Anyone decipher the Yelp Sort ?

[Wizkids964]

Anyone tried to decipher the factor in the default sorting order on Yelp?  I've not done any formal testing but from experience my gut feel is as follows (chime in with your own opinion based on your own observations).

On searches - #1 factor is of course keyword(s) appear in category business is in or business name
After that, or for just browsing categories

30% proximity of business location to location entered in address field
20% number of reviews and average rating
20% if they are paying Yelp for any services - the is unfair but I'm pretty sure it's a factor (call to action button, advertising, etc)
15% Business Profile is filled out 
15% keyword (if using search) appears in specialties section (which interestingly Yelp started charging to display!)

This is a TOTAL GUESS.  I'm wondering if these factors may effect it:

• Quantity photos and/or keyword matches photo captions
• How long business has been listed on Yelp
• How long ago business was started
• Whether a street address is entered or not (a factor of Google Local Results I think)

[MiriamEllis]

Hi Wizkids964!

I just want to say I'm sorry that your thread didn't receive replies from the community. I haven't seen any good, formal data to either verify or challenge your analysis, and I expect others in our community are in the same boat.

What I have seen is videos like this one which hypothesize how to move the needle in Yelp:

https://localu.org/blog/guest-video-top-10-yelp-tips-small-business-2016/

But they aren't broken down into percentages like you've done here. It would be nice to see more studies like this, and again, my apologies that no one here had data to help prove or disprove your hypothesis.