Yelp for Developers

FAQ

Technical Questions

Branding and Legal Questions

Technical Questions

I do not have an API key or it is not working.

Please verify that the API key you are providing in your request is identical to the one provided when the API sign up form was completed. If you have already signed up for API access, please click here to manage your API keys. If you have not completed the API registration form click here to sign up.

I have exceeded the maximum number of daily requests for my account, what can I do?

Please email api@yelp.fr with your YWSID, Consumer Key and examples of your usage.

What if I anticipate needing more than 10,000 calls/day?

We're happy to discuss expanded access. Criteria for higher limits include the nature of your site or application and the reasons behind your needs. Please email api@yelp.fr to let us know what you have in mind.

My business review search returns an empty result set.

Please verify that the search request is valid and that no errors are occurring. The Yelp APIs only return businesses that have been reviewed, and it is possible that no results will be returned if the search requested is for an area with few local businesses matching the search description.

Can I change which reviews are returned for an API query?

Version 1 of the Yelp API returns the three most recent reviews of a business in order to ensure that your users are seeing the freshest content available. The Yelp API cannot be configured to return more than 3 reviews, or to specify only certain reviews (e.g. only the 5-star reviews or Elite Squad reviews).

Are business attributes such as hours and pricing available in the API?

Business attributes are not returned in Yelp API queries. For a full list of what information is available in API queries, please see the Documentation section.

What's the best way to match a specific business?

Our phone number API matches a business's phone number to the data we have in our database. This is the best way to find data on a specific business.

Why isn't the API pulling info for every single business?

Due to contract limitations, we cannot include any information for businesses that have not been reviewed. Lucky for you, millions of users are reviewing new businesses every day!

I'm not a programmer - I'm just looking for a simple plug-in on my website that will display my business's overall Yelp rating and review count in real-time. Do you know of any free sources?

Sure - there are several simple options. Most Yelp Business Owner's accounts provide code to display overall ratings and review counts. There are also a handful of WordPress plugins you can check out at wordpress.org by searching for "yelp".

How can I get paid for using the Yelp API?

You can get paid a commission for all Yelp Deals sold that were referred from your site/app. Sign up for Yelp's affiliate program on CJ.com and be sure to prepend deal purchase URLs with CJ tracking URLs so that we can pay your commission.

Branding and Legal Questions

What can I do with the API?

The following are examples of valid API uses, this is not a definitive list of valid uses but it should help give some context to legitimate Yelp API uses.

You may:

  • Use Yelp data to provide users of your website or application with detailed information regarding a particular location. For example, you might run a hotel and would like to list the top nearby restaurants on your site.
  • Use Yelp data to highlight a business' current rating and display some of the most recent reviews for that business.

You may not:

  • Cache, store, analyze or otherwise use Yelp content except for real-time consumer-driven use.
  • Utilize Yelp content without proper attribution and branding, including links back to Yelp and indications whenever Yelp content is being used. Please see Section 4 of the Yelp API Terms of Use and our Display Requirements for more information.

Are there restrictions on the names I can call my Yelp API application?

While we are very excited that you are interested in using the Yelp API, in order to protect the Yelp brand there are some restrictions on what applications that utilize the Yelp API can be called.

Domains that contain the word "Yelp" or any variations of "Yelp" may not utilize the Yelp API.

Applications may use the word "Yelp" in their name if it is used in a descriptive way and clearly identifies the Yelp site or features of the Yelp site. For instance, "YelpReview?" would not be acceptable since it does not use the word Yelp in a descriptive way whereas "Yelp Review Map Viewer" would be acceptable since it describes what the application does.