Item 1A. Risk Factors
Risks Related to Our Business and Industry
Adverse macroeconomic conditions — particularly those affecting local economies — have had, and may continue to have, a significant adverse impact on our business and results of operations, and also exposes our business to other risks.
Our business relies on local economies and the consumer spending that drives them, which may be affected by conditions beyond our control, such as unemployment, inflation, interest rate changes, taxes, access to credit, public health issues, natural disasters and adverse weather conditions, among many others. Currently, many businesses in the United States continue to face challenging operating environments amid widespread economic uncertainties, including labor shortages, supply chain issues, inflation and recessionary concerns, and higher interest rates, which have been exacerbated by changes to U.S. tariff policy and immigration enforcement priorities. These challenging macroeconomic conditions have had, and we expect them to continue to have, a significant adverse impact on our business and results of operations.
For example, adverse macroeconomic conditions have had, and may continue to have, a negative impact on the ability and willingness of advertisers to spend on our products and services. Businesses in our Restaurants, Retail & Other (“RR&O”) categories in particular have faced protracted adverse conditions, which have negatively impacted their advertising spending with us. The weakness we observed in advertiser demand from RR&O businesses beginning in late December 2023 continued throughout 2025, resulting in advertising revenue from RR&O businesses decreasing 6% and paying advertising locations decreasing 3% year over year in 2025. We believe the performance of our RR&O categories in 2025 was primarily due to the challenging operating environment businesses in these categories continue to face, and we expect these challenges to persist and have an adverse impact on our results of operations in 2026.
Changes in consumer behavior due to adverse economic conditions have also had, and may continue to have, both direct and indirect negative impacts on our business. Conditions that negatively impact consumer spending in local economies impact our business directly through reduced consumer traffic to our platform. For example, we believe economic uncertainties and inflationary pressures contributed to the lack of growth in consumer traffic to our platform in 2025. Because traffic to and user engagement on our platform together impact the number of ads we are able to show as well as the value of those ads to businesses, such negative impacts on consumer activity may also make it more difficult to convince existing and prospective advertisers that our products offer them a material benefit and generate a competitive return relative to other alternatives.
Conditions that negatively impact consumer spending in local economies also impact our business indirectly as consumers reduce their spending in local economies, compounding challenges for local businesses and further negatively impacting their willingness to spend on our products and services. For example, as adverse conditions in local economies persisted through 2025, they increasingly impacted our Services categories as consumers forwent, delayed or scaled down services projects; as a result, demand from Services businesses for our products and services was more muted than typical through the third quarter and decreased sequentially in the fourth quarter.
As macroeconomic uncertainties continue, our business is exposed to a variety of risks, including:
• continued reduced demand for our products, lower retention rates, and increased challenges in or cost of acquiring new customers;
• reductions in cash flows from operations and liquidity, which impacts our capital allocation strategy in turn;
• setbacks on the progress of our strategic initiatives as we reallocate resources to responding to such adverse conditions;
• reductions in traffic, engagement, and the quantity and quality of the content provided by our users, which may further harm traffic to our platform;
• increased fluctuation in our operating results and volatility and uncertainty in our financial projections;
• inefficiencies, delays and disruptions in our business due to the illness of key employees or a significant portion of our workforce;
• additional restructuring and impairment charges; and
• operational difficulties due to adverse effects of such conditions on our third-party service providers and strategic partners.
It is not possible for us to predict the remaining duration of the current adverse economic conditions facing local economies, or the duration or magnitude of the resulting adverse impact on our business. We expect that our business will continue to be significantly adversely affected for the duration of any recessionary period or protracted economic downturn. Any prolonged
Table of Contents
adverse macroeconomic conditions may also fundamentally shift consumer demand or preferences in ways that harm our business, such as consumers’ preference for food delivery over dine-in restaurant experiences following the COVID-19 pandemic, which we believe may be contributing to the weak RR&O traffic we have seen since the pandemic.
We generate substantially all of our revenue from advertising. If we fail to maintain and expand our base of advertisers, our revenue and our business will be harmed.
In order to maintain and expand our advertiser base, we must convince existing and prospective advertisers alike that our advertising products offer them a material benefit and generate a competitive return relative to other alternatives. Adverse macroeconomic conditions may make this more difficult, particularly when such macroeconomic conditions disproportionately affect the local economies, including SMBs, on which we rely, as was the case with the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses continue to face supply chain issues, inflation, inventory and labor shortages, and an increased cost of labor, among other challenges. These conditions have had , and we expect them to continue to have, a significant adverse impact on our business and revenue; for example, we believe the challenging operating environment resulting from these macroeconomic pressures has been responsible for the weakness in advertiser demand in our RR&O categories we have been experiencing since late December 2023.
