How Does the Yelp Rating System Work and What Factors Affect It?

If you run a local business, your Yelp rating might be saying more about you than you think, and it might not be saying exactly what you want it to.

Each day, millions of people turn to Yelp to decide where to eat, get their hair cut, or hire a plumber. In fact, Yelp reports that 2.5 million people visit the platform daily, and over half of them contact a business within 24 hours. That kind of traffic means your star rating isn’t just cosmetic, it’s commercial.

So why is it that a business with fewer (and worse) reviews can still show up above you in Yelp search results? Or why your perfect 5-star reviews barely move your average rating?

Here’s the catch: Yelp doesn’t just count reviews – it filters, ranks, and weighs them based on a range of factors you probably haven’t considered.

In this article, we’ll break down:

• What factors really affect your Yelp star rating
• Why some reviews count more than others
• And which industry-specific details can tilt the rating scale for better or worse

Whether you’re a plumber, salon owner, or café down the street, this guide is built to help you understand how Yelp works and what you can do to stand out.

Let’s get into it.

Core Factors That Affect Yelp Ratings for All Local Businesses

Now that you know why Yelp ratings matter, let’s break down what’s really going on behind those stars and why two businesses with similar reviews can end up with very different ratings and visibility.

1. Volume and Recency of Reviews

Yelp places greater weight on recent reviews when calculating your overall star rating. This means that even if your business received glowing reviews in the past, older feedback gradually carries less influence.

If you haven’t received any new reviews in months, one or two older negative ones can disproportionately affect your score. On the flip side, consistent and recent positive reviews send a strong signal that your business is active, relevant, and trustworthy.

Example: A 2-star review from last week may impact your rating more than a 4-star review from two years ago.

What you can do:

Encourage ongoing, organic feedback from happy customers. A steady flow of reviews helps maintain a balanced and up-to-date rating. To keep this momentum going, you can also explore effective strategies on how to ask for reviews, ensuring that your customers feel motivated to share their positive experiences consistently.

2. Reviewer Credibility: Why Not All Reviewers Carry Equal Weight

Yelp doesn’t treat all reviewers the same. The credibility and activity level of the reviewer play a significant role in determining if their review is displayed and how much it impacts your rating.

a) User Review History and Profile Activity

Reviews from users with active, complete profiles tend to be counted more often and given greater weight.

Yelp favors reviewers who:

• Have profile photos
• Have reviewed multiple businesses (in the same area)
• Are connected with other Yelp users
• Are part of Yelp’s “Elite” reviewer program

If a user has reviewed dozens of businesses over time, their reviews are seen as more trustworthy than one-time posts from new accounts.

b) Infrequent or Suspicious Reviewer Activity

Users with no photo, no review history, or a brand-new account are more likely to have their reviews filtered into the “Not Recommended” section, which means they won’t impact your star rating or be visible on your main profile.

Yelp’s algorithm looks at:

• How often does the person review
• If they’ve checked into businesses before reviewing them.
• Their follower count and profile completeness
• If their reviews have ever been flagged

c) Industry-Specific Review Behavior

Reviewers also tend to focus on different aspects depending on the type of business. For example:

• In restaurants, they may emphasize food quality and ambiance
• In home services, they’re more likely to focus on punctuality and professionalism
• In salons, consistency and cleanliness often take center stage

This means that what customers talk about in their reviews can subtly shape the tone of your overall rating.

Sentiment and Keyword Focus

The words used in a review matter, too. Yelp’s algorithm can detect the tone and sentiment of the review, and may weigh reviews differently depending on:

• Whether it reads as overly emotional or balanced
• The keywords used (e.g., “rude staff,” “overpriced,” “amazing service”)
• Be it core aspects like service, cleanliness, or pricing

In short, the more relevant and detailed the review is from a credible user, the more it can move the needle.

3. Review Content Quality (Why Detailed Reviews Matter)

Not all reviews are created equal, and Yelp’s system can tell the difference. Short, vague reviews like “Great service” or “Nice place” are more likely to be filtered out and excluded from your rating.

On the other hand, detailed, specific reviews – especially those that mention the type of service, timing, or staff interaction are more likely to be marked as trustworthy and counted toward your public Yelp score.

What Yelp Looks For:

• Mentions of specific experiences (e.g., “Our server was quick and friendly” or “The plumber arrived on time and explained the issue clearly”)
• Descriptive language that feels authentic and not generic
• Reviews that help other users make informed decisions

What you can do:

While Yelp discourages asking for reviews directly, you can train your team to deliver review-worthy moments – personalized service, thoughtful extras, or memorable customer care that naturally leads to more detailed feedback.

4. Filtered (“Not Recommended”) Reviews

If you’ve ever noticed reviews disappear from your Yelp page or not affect your rating, this is why.

Yelp uses an automated algorithm to decide which reviews are “Recommended” and should be shown publicly, and which are moved to the “Not Recommended” section. Filtered reviews do not impact your overall star rating, even if they’re 5 stars.

