommended are still accessible via a link at the bottom of a business’s Yelp page, but they don’t factor into the business’s overall star rating or review count. We work hard to protect the integrity and quality of content on Yelp so that consumers receive helpful and reliable information, and businesses are protected from those that might try to “game the system.” Our automated recommendation software is engineered to provide a level playing field for all businesses on Yelp.
How the software evaluates reviews
Yelp’s automated recommendation software evaluates all reviews on our platform based on hundreds of signals of quality, reliability, and user activity on Yelp.
The software is designed to recommend the reviews it determines to be the most reliable. Those it doesn't recommend include reviews that may be unfairly biased (such as those written by people likely affiliated with the business or potential competitors) or reviews that may have been solicited. Learn more about our automated recommendation software.
Some of what the recommendation software looks for
Conflicts of Interest
These include reviews that the recommendation software suspects were written by people with undisclosed ties to a business, including friends, or family. The software also looks for things like unfairly biased reviews—such as reviews people may write about their competitors or businesses they’re affiliated with, as well as reviews from disgruntled employees.
Solicited reviews
These are reviews that the recommendation software suspects the business owner or an employee asked for. When asked to write a review by a business, a customer may feel pressure or influence to positively inflate their rating compared to someone who was inspired to write a review on their own. Businesses are also likely to only ask for reviews from customers they know will give them a great rating. This makes the information less helpful to all consumers and gives an unfair advantage to businesses with the time and resources to ask a large number of customers for reviews.
Reliability
Potentially unreliable reviews include those written by less active Yelp users that the software doesn’t know enough about to recommend their opinion to our community.
Usefulness
The software looks for useful reviews and tries to exclude unhelpful rants or raves, or irrelevant information.
As the software continues to do its job, we encourage businesses to remain engaged with customers by publicly responding to reviews and directly interacting with audiences to highlight the great services they offer.