3 Stars on Yelp, 4 Stars on Google Maps: A Cross-Platform Examination of Restaurant Ratings

Even though a restaurant may receive different ratings across review platforms, people often see only one rating during a local search (e.g. “best burgers near me”). In this paper, we examine the differences in ratings between two commonly used review platforms—Google Maps and Yelp. We found that restaurant ratings on Google Maps are, on average, 0.7 stars higher than those on Yelp, with the increase being driven in large part by higher ratings for chain restaurants on Google Maps. We also found extensive diversity i¬¬n top-ranked restaurants by geographic region across platforms. For example, for a given metropolitan area, there exists little overlap in its top ten lists of restaurants on Google Maps and Yelp. Our results problematize the use of a single review platform in local search and have implications for end users of ratings and local search technologies. We outline concrete design recommendations to improve communication of restaurant evaluation and discuss the potential causes for the divergence we observed.