Our automated recommendation software is maintained and updated by a team of Yelp engineers, many with PhDs in areas like computer science or mathematics, to protect the integrity of consumer and business owner experiences on Yelp.
When considering what reviews should be recommended, the software looks at hundreds of factors, including various measurements of quality, reliability, and user activity of reviewers on Yelp. Applying uniform criteria, the software decides which reviews should be recommended—filtering out potentially unreliable reviews, like those that may be solicited, come from an unfairly biased source (like a business owner or employee) or are written by users we just don’t know enough about.
The recommendation software is entirely automated. It applies the same objective rules to every business and treats reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same.
Learn more about Yelp’s recommendation software here, or watch this video for an overview of how our recommendation software works:
We hope to continually improve the recommendation software, and appreciate any feedback you may have.