According to a recent study, you must be cautious about what you search on Google Maps and Yelps. The reviews of restaurants are not the unvarnished, factual reality that they might seem to be.
A research paper by academics at Northwestern University looks at the gulf in restaurant reviews on Google Maps and Yelp, two famous restaurant recommendation networks.
Many users look up to Google Maps and Yelp to find recommendations for places to dine out. But found out that there are major variations in how the same outlets are reviewed by reviewers on every site.
Hanlin Li of Northwestern University said that it is strange to think that why people only depend on ratings so much.
“Also, part of it is a rating scale. This one to five-star rating scale is easy to understand as it is just a matter of interpreting the details. Some are rated as five-star restaurants while some are rated as two-star restaurants,” she added. It is just to help us understand easily and quickly.
But ratings appear to be 0.7 stars higher on average for the same restaurant in the same area on Google Maps.
Li and her colleagues evaluated restaurants among which 93 percent of restaurants had higher ratings on Google Maps than on Yelp. With one-fourth of the restaurants overpassing Yelp on Google by only one star.
For some restaurant chains, the difference in rating is even greater in the way that outlets are scored on average 1.1 stars more on Google Maps than on Yelp. For individual restaurants, the variation is much lower," she said – 0.6 stars on average."
Li's colleague, Brent Hecht said that they did the paper struggled to find out the reason behind this case. “We know the fact that fast-food restaurants are more searched by people on Google Maps than on Yelp.” He said: and we have no idea why this happens.”
Such a significant difference is because each restaurant holds a dominant position, depending on where you are looking for recommendations. She added, “on Google, Google Maps ratings are highlighted.” On the other hand, Yelp ratings are highlighted on Apple Maps.
Due to the better value perceived, Google Maps consumers appear to rate chain restaurants higher than Yelp’s reviewers. Li hypothesizes that the Yelp reviewers see their position as a more structured analysis of restaurants—possibly searching for more uniqueness.
She said: “on Yelp, everyone who went to a restaurant rated differently, making sure that other people going to the restaurant will find this information valuable. Whereas, Google Maps does not care about uniqueness.”
Since everyone knows about chain restaurants, so Yelp reviewers focus more on rating individual restaurants.
In the end, both authors make a settlement in a good way to check both sites, if you are searching for a good place to eat.
Read next: Google to play around with a new set of categories in search results?
A research paper by academics at Northwestern University looks at the gulf in restaurant reviews on Google Maps and Yelp, two famous restaurant recommendation networks.
Many users look up to Google Maps and Yelp to find recommendations for places to dine out. But found out that there are major variations in how the same outlets are reviewed by reviewers on every site.
Hanlin Li of Northwestern University said that it is strange to think that why people only depend on ratings so much.
“Also, part of it is a rating scale. This one to five-star rating scale is easy to understand as it is just a matter of interpreting the details. Some are rated as five-star restaurants while some are rated as two-star restaurants,” she added. It is just to help us understand easily and quickly.
But ratings appear to be 0.7 stars higher on average for the same restaurant in the same area on Google Maps.
Li and her colleagues evaluated restaurants among which 93 percent of restaurants had higher ratings on Google Maps than on Yelp. With one-fourth of the restaurants overpassing Yelp on Google by only one star.
For some restaurant chains, the difference in rating is even greater in the way that outlets are scored on average 1.1 stars more on Google Maps than on Yelp. For individual restaurants, the variation is much lower," she said – 0.6 stars on average."
Li's colleague, Brent Hecht said that they did the paper struggled to find out the reason behind this case. “We know the fact that fast-food restaurants are more searched by people on Google Maps than on Yelp.” He said: and we have no idea why this happens.”
Such a significant difference is because each restaurant holds a dominant position, depending on where you are looking for recommendations. She added, “on Google, Google Maps ratings are highlighted.” On the other hand, Yelp ratings are highlighted on Apple Maps.
Due to the better value perceived, Google Maps consumers appear to rate chain restaurants higher than Yelp’s reviewers. Li hypothesizes that the Yelp reviewers see their position as a more structured analysis of restaurants—possibly searching for more uniqueness.
She said: “on Yelp, everyone who went to a restaurant rated differently, making sure that other people going to the restaurant will find this information valuable. Whereas, Google Maps does not care about uniqueness.”
Since everyone knows about chain restaurants, so Yelp reviewers focus more on rating individual restaurants.
In the end, both authors make a settlement in a good way to check both sites, if you are searching for a good place to eat.
Read next: Google to play around with a new set of categories in search results?
