Yelp Official Blog

“Want Fair Reviews? Go to Yelp.”

That’s the title of an entry on Website Magazine’s blog last week. It was one of several blogs that covered a recent study examining the online review ecosystem.

Here’s more from that blog:

The findings show the proportion of 5-star ratings at Yelp (24.4 percent) is less than that at Citysearch (50.3 percent) or Yahoo Local (58.8 percent). The same holds true for 1-star ratings, with Yelp showing proportions of 5.9 percent, compared to Citysearch (16.4 percent) and Yahoo Local (6.9 percent). In other words, where Yelp is more balanced, Citysearch and Yahoo are more extreme.

Another interesting finding was that Yelp reviewers are much more active. Just 9 percent of Yelp reviewers had posted only one review. Compare that to Citysearch, where 71 percent of users posted only one review, and Yahoo Local (56 percent). As business owners, it appears that Yelp is the place where you can get the fairest, most trusted reviews of your business.

Not only is this important for your own research purposes but also a sign that Yelp is trusted by other consumers, making it a site that must be monitored.

You can read the entire blog entry here. 

New Businesses in Your Hood? Check Yelp's Homepage!

Hey yelpers! You may have noticed something a little different on Yelp’s homepage:



What is it? It’s a new feature we’re super excited about -- especially because yelpers and business owners have been asking to have this for some time: the ability to see the brand-spanking-newest restaurants and bars in your neighborhood!

Replacing Hot on Yelp, Hot New Businesses provides consumers with a more accurate snapshot of what is new and cool in their hood.

How does it work? MAGIC.

Well, not quite. There’s a three-pronged approach to how businesses make it on to Hot New Businesses:

First, when adding a new business to Yelp, that user has the option to also select a field that says "New Business" along with the opening date: this gives us a pretty good inclination that, well, it's a new business.

Second, we've created an algorithm that combs Yelp.com, as well as our mobile apps, for a variety of key attributes and phrases such as "just opened", initial check-ins, and photos, among other points of reference.

Finally, we have our mighty Community Management team that is 77+ cities strong and will help comb through the list to ensure these businesses are indeed recent additions.

As new businesses get added, the list will automatically update itself. If you like it, let us know and we'll bring this feature to our mobile applications just as soon as we can!

Late Show Yelping

Listen up, Alan Kalter: we’re onto you. We’re huge fans of the Late Show with David Letterman and love the way your ominous voice carries us into the commercial break, but we’re not big on soliciting Yelp reviews. Let your, er, voice speak for itself and the Yelps will follow!

(But glad to hear you’re a fan :)

Yelp’s Small Business Advisory Council: One Year Later.

Last year, while looking at my Yelp Owner’s Account, I read that Yelp was putting together a Small Business Advisory Council. The stated purpose of the council was to provide direct feedback to Yelp executives and product teams as they continued to build out different parts of their website.  If I remember accurately, my application read something like this:  “I can either bitch and moan about aspects of Yelp that frustrate me and never know if anyone is listening – or I can try and join this council and make sure that my concerns are heard.  Oh, and by the way, I’ve never advertised on Yelp and don’t know if I ever will.”  Much to my surprise Yelp invited me to be a part of the council.

I relate this story because it was my first introduction to the fact that the Council Yelp was assembling was not going to be made up of “Yes Men/Women”.  Yelp was actually putting together a diverse group of people with varying levels of enthusiasm for the Yelp Universe and - for me - this showed that they were making a real commitment to listen.  There were Council members that advertised, and council members that did not.  There were business owners who were driven crazy by aspects of Yelp and others who credited it with the very success of their company.  The conversations that we had, throughout the year, were not always filled with cinnamon and spice, but the conversations happened and change happened that proved to all of us that we were being listened to and that our needs were an important part of the Yelp universe.

The “big event” of the year happened last September when Yelp hosted nine of us to meet with members of their executive, legal, sales, communication, and product teams. The meetings allowed us to share (and vent) our ideas about how Yelp could improve its offering to the business community. Thirty-six proposals emerged from the summit. These ideas were then categorized in one of three ways: immediately actionable, actionable in the near future, or not currently actionable.

Over two thirds of the ideas that emerged were met with positive response from Yelp’s team.  We had involved discussions of why certain things could not happen and, from my perspective, it makes sense.  Yelp is a business, just like our businesses, and there are certain things that it has to provide its customers and that it can’t compromise on.

The business advisory council provided a great channel for business owners to engage with Yelp’s team directly, and it will be exciting to see what next year’s group brings to the table.

Here’s a list of the ideas that were brought to the table and reviewed:

Do Not Adjust Your TV Set: Yelp en Español

2010 fue un año épico para Yelp, no sólo en cuanto a números e hitos logrados sino también en cuanto a expansión. En este último año, Yelp Francia salió como nuestro primer país de habla no inglesa: Alemania, Austria y los Países Bajos pronto siguieron la senda que acababa de inaugurar.

Nos tomamos unos meses (pocos) para recuperar la respiración, pero en ese breve período de tiempo, Yelp se ha visto inmerso en un crecimiento masivo:

-Durante el mes de Abril, tuvimos más de 50 millones de usuarios úncios y alcanzamos los 18 millones de comentarios --  De las cuales, 1 millón, se habían producido en los 30 días anteriores.

-Colaborando en que nadie permanezca sentado sin hacer nada, nuestras aplicaciones móviles pasaron sobradamente de los 4 millones de usuarios únicos. Y no hablamos de descargas, sino de usuarios reales.

-Oh y desde hoy, ¡hemos lanzado Yelp en España! ¡Olé!


Ahora los españoles ya pueden acceder a Yelp.es para leer y compartir comentarios sobre fantásticos negocios locales tanto en su propia lengua, como en Inglés, francés, alemán y holandés. Pero ¡no nos detenemos ahí! ¿Qué más ofrecerá Yelp?

-Nuestra aplicación para iPhone merecedora del "paseo de la fama Apple" y nuestra cojonuda aplicación para Android.
-Acceso inmediato a nuestra herramienta para propietarios de negocios.
-Y dado que realmente, realmente nos gustais, a Madrid y Barcelona les proporcionaremos sus propios Yelp Community Managers -- y las fiestas de proporciones épicas vendrán enseguida.


No podemos esperar más para ver cómo nuestros amigos de España utilizarán Yelp. Es un país que llevaba un tiempo en nuestro radar --ahora sólo tenemos que encontrar una excusa para ir a visitarlo. ¡No será difícil!