You open your Yelp page and the good reviews you were proud of are gone. Maybe the star rating slipped, or a customer told you they left a review that you cannot find. If you asked a few happy customers to post on Yelp last month, or turned down a Yelp ad package not long ago, the timing can feel personal. When Yelp removed your reviews, the first thing to know is that they may not be deleted at all. Yelp moves some reviews to a section at the bottom of your page, where they stay readable but stop counting toward your stars. Other reviews are removed outright, and those follow different rules. Which one happened to you decides what you can do next, and you can find out in about fifteen minutes.
Key Takeaways
Reviews Yelp's software does not recommend sit behind a "not currently recommended" link at the bottom of your page. They are still there, but they do not count in your star rating.
Software filtering is automatic. Removal happens when a moderator finds a Content Guidelines or Terms of Service violation, or when the reviewer deletes the review or closes their account.
Yelp says no employee, business owner or reviewer can override its software for one business. The software reassesses reviews on its own, so status can change later.
Yelp calls reviews requested by a business "solicited" and says its software may de-emphasize them. Incentives tied to positive reviews are also banned under an FTC rule in force since October 21, 2024.
A claimed business page can report a review through Yelp for Business. Harsh or unfair opinions are not grounds; a competitor, an employee, an incentive or no firsthand experience can be.
Find out in minutes whether your reviews were filtered or deleted
Yelp handles reviews in two separate ways, and the word "removed" gets used for both. Yelp's recommendation software is automated and, in Yelp's words, "looks at hundreds of factors, including various measurements of quality, reliability, and user activity of reviewers on Yelp." When it does not recommend a review, the review moves to the "not currently recommended" section. It stays readable there, but it does not count toward your star rating.
Removal is a different process. Yelp says in how it moderates content that human moderators may take down reported content that breaks its Content Guidelines or Terms of Service. A review can also leave your page because the person who wrote it deleted it, or because their Yelp account was closed. From your side of the page, you cannot tell those last cases apart. The only one you can confirm yourself is the filtered one, because you can see it.
The scale of both is large. In its annual report for 2025, filed February 27, 2026, Yelp reported 48.1 million reviews that were not recommended but still reachable on secondary pages, and 29.9 million removed, either by Yelp or by the person who wrote them, out of 330.2 million submitted through December 31, 2025.
| What you see | What it most likely means | What you can do |
|---|---|---|
| The review is listed under "not currently recommended" | Yelp's software filtered it | Nothing forces it back; the software reassesses it on its own |
| The review is gone from both sections | A moderator removed it, the reviewer deleted it, or the account closed | Ask the customer whether they deleted it; Yelp's pages promise no appeal |
| Your star rating dropped with no reviews missing | Filtered reviews no longer count in the rating | Record the rating and review counts with a date |
| A Consumer Alert sits above your reviews | Yelp investigated what it saw as abnormal or misleading activity | Save the alert text and its evidence, then stop any review requests |
| A review that breaks the rules is still showing | The report has not been filed or lacked evidence | Report it once, with specific proof |
Look for that link at the bottom of your business page before anything else. If the missing reviews are sitting there, nothing was deleted, and the rest of this page is about why they moved and what you are allowed to do.
Understand why Yelp's software moves real reviews
Seeing a real customer's five-star review filtered feels wrong, especially when you know the person. Yelp's explanation is that its software is not judging whether the customer is real. It is judging how much it can trust the review, based on signals it does not publish review by review. The sections below cover the signals Yelp does name and the one that catches owners who asked for reviews.
The signals Yelp names
Yelp says its software is "entirely automated" and applies "the same uniform rules to every business." The examples it gives include reviews that may be solicited, reviews from an unfairly biased source such as a business owner or employee, reviews from users Yelp does not know enough about, patterns in IP addresses, and how useful a review is. A short first review from a brand new account can fall on the wrong side of those signals even when the visit was real.
Yelp does not tell you which signal moved a specific review. So, any explanation for one particular review, from a vendor, a forum or a Yelp sales call, is a guess.
Why asking for reviews can backfire on Yelp
Yelp's position is that businesses should not ask customers for Yelp reviews. Its 2025 annual report calls a review requested by someone connected to a business "solicited," and gives two reasons it distrusts them: customers who are asked can feel pressure to rate higher, and businesses tend to ask the people they expect to rate them well. Yelp says its software may de-emphasize reviews it sees as potentially solicited.
