Effect of Business Hours on Yelp Ratings
Grace Pehl, PhD
November 9, 2015
Yelp Academic Dataset
- 61178 businesses in 10 cities representing 4 countries
- Business ratings + address, geocoordinates, open and closing times, business categories, specialties, ambiance, and parking availability
- Business categories grouped into 23 families
Methodology
Question: Do businesses with limited hours receive lower ratings from Yelp users?
To quantify the affect of operating hours on business rating, construct a linear model with operating hours, city, and primary business category as predictors of business rating
Coefficients of the linear model should be statistically significant at the 95% level
In order to have practical significance the coefficient should have > 0.5 point change in rating
Business Rating v. Operating Hours
Results
Coefficients for operating hours, city, and most business categories did not meet the practical significance level.
Four categories have lower expected ratings.
| Estimate | Std. Error | t value | Pr(>abs(t)) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Intercept Term | 4.5791927 | 0.0273936 | 167.162903 | 0 |
| Financial Services | -0.4518986 | 0.0525262 | -8.603298 | 0 |
| Nightlife | -0.5300272 | 0.0256768 | -20.642244 | 0 |
| Public Services & Government | -0.4774489 | 0.0637302 | -7.491725 | 0 |
| Real Estate | -1.0588747 | 0.0404786 | -26.158870 | 0 |
| Restaurants | -0.5219202 | 0.0221207 | -23.594247 | 0 |