Yelp removals

Remove a Yelp review: how to report it and how Yelp decides

Only Yelp can remove a Yelp review. Its moderators remove a review that breaks Yelp’s Content Guidelines, and they decide every report, yours or ours. We file the Yelp reviews you choose, and you pay for the ones that come down.

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193,700+

Reported reviews Yelp removed in 2025

11%

Of 2025 reviews removed by Yelp

Why one bad Yelp review matters.

Yelp requires a written review with every star rating. Recommended reviews posted in 2025 averaged 446 characters, according to Yelp’s 2025 Trust and Safety Report. A one-star review on Yelp is a full account that readers can quote, not a bare star.

Your Yelp star rating and review count come only from recommended reviews. Yelp’s automated recommendation software did not recommend 17% of the about 22 million reviews posted in 2025. It filters reviews it thinks a business asked for, so the reviews customers chose to write on their own decide your rating.

You cannot delete a Yelp review yourself, and advertising does not change that. Yelp’s User Operations team removes a review only when it breaks the Content Guidelines, and it works separately from Yelp’s Customer Success team. Read whether Yelp reviews can be removed for the short answer.

What we file under Yelp’s own rules.

Yelp removes Yelp reviews that break these rules. A Yelp review that breaks none of them usually stays up.

Personal experience

Yelp’s Review Guidelines ask for the reviewer’s own firsthand experience, not what a partner, a co-worker or the news told them. In 2025, 25% of the reported reviews Yelp removed did not reflect a firsthand consumer experience.

Conflicts of interest

No reviews of your own business or employer, a friend’s or relative’s business, or a competitor. Yelp removes reviews from current or former employees, competitors, and the owner’s friends or family. Suspicion is usually not enough: Yelp asks for specific evidence.

Inappropriate content

Colorful language is allowed, but threats, harassment, lewdness, hate speech and other bigotry are not. In 2025, 11% of the reported reviews Yelp removed contained threats, lewdness or hate speech.

Relevance

A review must describe the consumer experience at the location the reviewer visited or contacted. Rants about politics, a business’s employment practices or a news event, and reviews meant for a different business, fall outside it.

Privacy

No private information, such as a bartender’s full name or address, and no close-up photos or videos of other customers taken without permission. Full names of people commonly known by them, such as doctors, lawyers or realtors, are allowed.

Demanding payment

A reviewer must not threaten to post a negative review, or offer to remove one, to get money from the business. Keep the messages that show the demand, because the report needs them.

What stays up, and what we do not do

Yelp does not take sides in factual disputes. A review you say is untrue usually stays up unless it breaks a guideline or you hold a final court order that finds it defamatory. We cannot change what Yelp’s recommendation software shows, and Yelp says no one on its staff can override it. We do not post or buy reviews, ask customers for Yelp reviews, offer anyone an incentive to change a review, or contact or threaten reviewers.

How to report Yelp reviews yourself.

Any business owner can report a Yelp review from a Yelp for Business account, at no cost. Yelp’s moderators check the report against the Content Guidelines and decide. A separate, automated recommendation software decides which reviews show and count toward your rating.

1Claim your business page on Yelp for Business. Yelp says you may need a claimed page to report content from a business account.
2Match the review to one rule in Yelp’s Content Guidelines. Yelp names three main reasons it removes a review: a conflict of interest, a review not about the reviewer’s own consumer experience, and inappropriate material such as threats, hate speech or private information.
3On biz.yelp.com, open Reviews, click the three dots (More Options) beside the review and choose Report Review. In the Yelp for Business app, tap the three dots on iPhone or the Overflow Menu on Android, then Report Review (Yelp’s steps).
4Give specific evidence in the report. Yelp says suspicion of bias is usually not enough: the conflict of interest must be clear to its moderators.
5Hover over the flag icon beside the review to see the status of your report. Yelp emails its decision to the address on your account, and it notifies the reviewer if their review is removed.
6If the review stays up, reply publicly or send the reviewer a direct message from your business account (how to respond to negative reviews). Yelp asks you to contact Support only with a final court order that explains why a review is defamatory (Yelp Support).
7Expect reviews to move without a report. Yelp’s recommendation software looks for conflicts of interest, reviews it thinks the business asked for, reviewers it knows too little about, and unhelpful rants or raves. It moves reviews between recommended and “not currently recommended” as it learns.
8Do not ask for reviews or pay to change them. Yelp’s Don’t Ask for Reviews rule covers customers, staff, friends and family, and bans incentives to remove a review. In 2025 Yelp placed 128 Compensated Activity Alerts and 6 Questionable Legal Threats Alerts (Consumer Alerts). The FTC rule on consumer reviews also bans groundless legal threats used to get a review removed.

Sources

How Yelp removal works, step by step.

one

Send us the Yelp links

Paste the link to each Yelp review you want filed into the chat. Our monitoring and Review Auto-filer read Google profiles only, so nothing watches your Yelp page for you.

two

Agree the price first

Your account manager confirms the price and the terms with you before anything is filed. You pay for the ones that come down. No one can guarantee a Yelp review comes down, because Yelp makes the final decision on each one.

three

We file each review with Yelp

We screenshot each review before work starts, as the record of what was there. Our filing team then files it with Yelp under the Content Guidelines. Yelp’s moderators decide.

four

A person checks the result

A person checks Yelp before we count a review removed. We email you the review and its before-removal screenshot. If a removed review comes back, we file it again at no charge.