Common Reasons Reviews Get Filtered:

• The reviewer has a brand-new Yelp account
• Their profile lacks a photo or personal info
• The review is very short or generic
• Multiple reviews come from the same IP address (e.g., staff or friends reviewing from your store Wi-Fi)
• Yelp detects suspicious behavior or patterns

While some filtered reviews are spam or fake, others are legitimate, but Yelp’s algorithm still chooses to hide them based on trust signals.

Can you request a review to be “Unfiltered”?

No, Yelp does not allow businesses to restore or remove filtered reviews. The system updates automatically based on user behavior, and changes can occur without notice.

What you can do:

Stay focused on generating consistent, authentic reviews from real customers. Over time, Yelp may “unfilter” older reviews if the reviewer becomes more active or credible.

5. Response Patterns and Ratings Spread

Believe it or not, a page full of only 5-star reviews can actually raise red flags in Yelp’s system. Yelp’s algorithm tends to trust businesses with a natural distribution of reviews – a healthy mix of 4s, 5s, and even the occasional 3.

A sudden spike in only glowing reviews, especially if they’re short, similar, or come in a tight timeframe, may trigger filtering or reduce the weight of those reviews in your average rating.

What Yelp Looks For:

• A steady review pattern over time
• Variety in star ratings (which can actually appear more trustworthy to users)
• Organic growth rather than sudden bursts of praise

What you can do:

Don’t panic over the occasional 3 or even 2-star review; a natural curve looks more credible and is often more effective than perfection.

6. Service Quality Mentioned in Reviews

Across all industries, the quality of your service directly impacts your rating, especially when customers feel compelled to leave lower scores. While many factors play into Yelp’s system, nothing replaces how people feel about their interaction with your team.

What Customers Often Rate You On:

• Promptness: Were they served or responded to quickly?
• Attentiveness: Did staff listen, follow up, or offer help without being asked?
• Professionalism: Was the service polite, knowledgeable, and respectful?

These experiences often become the main themes in both positive and negative reviews, and they shape public perception far beyond just the star count.

What you can do:

Train staff to deliver consistent, thoughtful service. Often, it’s the small touches like a friendly follow-up or solving a minor issue quickly that earn 5-star reviews, and customers want to write.

Bonus: High Rating Doesn’t Guarantee High Visibility

Even if your Yelp rating is excellent, your business might not appear at the top of local search results. That’s because Yelp considers other factors when ranking businesses, especially when users search for specific services.

Two Key Factors That Influence Your Yelp Ranking

Location Proximity: Yelp often shows businesses that are closer to the searcher’s location, especially on mobile. So a business with a slightly lower rating but closer proximity can appear higher in results.

Profile Activity and Freshness: Yelp prefers businesses that are active and regularly updated. If your page hasn’t been touched in months, and there are no recent reviews or photos, Yelp may consider your business less relevant.

What you can do:

Keep your business info, hours, and services updated
Add fresh photos regularly
Encourage natural review activity over time

Business-Specific Factors That Influence Yelp Ratings

Not all businesses are reviewed the same way. Different industries come with different customer expectations, and that means the factors that influence ratings can vary depending on what you do.

Here’s how Yelp ratings tend to behave across a few common local business types:

Restaurants, Cafés, Bars & Retail Stores

In the food and hospitality space, customers are often more expressive – both positively and negatively, making this one of the most sensitive categories for Yelp ratings.

Key Influencing Factors:

• Food Quality & Wait Time: Even small delays or inconsistencies can turn a 5-star meal into a 3-star review. Customers expect prompt service, fresh food, and attention to presentation.
• Ambience & Cleanliness: Aesthetic details matter more here than in other industries. This encompasses factors like ambiance, cleanliness, and the overall atmosphere, which are more important for higher-star ratings, as per a research paper published on ScienceDirect.com.
• Table Service & Staff Behavior: Friendly, knowledgeable staff can elevate the experience, while inattentive or inconsistent service often leads to sharp criticism.

• High Expectations & Emotional Reviews: Food-related businesses tend to get more emotionally charged reviews. A great experience leads to glowing feedback, but a single misstep can result in an unexpectedly harsh rating.

  

Home Services (Plumbers, Electricians, HVAC, Cleaners)

For service professionals working in or around a customer’s home, trust and reliability play a bigger role than aesthetics.

Key Influencing Factors:

Beauty & Personal Care (Salons, Barbers, Spas)

In the beauty industry, Yelp reviews are often influenced by how the customer feels after the service, not just the technical result. The experience is personal, so expectations are high, and emotional impressions play a big role.

Key Influencing Factors:

• Consistency of Results: A client who gets a great haircut one time but a different outcome the next visit may leave a lower rating, even if both services were professional.
• Cleanliness & Comfort: Hygiene is non-negotiable, especially in spas, waxing services, and salons. Even small lapses (like unclean tools or untidy spaces) can quickly trigger a 1–2 star review.
• Staff Attitude & Emotional Comfort: Customers often rate based on how they felt during the service. Was the stylist friendly? Did they listen? Were they respectful? These “soft skills” can influence reviews just as much as the outcome.

Auto Services (Repair Shops, Towing, Detailers)

Auto-related businesses are judged not only on technical skill but also on communication, transparency, and trustworthiness.

