Yelp Releases 2025 Trust & Safety Report

SAN FRANCISCO--( BUSINESS WIRE)-- Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), the company that connects people with great local businesses, today released its 2025 Trust & Safety Report, detailing the extensive measures it took to protect the integrity and quality of content on its platform. The report reveals that the company identified and filtered out nearly half a million suspected AI-generated reviews, 1 prevented review extortion scams that impacted local businesses on other review platforms, and more than doubled user account closures to combat emerging threats. 2 Through proactive investigations, Yelp’s User Operations team thwarted compensated and incentivized reviews on its platform and across other sites. 1 Additionally, incidents covered by the media or amplified on social platforms drove a surge in abnormal review activity on Yelp, resulting in a 58% year-over-year increase in Media Attention Alerts placed on business pages. 3

Yelp's 2025 Trust & Safety Report provides a comprehensive overview of the steps it took to safeguard its community of consumers and business owners.

"As technology rapidly evolves—from the rise of AI-generated content to increasingly sophisticated tactics by bad actors—maintaining consumer trust is more vital than ever," said Noorie Malik, vice president of User Operations at Yelp. "In 2025, Yelp continued to prioritize consumer trust by maintaining our rigorous content policies while introducing new mechanisms to identify and filter out suspected AI-generated reviews, and swiftly detect fraudulent activity. To maintain the integrity of content on our platform, we rely on our unique combination of technology and expert human moderation, which enables us to set industry-leading standards that protect the reliability and authenticity of information shared on Yelp. As other platforms scale back their efforts on trust and safety, Yelp remains committed to keeping consumer trust and authentic content at the heart of everything we do."

Fighting AI-Generated Content at Scale

AI-generated reviews violate Yelp’s Content Guidelines, as all reviews on its platform must be based on genuine, firsthand customer experiences, and reviewers are prohibited from using third-party AI tools to write their reviews. With the rise in consumer adoption of AI tools, Yelp has significantly invested in methods to better detect and mitigate AI-written reviews, including rolling out several new detection technologies powered by AI. In 2025, Yelp’s automated systems identified and filtered out nearly half a million reviews that exhibited characteristics of AI-generated content. 1

Yelp’s Automated Recommendation Software

Yelp’s automated recommendation software evaluates all reviews on its platform using hundreds of signals related to quality, reliability, and user activity on Yelp. To avoid conflicts of interest, the system is entirely automated, applying the same objective rules to every business, and no Yelp employee, business owner, or reviewer can influence or override the software’s decisions for any individual business.

Yelp’s User Operations Team Maintains Content Integrity

Yelp’s User Operations team maintains the reliability and integrity of content on Yelp by protecting data quality, investigating potential fraud, and moderating content.

Combating Incentivized and Deceptive Reviews

Yelp strictly prohibits compensated and incentivized reviews, which can mislead consumers and hurt businesses. Yelp’s User Operations team proactively investigates Yelp’s platform and third-party sites to monitor and infiltrate online groups where people may attempt to trade or pay for reviews.

Moderating Business Pages That Gain Public Attention

When a business receives public attention or goes viral online, Yelp uses signals to detect an unusual spike in activity on its business page. If warranted, Yelp’s User Operations team may temporarily disable the ability to post content and place the appropriate Media Attention Alert to remind users that reviews must reflect genuine, firsthand experiences.

Protecting Consumers From Abuse of the Legal System

At times, legal actions can be used to unfairly silence reviewers, which is why Yelp carefully evaluates, and often objects to, subpoenas and other legal demands that seek personal information about user accounts.

For more information, read Yelp’s 2025 Trust & Safety Report. To learn more about the ways Yelp maintains the integrity and quality of its content, visit trust.yelp.com.

1 Data is sourced globally.

2 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.

3 Data is sourced from the U.S. only.

4 Data is sourced globally and reflects reviews from January 1 to December 31, 2025. This number has been rounded and includes reviews that are currently recommended, not recommended, or that have been removed.

5 Reviews removed by Yelp’s User Operations team or reviews removed as a result of account closures for content policy violations. Yelp users can remove their own individual reviews or remove all their reviews by closing or deleting their accounts.

6 Data is sourced from the U.S. and Canada.

About Yelp Inc.

Yelp Inc. ( yelp.com) is a community-driven platform that connects people with great local businesses. Millions of people rely on Yelp for useful and trusted local business information, reviews, and photos to help inform their spending decisions. As a one-stop local platform, Yelp helps consumers easily discover, connect, and transact with businesses across a broad range of categories by making it easy to request a quote for a service, book a table at a restaurant, and more. Yelp was founded in San Francisco in 2004.