If your reviews moved soon after a push for Yelp reviews, that timing is worth taking seriously. The fix is to stop: pull the request from receipts, emails, signs, staff scripts and any vendor campaign. Keep a copy of what was sent and when.
Know which reviews can come back and which cannot
This is the part where expectations matter most. There is a difference between what Yelp will do on its own and what you can make it do. The answers below come from Yelp's support pages and its annual report, and they set limits that no agency or sales rep can get around.
Filtered reviews
You cannot restore a review that is "not currently recommended." Yelp says the software reassesses reviews continually, so a filtered review can move back to recommended status later as new information comes in. Its annual report says no Yelp employee, business owner or reviewer can influence or override a software decision for an individual business. There is no owner appeal for a filtered review.
That means waiting is the only route for filtered reviews. Do not try to speed it up by asking customers to be more active on Yelp or by prompting new reviews to replace the missing ones.
Removed reviews
A removed review comes back only if Yelp reverses its own moderation decision. Yelp's public support pages do not describe an appeal process or a timeline for that. Yelp says the reviewer is usually emailed when it removes their review, so if you know the customer, you can ask whether they heard from Yelp or deleted the review themselves.
Reviews you want removed
If a review breaks Yelp's rules, you can report it. Claim your business page, open the review's three-dot menu in Yelp for Business, and choose "Report Review," as described in Yelp's steps for reporting a review. Moderators review it and send their decision by email, generally after several days.
Report the reviews that really break the rules
Yelp's page on when to report a review lists what counts. A negative review is not reportable just because it is harsh, or because you have a receipt that tells a different story. Yelp decides whether a review breaks a rule, not who was right about the job.
Reportable grounds include:
- A conflict of interest: The reviewer is a competitor, an employee, an owner or family member, or was given an incentive.
- No firsthand experience: The review is not about a real visit or purchase.
- The wrong business or copied text: The review is about someone else, or copies material from elsewhere.
- Extraordinary-event content: Posts driven by news or an event rather than a customer experience.
- Threats, hate speech, lewd content, harassment or private information: Content Yelp does not allow at all.
Evidence matters. Yelp says suspicion alone is usually not enough, so a report that names the rule and attaches proof, such as a link showing the reviewer works for a competitor, has a better chance than a report that says the review is fake. File one clear report per review rather than several vague ones. For the reviews you cannot report, a calm public reply often does more for the next reader than a removal would; our guide on how to respond to negative reviews walks through one.
Get a clear answer on the advertising question
If your reviews moved after you said no to Yelp advertising, you are not the first owner to connect those two things. Allegations that Yelp hid good reviews or showed bad ones to push businesses into buying ads go back years, and they reached court. Yelp denies any link and says its software "treats reviews of advertisers and non-advertisers exactly the same."
The court record does not prove the claim either way, and it is worth knowing what it actually says:
- Levitt v. Yelp, 2014: The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal, holding that the alleged manipulation, even if assumed, was not extortion, and that the plaintiffs had not plausibly alleged Yelp wrote negative reviews.
- Curry v. Yelp, 2017: The Ninth Circuit affirmed dismissal of a securities case; the allegations and FTC complaints did not show that Yelp's denials were false.
- Multiversal Enterprises v. Yelp, 2022: A California appeals court found no evidence that Yelp's statements about its filter broke state false-advertising law.
None of those rulings is a technical audit of Yelp's software, and none proves advertising has no effect. They also give no support for treating favoritism as a fact. The FTC's own 2014 action against Yelp was about children's privacy, not review filtering, and complaints people sent the FTC were complaints, not findings.
What that means for you: buying ads is not a way to get filtered reviews back, and a public post accusing Yelp of retaliation, without evidence, tends to hurt you more than it hurts Yelp.
Run the fifteen-minute check and protect the reviews you have
You can settle most of the uncertainty in one sitting. The steps below come from Yelp's own descriptions of recommended reviews, reporting and Consumer Alerts. They will not reveal Yelp's private signals for any single review, and they will not force a change, but they tell you what you are dealing with.
The fifteen-minute Yelp review check
- 1
Minutes 1 to 5, record the page
Open your public Yelp page. Write down the date, the star rating and the recommended review count. Open "not currently recommended" and list each review's date, reviewer and stars.
- 2
Minutes 6 to 8, sort the missing reviews
Compare your list with the reviews you expected. Mark each as filtered (listed in that section) or gone (in neither place).
- 3
Minutes 9 to 10, look for an alert
Check above your reviews for a Consumer Alert. If one is there, save its wording and the evidence it links to.