Key Influencing Factors:

Franchise or Chain Businesses

Chains and franchises, like national food outlets or big-brand salons, experience slightly different rating behavior from customers.

Key Influencing Factors:

• Pre-set Expectations: Customers usually know what to expect from a chain. This means they’re less likely to leave reviews unless the experience was significantly better or worse than expected.
• Less Impactful Individual Reviews: One great (or bad) review is unlikely to change much if the business already has hundreds. Independent businesses may feel the impact of each review more dramatically.

Even as a franchise, local teams still have control over service quality and staff interactions, and that’s where you can still win positive, personalized feedback.

How Yelp Calculates a Business’s Final Star Rating (With Example)

Yelp does not use a simple mathematical average of all your reviews to calculate your star rating. Instead, it uses a proprietary algorithm that weighs each review differently based on several trust and quality signals.

This algorithm filters out some reviews (even positive ones) and only counts “Recommended” reviews toward your final public star rating.

Yelp Rating Calculation: Step-by-Step Breakdown

Step 1: Yelp Collects All Reviews

This includes every 1–5 star review left by users, from the very first to the 500th.

Step 2: Yelp Classifies Reviews

Each review is sorted into one of two categories:

• “Recommended” – Visible on your main profile and included in your public star rating
• “Not Recommended” – Hidden at the bottom of your profile and excluded from the rating

Step 3: Exclude Filtered Reviews (Non-recommended reviews)

Yelp’s algorithm may filter reviews if it senses they are less trustworthy or possibly inauthentic. As we mentioned reasons to filter reviews by Yelp in the 4th factors above in the articles.

These reviews won’t hurt your score, but they won’t help it either; they’re ignored by the algorithm.

Step 4: Weighted Average – Not All Reviews Count the Same

Among the “Recommended” reviews, Yelp still applies weighting based on:

• Recency – Recent reviews have more impact than older ones
• Reviewer credibility – Elite users or frequent reviewers may carry more weight
• Review quality – Longer, specific reviews are seen as more reliable

Step 5: Natural Rating Curves

Yelp’s algorithm is also trained to expect a realistic mix of reviews. If a business has only perfect 5-star reviews, especially over a short period, Yelp may downweight or filter some of them to avoid what it sees as artificial rating inflation.

Step 6: Final Rating Display

After applying all these filters and weights, Yelp rounds the average to the nearest half-star and displays it on your business page.

Example:

Let’s say a local plumbing business has the following 10 reviews:

Only the 8 “Recommended” reviews count toward the average:

• Total stars: 5 + 5 + 4 + 3 + 1 + 4 + 4 + 5 = 31 stars
• Total reviews counted: 8
• 31 ÷ 8 = 3.875 average, which Yelp rounds to 4.0 stars as per their half-star rounding policy.

Even though the business has mostly 5-star reviews, two of them were filtered, and some lower reviews had higher weight, which brings the final score down.

Action Plan for Local Business Owners to Boost Yelp Rating

Understanding Yelp’s rating system is the first step; now it’s time to take action. Here’s a practical, guideline-friendly plan to help you boost your Yelp rating organically and consistently.

Step 1: Audit Your Current Yelp Profile

• Make sure your profile is complete and accurate:
• Are your business hours correct?
• Are photos, services, and contact details up to date?
• Do your most recent reviews reflect the current customer experience?

Step 2: Focus on Small, Consistent Service Wins

• Great reviews start with great service; even the small details matter:
• Speed up response and wait times
• Keep your location clean and welcoming
• Send polite follow-ups after service (especially for bookings), and consider using a review request email template to make asking for feedback seamless.

Step 3: Set Up a Smart, Ethical Review Strategy

• Stay within Yelp’s guidelines while encouraging real customer feedback:
• Display “Find us on Yelp” signage at your location
• Add a Yelp link to your website, footer, or email confirmations, and display reviews on your website to boost trust and visibility
• Train staff to create memorable, review-worthy experiences

Step 4: Streamline Your Review Management

Staying on top of Yelp reviews can be challenging, especially when you’re also running a business. That’s where SocialPilot comes in.

With SocialPilot’s Review Management Tool, you can easily:

• Monitor new Yelp reviews in real-time
• Respond quickly from one central dashboard
• Track trends and customer sentiment across platforms

It’s an easy, effective way to build trust, improve engagement, and boost your Yelp rating organically, all without juggling multiple tabs or apps.

What Your Yelp Rating Really Reflects

A Yelp star rating may look simple, but it’s shaped by far more than customer feedback. Yelp’s algorithm considers review quality, reviewer credibility, profile activity, and even your location.

Even with great service, your rating may not reflect your efforts unless those reviews come from credible users and meet Yelp’s standards.

Key Takeaways:

• Not all reviews count; filtered ones are excluded.
• Reviews from active, trusted users carry more weight.
• A natural mix of recent, detailed reviews performs best.
• Location and profile freshness affect your visibility.

You can’t control every review, but you can control the experience you deliver and how you manage your presence.

Start a free plan with SocialPilot to monitor, respond to, and manage your Yelp reviews in one place and boost your rating organically with less hassle.