Restaurants, Dentists, Bars, Beauty Salons, Doctors - Yelp

Yelp is a leading American local business review and discovery platform that empowers consumers to find, evaluate and connect with local businesses, while helping small and medium-sized local enterprises gain visibility and attract customers. Launched in 2004 by Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons, the platform is headquartered in San Francisco, California, and has since expanded its reach to over 30 countries and regions worldwide, becoming a go-to digital resource for local lifestyle and commerce.
Core Core Function & Content
Yelp’s core value lies in its authentic user-generated reviews and comprehensive local business information. Users can search for businesses across nearly all local categories—including restaurants, cafes, beauty salons, fitness centers, plumbers, dentists and retail stores—and access detailed profiles that feature real customer reviews, star ratings (1 to 5 stars), photos/videos of the business, operating hours, contact information, location maps, and even reservation or takeout links. Beyond reviews, the platform also offers community features like user Q&A, local event listings, and "Yelp Elite"—a curated community of active, trusted reviewers whose content is highlighted for its quality and credibility.
Business Model & Monetization
Yelp generates revenue primarily through advertising services for local businesses, with a focus on targeted, performance-driven solutions tailored to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Its key monetization channels include:
Sponsored Listings: Businesses pay to have their profiles ranked higher in relevant search results, increasing visibility to potential customers.
Enhanced Business Profiles: Paid upgrades that let businesses add custom photos, special offers, business highlights, and remove competitor ads from their profile pages.
Yelp Ads: Targeted display and search ads that reach users based on their location, search history, and interests, with flexible pricing models (e.g., cost-per-click).
Premium Tools: Analytics and management tools for businesses to track review performance, respond to customers, and analyze user traffic to their profiles.
Notably, Yelp strictly prohibits businesses from paying for fake reviews or manipulating ratings, and it uses algorithms to filter out inauthentic content, preserving the integrity of its user-generated review ecosystem.
Value for Users & Businesses
For Consumers: Yelp eliminates information asymmetry for local services, allowing users to make informed decisions based on real, peer-reviewed experiences. It also serves as a local lifestyle guide, helping users discover new restaurants, activities, and businesses in their neighborhood or while traveling.
For Local Businesses: It acts as a low-cost, high-impact marketing channel—especially for small businesses that lack large advertising budgets. Positive reviews on Yelp can significantly boost a business’s reputation and foot traffic, while the platform’s tools let businesses engage directly with customers, address feedback, and build brand loyalty. Yelp also offers free basic profiles for all businesses, making it accessible to even the smallest local operators.
Market Reach & Industry Impact
Yelp boasts a massive user base with hundreds of millions of monthly active visitors and over 200 million verified business reviews in its database, covering more than 50 million local businesses globally. In the U.S., it is synonymous with local business reviews and has shaped consumer behavior—a large percentage of consumers check Yelp before visiting a local business, making positive Yelp ratings a critical asset for local enterprises.
The platform has also expanded its services beyond reviews, integrating with third-party tools for online ordering, reservations, and food delivery, and launching Yelp Jobs for local hiring, further solidifying its position as a one-stop platform for local commerce and lifestyle. While it faces competition from Google Maps (which also features user reviews) and social media platforms, Yelp’s focus on hyper-local, review-centric content and its deep expertise in the local business market keep it a unique and influential player in the digital local services industry.