Capstone: Analysis of Yelp Review Length

Ann Chavarria
November 22, 2015

Ever wonder why some people write short reviews and some people write long reviews?

Yelp Review Length

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Reviews range from 1 to around 1,000 words per review.

What factors might be related to this word count difference?

This capstone project endeavored to find out if these 6 factors had an impact on review length.

  • the star rating of a review
  • whether the reviewer has fans
  • how long the reviewer has used Yelp
  • the expensiveness of the business reviewed
  • whether the business reviewed was a restaurant or other type of establishment
  • the geographic location of the business reviewed

Analysis Method

  • Linear regression was used to assess if there is a relationship between review word count and the 6 factors investigated.
  • A regression model was created with all 6 factors included. No interactions were included in the final model.
  • The regression model was statistically significant with a p value < .001.
  • 95% confidence intervals were calculated for the difference in mean word counts.

Analysis Findings

  • 1 star reviews were on average 52 words longer than 5 star reviews.
  • Yelp users with fans wrote longer reviews, 38 words longer on average, than Yelp users without fans.
  • The longer a reviewer has used Yelp the longer the average review length.
  • Reviews for higher priced businesses were on average 56 words longer than reviews for lower priced businesses.
  • Reviews for restaurants were not significantly longer than reviews for other types of businesses.
  • Reviews for businesses in Scotland were on average 41 words longer than reviews for businesses in Germany.