Third-Party Review Sites

What is Third-Party Review Sites?

Third-party review sites are independent platforms where guests publicly rate and review restaurants. Google, Yelp, Tripadvisor and OpenTable are the best known, and delivery apps, Facebook and regional platforms add to the list depending on where you operate.

They are called third-party because neither the guest nor the restaurant runs them. The platform hosts the reviews, decides which ones to show, calculates the rating and sets the rules for how businesses can ask for reviews and reply to them.

For a multi-location restaurant brand, these sites shape first impressions at every location. A guest choosing between two nearby restaurants often compares their ratings and reads a few recent reviews, which makes managing your presence on each platform a core part of review management.

How third-party review sites work

Each platform follows a similar pattern. A guest posts a rating and usually a written review, the platform checks it against its content policy, and approved reviews appear on the restaurant's public page, where they contribute to an overall rating.

The business side is separate. Once you claim or verify a location's profile, you can usually edit its details, add photos, reply to reviews and report reviews that break the platform's rules. You can't edit or delete a guest's review yourself.

Because each platform filters and averages reviews in its own way, the same location can show noticeably different ratings on different sites. Combining them into one view is the job of review aggregation.

A third-party review sites example

Imagine a burger brand with 30 locations in two countries. In its US cities, most new reviews arrive on Google, with a steady trickle on Yelp and on the delivery apps that carry most of its takeout orders.

At its locations near tourist areas abroad, Tripadvisor brings a meaningful share of new reviews alongside Google. The brand's guest experience team sees reviews from five or six platforms each week, each with its own reply tools and rules, which is why a single workflow across them saves time.

Major third-party review sites for restaurants

Google reviews

Google is usually the largest source of restaurant reviews, because reviews appear right inside Search and Maps and your Google Business Profile is often the first thing a guest sees. Google provides each verified business with a review link and lets it reply publicly.

Google's Maps content policy prohibits reviews that aren't based on a real experience, paid or incentivized reviews, and discouraging negative reviews or selectively soliciting positive ones.

Yelp reviews

Yelp asks businesses to refrain from requesting reviews at all. In its post Don't ask for reviews, Yelp explains that its recommendation software treats solicited reviews as less reliable, and reviews it doesn't recommend aren't counted in your rating.

The scale of that filtering is significant. In its 2024 Trust & Safety Report, Yelp said about 78% of the reviews contributed in 2024 were recommended by its software and about 18% were not recommended.

Tripadvisor reviews

Tripadvisor allows businesses to invite guests to review them and offers a free tool, Review Express, for sending review requests by email. Offering discounts, upgrades or other incentives in exchange for reviews breaks its rules, and selectively inviting only happy guests is treated as an attempt to manipulate rankings.

Tripadvisor publishes regular transparency reports. In its 2025 Transparency Report, the company said it received about 31 million reviews in 2024 and identified 2.7 million as fraudulent.

OpenTable reviews

OpenTable reviews come from diners who booked through OpenTable and then dined at the restaurant, which OpenTable describes as verified reviews. That link to a real reservation makes them a useful signal for full-service and reservation-led restaurants.

Restaurants can reply to OpenTable reviews, and several review management tools connect to OpenTable so teams can handle those replies alongside other platforms.

Delivery app reviews

DoorDash, Uber Eats and other delivery apps collect ratings and comments from customers after each order. These reviews often focus on accuracy, packaging and temperature, which makes them especially useful for off-premise operations.

Delivery apps give merchants their own reply tools. DoorDash's merchant help center explains that you can respond to reviews from the Merchant Portal within seven days, optionally with a discount for a future order. Uber's 2023 merchant guide describes a similar seven-day window in Uber Eats Manager.

Facebook, Apple Maps and regional sites

Facebook shows yes-or-no recommendations on business pages, which still influence guests who discover restaurants through social media. Apple Maps place cards draw on partners such as Yelp and Tripadvisor for reviews, and Apple Business Connect lets you manage the rest of the information there.

In some markets, regional platforms carry as much weight as the global ones. Tabelog in Japan and Dianping in China are well-known examples, and local delivery apps play a similar role in many countries.

Review rules on third-party review sites

The rules on asking for reviews vary more than any other policy, and breaking them can lead to removed reviews or warnings on your profile. The safest approach is review solicitation that treats every guest the same way, on the platforms that allow it.

Inviting only guests who said they were happy is known as review gating. Google's policy prohibits it, and the FTC has said that it can be deceptive under US law.

Regulators also set limits that apply on every platform. The FTC's 2024 rule bans fake reviews and incentives conditioned on a review expressing a particular sentiment, among other practices. Platform policies change often, so it's worth checking the current version for each market before launching a campaign.

Responding on third-party review sites

Replies are public on most platforms, which means each one is read by the guest who wrote the review and by every future guest who scrolls past it. A short, specific and courteous reply works well on every platform.