We file all your bad reviews.

You pay for the ones that come down. On Google, you see the price and accept the terms in the app before anything is filed. For other sites, your account manager agrees the price with you first. No one can guarantee every review comes down, because the platform makes the final decision on each one.

Price first

You see it before anything is filed

No subscription

No monthly fee for removals

Monitoring included

Daily Google review alerts with your first removal

Real Google reviews we’ve had removed.

Each one now reads “This review is no longer available.” Business names are blurred for privacy.

A Google review that now reads: This review is no longer available

What every client gets.

Every review tracked

The TrustOS portal shows each review as Waiting to be sent, Being worked on, Removed, Could not be removed, or Stopped.

An email before any charge

Before we charge for a removal, we email you the review and the amount. If something looks wrong, reply to that email.

Refiled if it comes back

A platform can restore a review it removed. If that happens, we file it again at no charge, and we never bill you twice for the same review.

Daily monitoring

We read every Google profile you connect about once a day. One email lists the new 1 and 2 star reviews across all your profiles. It comes with your first removal.

A named account manager

One person looks after your account and answers your emails and texts, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm ET.

A planning call for 10 or more

If you have 10 or more bad reviews, the app offers a free 15-minute planning call with your account manager.

Our clients, in their own words.

Screenshots of messages clients sent us. We keep every client’s work confidential.

Chat message from a client saying their Trustpilot score has climbed since the fake reviews stopped

Client message saying the team removed fake reviews that were dragging down their Trustpilot page

Chat where a client thanks the team for getting fake reviews off Trustpilot, with the score up from 3.2 to 4.7

Client message saying fake Trustpilot reviews that hurt their business were removed

Message from an online store owner whose fake Google reviews were cleared, marked successfully removed

Trustpilot rating before and after, 3.3 and 4.5 stars, with the client chat about the new score

Client messages saying a video was removed and the YouTube videos hurting their business no longer show

Client message about a fake Google review the team removed, marked successfully removed

Chat where a client says their fake Trustpilot reviews are gone and the score went from 3.5 to 4.5

Chat where a client thanks the team for removing unfair reviews

Client message saying fake guest reviews on Airbnb were removed, marked successfully removed

Chat where a client thanks the team for removing irrelevant Trustpilot reviews, with the score up from 4.0 to 4.7

Client message saying a two-year-old Reddit thread about their company was removed, marked successfully removed

Chat where a client thanks the team for sorting out fake Trustpilot reviews from competitors

Message from a salon owner whose two fake Google reviews were removed, marked successfully removed

Client message saying their Trustpilot score rose above 4 and their support team gets fewer questions

Questions about removing Yelp reviews

Why are some of my Yelp reviews “not currently recommended”?

Yelp’s automated recommendation software judged them less reliable or less helpful. It looks for conflicts of interest, reviews it thinks the business asked for, reviewers it knows too little about, and unhelpful rants or raves. Not recommended reviews stay readable through a link at the bottom of your page, but they do not count toward your star rating or review count. In 2025 the software did not recommend 17% of new reviews. Reviews can move between the two lists at any time, and Yelp says no employee can override the software.

Can a reputation company remove a Yelp review for me?

No company can remove a Yelp review; only Yelp’s moderators can. Yelp’s help center says companies that claim to work with Yelp to remove reviews for a fee cannot do it. A company can do what you can do: report the review under the guideline it breaks, with evidence. We file the Yelp reviews you choose this way, Yelp decides each one, and you pay for the ones that come down. Advertising on Yelp does not help either, because Yelp’s software treats advertisers and non-advertisers the same.

Will Yelp remove a review that is false?

Not because you say it is false. Yelp does not take sides in factual disputes and lets reviewers stand behind what they write. It removes a review that breaks a Content Guideline, such as one from a reviewer who was never a customer or who works for a competitor. If you hold a final court order that explains why a review is defamatory, Yelp asks you to contact its Support team. You can also reply publicly to correct the facts.

Does Yelp tell the reviewer when their review is removed?

Yes. Yelp’s help page says it notifies the reviewer if their content is removed after a report. The business owner or user who reported the review gets an email with Yelp’s decision. Yelp’s help pages do not say that it tells the reviewer who reported them.

Can I ask customers for Yelp reviews, or offer something to change a bad one?

No. Yelp’s Content Guidelines say businesses should never ask customers to write reviews, and its software does not recommend reviews it thinks were solicited. Offering cash, discounts or freebies to write, change or remove a review can put a Compensated Activity Alert on your page. Threatening a reviewer with legal action can put a Questionable Legal Threats Alert there, and the FTC rule on consumer reviews (16 CFR 465.7) bans groundless legal threats used to get a review removed.

What if nothing comes down?

You pay for the ones that come down. The platform decides on each review, and a review it keeps up shows as Could not be removed in your TrustOS portal.

What if nothing comes down?