Recommendation software
Highlighting the most reliable and helpful reviews
Automated software evaluates every review based on hundreds of signals of quality, reliability, and user activity on Yelp. The reviews it identifies as the most helpful and reliable are recommended.

Some of what the recommendation software looks for
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Frequently asked questions
Can Yelp employees manually override the decisions of the recommendation software for a business?
No. No employee at Yelp has the ability to override the decisions that the software makes. This approach is deliberate to avoid conflicts of interest.
Why shouldn’t businesses ask their customers to write reviews on Yelp?
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 marketing savvy to ask a lot of customers for reviews.
Do businesses that advertise on Yelp get special treatment by the recommendation software?
No. There’s no connection between advertising on Yelp and how the recommendation software treats a business’s ratings and reviews. The recommendation software applies the same objective standards to all businesses, meaning reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers are treated exactly the same.
Why are different reviews recommended on different days?
Our recommendation software runs and learns regularly, evaluating signals across the hundreds of millions of reviews on Yelp, so reviews can move from not recommended to recommended (and vice versa) over time.
For what locations is the recommendation software used?
The recommendation software looks at every review on Yelp worldwide, regardless of the location of the user or the business.
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