Most local economies nationwide slumped in 2019, according to Yelp data, dragged down by weakness in restaurants and retail. As the local economy goes, so goes the national… Read more
Launching today, the Yelp Local Economic Outlook is a new program to track which areas of America are ripe for economic opportunity: where small businesses in America have the best chance of success. This program is an ongoing effort to surface insights from Yelp’s deep data stores to help businesses succeed and to arm policymakers… Read more
As far as neighborhoods go, it’s clear an area is heating up when the hipsters start hanging around. Where to find these spots? Just search “hipster” on Yelp and you’ll be pointed in the right direction. Hipsterness is one thing, but what about areas that are hot on the housing market, too? We partnered with… Read more
Measuring and quantifying local economic activity is tough. Traditionally, researchers in the U.S. have used government data to try to understand the forces that impact local community growth or decline. But the data (mainly from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Census Bureau) can take years to become available! For example, policymakers might have… Read more
It’s easy to pick up on once you’re there: the realization that a restaurant or museum is swarming with out-of-towners, without a local in sight. But how do you know ahead of time where only the locals go? Yelp is a great tool for finding local hidden gems, whether you live in a place or… Read more
Last week, a study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association that some media outlets interpreted to mean online reviews aren’t helpful to consumers when choosing a doctor. We beg to differ. Yelp exists today because its founder, Jeremy Stoppelman, fell ill in 2004 and wanted recommendations for a doctor in… Read more
In the less than four months since Yelp began collecting data on the availability of gender-neutral restrooms, we’ve learned that over 160,000 U.S. businesses have them, thanks to business owners and Yelp users submitting information. And among the categories with the most businesses with gender-neutral restrooms are some of the highest-rated businesses on Yelp. Here… Read more
Last year, we introduced a product called Request A Quote, allowing consumers to send messages to businesses in the Home and Local Services Categories and get back quote estimates on everything from leaky faucets to home renovations. We then extended the feature to the Health and Beauty space, including businesses like hair salons, day spas,… Read more
Labor Day is a major occasion for long-weekend getaways before the end of summer. Where is everyone getting away to? Toward bodies of water – to swim, surf, boat and otherwise enjoy the last warm-weather holiday of the year, according to Yelp data. We looked at the cities that had the biggest spike in Yelp… Read more
Yelp is here for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week — but your neighborhood might not be. Ever experience the phenomenon of being inside a bustling neighborhood during the day, then as night falls, so do the gates outside businesses as they shut down and commuters head far away? They’re often downtowns… Read more
Yelp can be a powerful tool for finding healthcare businesses, including nursing homes and hospitals, and we’ve found that Yelp offers broader information than the industry standard HCAHPS survey. Recently, the New York Times covered the issue of poor patient care at nursing homes and the challenges with implementing oversight programs. To shed more light… Read more