Yelp Gets Personal

Yelp launches a new personalization functionality that tailors the app to people’s individual preferences and lifestyle.

Now when two users with different lifestyles open up the Yelp app from the same location, they’ll see a completely different homescreen and search results based on their personal preferences. Yelp users will now find it easier to discover their favorite types of restaurants and other businesses, faster. The option to personalize Yelp began rolling out to iOS and Android app users Aug. 27.

As part of the new update, users ware able to indicate their personal dietary and accessibility preferences, lifestyle attributes. Yelp will do the heavy lifting by processing the information in real-time and transforming the user’s homescreen and search results into a completely personalized experience represented by Yelp’s newly created heart symbol — including search result rankings, shortcuts to filters, and personalized highlights that tell the user why they might like the business based on their preferences.

With its vast amount of rich content and data — which includes more than 192 million reviews, as well as millions of photos and attributes generated by an engaged community of users and business owners — Yelp is able to identify and surface business information that is deeply aligned with consumer needs. Rather than serving recommendations solely based on a user’s search history, Yelp is starting an open conversation with consumers to better understand their preferences and interests in order to customize the app to show them what they want to see more of. The preferences a consumer shares with Yelp will only be visible to them, and the information will only be used to personalize their experience on Yelp.

The launch of a more personalized Yelp marks the beginning of major product changes the company is undertaking to significantly evolve and improve the consumer experience. In the next year, Yelp will unveil a new design of its app and website that better integrates all of Yelp’s products that save consumers time and money, including Yelp Reservations, Waitlist and Request a Quote.