Each platform adds its own rules. Tripadvisor's management response guidelines, for example, ask that replies avoid promotional content and guests' personal information. Delivery apps set time limits, and Yelp offers a private message alongside the public comment.

Negative reviews deserve the most care, because future guests read how you handle criticism. A guide to negative review responses covers structure and tone in more detail.

Claiming profiles on third-party review sites

Claiming a profile proves you represent the business and unlocks editing and reply tools. Each platform has its own process, such as a phone call, postcard or document check, and multi-location brands can often verify many locations in bulk.

A claim audit across all locations is a practical starting point. It usually turns up unclaimed pages, duplicate listings and locations whose details changed without anyone updating the platforms.

1. List every platform that matters in each market. Include delivery apps and regional sites.
2. Search for every location on each platform. Note unclaimed pages, duplicates and closed locations still shown as open.
3. Claim or verify with a brand-owned account. Shared ownership keeps access when staff change.
4. Correct name, address, phone, hours and menu links. Consistent details also support local SEO.
5. Set permissions. Decide which locations, managers and agencies can reply or edit.
6. Review the list quarterly. New openings, closures and platform changes keep the work ongoing.

Choosing third-party review sites by market

Few brands can give every platform the same attention, so it helps to rank them by how much they influence visits in each market. Review volume per platform and location over the last six to twelve months is a simple, objective place to start.

Google usually belongs at the top of the list. The rest of the order often differs by market and format, so a brand might prioritize Tripadvisor in a resort town, OpenTable at its full-service restaurants and the delivery apps in dense urban areas.

Third-party review sites vs. first-party reviews

Guests tend to trust third-party review sites because the restaurant doesn't control them. First-party reviews and private feedback complement them, giving you more detail and a direct route to recover unhappy guests.

Managing third-party review sites at scale

Logging in to each platform separately for every location quickly becomes unmanageable. Most multi-location brands bring reviews from all platforms into one place, route them to the right team and track replies and ratings by location.

A central view also makes patterns visible. A complaint about cold fries that shows up on Google, DoorDash and Uber Eats at the same location points to an operational issue, which is easier to spot when every review sits in one queue.

AI-assisted replies help teams keep up with volume. An AI review manager can draft replies in your brand's voice across platforms, leaving managers to review them or handle the sensitive cases themselves.

Limitations of third-party review sites

• You don't control the rules. Platforms change policies, filters and layouts without notice.
• Ratings aren't comparable across platforms. Different audiences and filtering make side-by-side comparisons misleading.
• Filtering hides some genuine reviews. Yelp's recommendation software, for example, leaves some real reviews out of the rating.
• Fake and mistaken reviews still appear. Reporting them is possible, though removal is at the platform's discretion.
• Reviewers aren't a random sample. Guests with very good or very bad experiences are more likely to write.

Best tools for third-party review sites

The most useful tool for managing third-party review sites is one that covers the platforms your guests actually use, including reservation and delivery apps. It also helps to have replies in one workflow, reporting by location and platform, and permissions that suit franchisees and area managers.

Each of these tools connects to a different set of review sites and offers different reply and reporting features. Checking which platforms each one covers in your markets, and testing it with a few locations, is the most reliable way to choose.

Common mistakes on third-party review sites

• Leaving profiles unclaimed. Unclaimed pages can show wrong hours or closed locations, and you can't reply to guests.
• Sending review requests to Yelp. Yelp asks businesses not to ask, so a campaign pointing to Yelp can backfire.
• Offering incentives for reviews. Google, Tripadvisor and Yelp prohibit them, and US law restricts incentives tied to sentiment.
• Watching only Google. Delivery and reservation reviews often contain the most specific operational feedback.
• Replying with templates. Identical replies on every platform read as automated and miss the guest's point.
• Reporting honest negative reviews as fake. Platforms remove reviews that break their policies, and a thoughtful reply serves you better with genuine criticism.
• Comparing ratings across platforms. Tracking each platform's trend over time gives a truer picture.

History of third-party review sites

Restaurant reviews were once the work of professional critics and printed guides. In 1979, Tim and Nina Zagat began the Zagat Survey in New York by collecting ratings from ordinary diners, an early form of crowd-sourced restaurant reviews.

The web made that model public and instant. OpenTable was founded in San Francisco in 1998 as an online reservation service, Tripadvisor was founded in Needham, Massachusetts, in February 2000, and Yelp launched in San Francisco in 2004.

Google built reviews into its local listings, which it rebranded as Google My Business in 2014 and Google Business Profile in 2021. In August 2018, Facebook replaced star ratings on business pages with yes-or-no recommendations, and in January 2023 Apple launched Apple Business Connect for businesses that appear in Apple Maps.

Rules have tightened alongside this growth. The FTC's Trade Regulation Rule on the Use of Consumer Reviews and Testimonials took effect in the US in October 2024, and the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 banned fake reviews from April 2025.