The company closed more than 278,600 user accounts for violating its policies, and prevented more than 40,700 potential new business pages from appearing on the platform for being associated with spammy behaviors
More than 23,600 inappropriate reviews were prevented from publishing on
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Of the reviews contributed to
“Defending the integrity and quality of content on
Key findings from the 2023
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Approximately 22 million reviews were contributed to
Yelp in 2023, up nearly 6% from 2022.1- Of these reviews, about 78% were recommended by Yelp’s automated recommendation software, which helps surface the most helpful and reliable content to consumers. Additionally, 16% of reviews were not recommended, 4% were removed by Yelp’s moderators, and 2% were removed by reviewers themselves.2
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Yelp relies on its community of consumers and business owners to report reviews that they believe violate the company’s policies. In 2023,Yelp removed more than 207,300 reported reviews, with 26% of these reported reviews being removed for not sufficiently reflecting a firsthand consumer experience.3 - More than 278,600 user accounts were closed for violating the company’s Terms of Service, including suspected deceptive or abusive behaviors.4
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The platform prevented more than 40,700 potential new business pages from appearing on
Yelp for being associated with spammy behaviors in violation of Yelp’s policies — up 24% year-over-year.5Yelp also removed more than 1,500 business pages for being associated with lead generators, or bad actors that attempt to create fake business pages with the goal of generating leads and auctioning them to other contractors.6
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Yelp strictly prohibits compensated and incentivized reviews. InSeptember 2023 , the company began indexing recipients of Compensated Activity Alerts and Suspicious Review Activity Alerts to make it easier for people and regulators to identify suspicious review behaviors.-
99 Compensated Activity Alerts were placed on business pages after
Yelp received evidence of someone offering payment or other incentives in exchange for writing, changing, preventing, or removing reviews.6 -
589 Suspicious Review Activity Alerts were placed on business pages after
Yelp detected a large number of suspicious positive reviews coming from a single IP address, or reviews from users who may be connected to a group that coordinates the buying or selling of online reviews.6-
In 2023,
Yelp saw a 50% year-over-year increase in alerts placed related to an inordinate number of suspicious positive reviews coming from the same IP address, a common tactic used to inflate a business’s rating.6
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In 2023,
Yelp made more than 1,300 reports to other online platforms (such as Facebook, X, Pinterest, and more) to warn them of content from more than 900 suspicious groups, posts, or individuals found on their sites attempting to trade or pay for reviews.6 Other platforms took action related to only 54% of incidents Yelp’s investigators reported — down nearly 30% from 2022.-
To rein in reputation management companies,
Yelp filed a lawsuit against Reviewvio inDecember 2023 , which offered “review gating” services to local businesses. This deceptive practice involves only inviting consumers with positive feedback to write a public review, while criticisms are diverted to non-public communications. Reviewvio also falsely claimed to be able, for a fee, to remove “bad reviews” fromYelp and other online review platforms.
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99 Compensated Activity Alerts were placed on business pages after
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To keep potentially inappropriate content off of the platform,
Yelp integrated LLMs to its automated systems to detect and flag reviews with egregious instances of hate speech, vulgar language, or threats for the company’s moderators to evaluate before they are published toYelp . This update enabled its moderators to prevent more than 23,600 reviews from ever publishing toYelp .3-
Since determining whether content is inappropriate can be context specific,
Yelp also continues to rely on users to report content that may violate its Content Guidelines. As an additional line of defense, Yelp’s human moderators removed more than 28,800 reported reviews for containing threats, lewdness, hate speech, or other potentially inappropriate content.3
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Since determining whether content is inappropriate can be context specific,
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Yelp proactively removed more than one million photos for violating its content policies.6-
Relatedly, in 2023,
Yelp enhanced its neural network-based systems to better detect photos that may violate its policies, and introduced a new system that proactively removes suspected inappropriate video content. These systems flag visual content for Yelp’s moderators to review before they are published on the platform.
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Relatedly, in 2023,
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As part of Yelp’s broader Consumer Alerts program, 986 Unusual Activity Alerts and Public Attention Alerts were placed on
Yelp pages related to a business gaining public attention, resulting in the removal of more than 49,100 reviews.3- 60% of these alerts stemmed from a post associated with a business that went viral on TikTok, X, Facebook, or other social media in 2023.3
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At times, the legal system can be misused to silence consumers, which is why
Yelp often objects to legal demands that seek personal user account information. In 2023,Yelp avoided producing information related to 97% of user accounts that were the subject of legal demands from law enforcement, government agencies, and private parties in 2023.3 - The company places Questionable Legal Threat Alerts on business pages when it receives evidence that a business may be abusing the legal system. In 2023, 53% of these alerts stemmed from gag clauses, or contractual terms that attempt to prohibit consumers from posting feedback about goods or services.3
For more information, read Yelp’s 2023 Trust & Safety Report, as well as a blog post and one-pager, which provide a high-level overview. Assets and images from the report can be found here. To learn more about the ways
1 Data is sourced globally as of
2 Reviews removed by Yelp’s moderators or reviews removed as a result of account closures for content policy violations.
3 Data is sourced from the
4 Data is sourced globally. These account closures stem from both user reports and proactive investigations. When an account is closed due to suspected deceptive or abusive behaviors, the associated reviews are removed as well.
5 Data is sourced from the
6 Data is sourced globally.
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