- 4
Minutes 11 to 15, check against the rules
Read Yelp's pages on its recommendation software and on when to report a review. Decide whether any live review breaks a named rule and whether you have proof.
A Consumer Alert deserves extra attention. Yelp says it does not post one automatically when a business asks for a review. It investigates what it sees as abnormal or misleading activity and posts an alert when it thinks one is warranted. Its 2021 Trust and Safety Report describes alerts for suspicious review activity and for compensated reviews. An alert is a sign to audit anything you or a vendor did to get reviews.
While you wait, there are things you are allowed to do. You can claim the listing, keep your hours and details correct, reply to reviews calmly, fix the customer's problem where you can, and report reviews that break the rules. What you should not do is ask only happy customers, offer money or discounts for reviews, trade reviews, or buy them. Under the FTC's Consumer Reviews and Testimonials Rule, in force since October 21, 2024, buying or selling fake reviews and giving incentives tied to positive or negative sentiment are prohibited. That rule does not govern how Yelp ranks reviews, and it does not give you a right to have a review shown as recommended.
If the check turns up a handful of filtered reviews and nothing else, you may not need to pay anyone. If it turns up an alert, a vendor that asked for or rewarded reviews, or a pattern of reviews that break the rules, that is when outside help can save you time. For the broader steps to fix how your business looks online, see how to repair your online reputation.
Do you know where your Yelp reviews went?
Pick an answer to begin.
1. A review you expected is listed under "not currently recommended." What does that mean?
2. Can you ask Yelp to put a filtered review back?
3. Which of these is a reason to report a review on Yelp?
Frequently Asked Questions About yelp removed my reviews
Why did Yelp remove my review?
Check "not currently recommended" first. If it is there, Yelp's software filtered it and it still exists. If it is gone completely, a moderator removed it for breaking the rules, the reviewer deleted it, or their account closed.
Why does Yelp remove my reviews right after I ask customers for them?
Yelp treats reviews requested by a business as solicited and says its software may de-emphasize them. Stop the requests and keep a dated copy of what was sent.
Yelp removed all my reviews. What should I do?
Record your rating and counts, open the "not currently recommended" section, and look for a Consumer Alert above your reviews. That tells you whether the reviews were filtered, removed, or flagged.
Yelp removed my negative review. Why would it do that?
The same rules apply to good and bad reviews. It may have been filtered by the software, removed for a guideline violation, or deleted by the reviewer.
Will buying Yelp ads bring my reviews back?
No. Yelp says its software treats advertisers and non-advertisers the same, and court cases in 2014, 2017 and 2022 did not establish the opposite.
How long does Yelp take to decide on a reported review?
Yelp says moderators review reports and email a decision, generally after several days. There is no published timeline for filtered reviews to change status.
What This Means for You
When Yelp removed your reviews, it either filtered them into the "not currently recommended" section or they were removed, by a moderator under its content rules or by the reviewer. Filtered reviews are still there and can return on their own, but nobody can force them back. Removed reviews follow Yelp's moderation, and you can report real violations with proof. Asking for Yelp reviews tends to make the problem worse, and advertising is not a way around it.
Once you know which reviews moved and why, you can stop guessing, stop running review requests that hurt you, and put your time into replies and service that the next customer will read. That puts your Yelp page back under your control, even when a few reviews stay filtered.
If the check shows a Consumer Alert, a vendor that went too far, or a steady stream of reviews that break the rules, Web Leveling can help you document it, clean up how reviews are gathered, and set up monitoring and replies that hold up. Our online reputation management work starts with what you found in the check, and we will tell you when the right answer is to wait. We work with small and medium businesses across the country and overseas. Tell us what your Yelp page is showing, and we will help you decide what to do next.
Terms
Yelp review words in this post
Tap a term to see what it means.
Recommendation software. Yelp's automated system that decides which reviews appear on a business page and count toward its star rating.
Not currently recommended. The section at the bottom of a Yelp page for reviews the software filtered. They stay readable but do not affect the rating.
Removed review. A review taken down by a Yelp moderator for breaking its rules, deleted by the reviewer, or lost when an account closed.
Solicited review. Yelp's term for a review requested by someone connected to the business.
Consumer Alert. A notice Yelp posts on a business page after it investigates what it sees as abnormal or misleading review activity.
Content Guidelines. Yelp's rules on what reviews may contain, used when moderators decide on reported reviews.