Advertisers will not advertise with us, or they will reduce the prices they are willing to pay to advertise with us, if we do not deliver compelling ad products in an effective manner, or if we do not provide accurate, easy-to-use analytics and measurement solutions that demonstrate the effectiveness and value of our products. As is typical in our industry, our advertisers generally have the ability to cancel their ad campaigns at any time without penalty. If we are unable to quickly and effectively respond to any decrease in customer satisfaction, economic downturn or other change negatively affecting our ability to retain advertisers, our ability to maintain and expand our advertiser base will be harmed.
In addition, a significant portion of our advertiser base consists of SMBs, which are subject to increased challenges and risks. SMBs often have limited advertising budgets and view online advertising products like ours as experimental and unproven; as a result, we may need to devote additional time and resources to educate them about our products and services. Such businesses have also historically experienced high failure rates, and we must continually add new advertisers to replace those who do not renew their advertising due to factors outside of our control, such as declining advertising budgets, closures and bankruptcies.
Our advertising revenue could be impacted by a number of other factors, including, but not limited to:
• the perceived effectiveness and acceptance of online advertising generally, particularly among SMBs that may have less experience with it;
• our ability to drive traffic to our platform, which remains below pre-pandemic levels, and increase user engagement, including engagement with the ads displayed on our platform;
• challenging macroeconomic conditions or trends that negatively impact consumer demand, such as the current inflationary environment, which we believe began negatively impacting demand from Services advertisers in 2025, and consumers visiting many types of businesses less frequently than prior to the pandemic;
• the effectiveness of our ad targeting technology and tools for advertisers to optimize their campaigns;
• our ability to innovate and introduce enhanced products meeting advertiser expectations;
• product changes or inventory management decisions we may make that change the size, format, frequency or relative prominence of ads displayed on our platform;
• the widespread adoption of any technologies that make it more difficult for us to deliver ads, such as ad-blocking programs;
• loss of advertising business to our competitors, including if competitors offer lower priced or more integrated products;
• the prevalence of low-quality or invalid traffic on our platform, such as robots and spiders, which we have discovered in the past and expect to discover in the future, and our ability to detect and prevent click fraud or other invalid clicks on ads;
• our reputation and perceptions regarding our platform, including of the ratings and reviews that businesses receive from our users — favorable ratings and reviews could be perceived as obviating the need to advertise, while unfavorable ratings and reviews could discourage businesses from advertising to an audience that they perceive as hostile;
• the size and productivity of our sales force, which may be affected by a range of factors, not all of which are within our control;
Table of Contents
• the degree to which businesses choose to reach users through our free products in lieu of our paid products and services; and
• the pricing of our products, including the CPCs determined by our auction system, which have increased in recent quarters even as we have delivered fewer ad clicks.
Any of these or other factors could result in a reduction in demand for our products, which would negatively affect our revenue and operating results.
Our strategy to grow our business may not be successful and may expose us to additional risks.
Our growth strategy includes priorities such as reconceiving Yelp around answers and actions, delivering AI tools that help service pros and other local businesses grow, operate and succeed, and extending our reach to power local delivery across the AI ecosystem. These initiatives will require substantial investments, involve significant risks and executing on them may prove more difficult than we currently anticipate. We may not succeed in realizing the benefits of these efforts, including growing our revenue and improving our margins, within the time frame we expect or at all. Even if these initiatives ultimately drive revenue growth, it will likely trail the increase in expenses resulting from our investments.
Our ability to execute each of our strategic priorities depends on our ability to develop innovative, relevant and useful products in a timely manner. Developing successful products requires substantial investments, and such investments may not prioritize short-term financial results and may involve significant risks and uncertainties. For example, new products may fail to generate sufficient revenue, operating margin or other value to justify the investments we made in them. This is a particular risk for new products that are unproven or that are outside of our historical core business, including the product roadmap underlying our 2026 strategic initiatives, which aims to deliver innovative AI-powered products and features. Although we have significant experience with AI technologies, the use of, as well as consumer expectations for, such technologies are rapidly evolving and we cannot guarantee that our AI-based products will prove popular with consumers or businesses. Our plans to leverage AI in our product initiatives and business operations also pose particular risks to our business , as further described below.
Certain of our past strategic decisions may also continue to impact our opportunities and long-term prospects. For example, although our strategic focus on Services businesses in recent years has driven our business performance, our Services business faces industry challenges. In addition to being a highly competitive, fragmented market, it has not yet fully embraced online solutions of the type we offer. Many consumers continue to search for, select and hire service professionals offline through word-of-mouth and referrals. Changing traditional habits is difficult, and the speed and ultimate outcome of the shift of these markets online for consumers and businesses alike is uncertain and may not occur as quickly as we expect, or at all.
If traffic to or user engagement on our platform declines, our revenue, business and operating results may be harmed.
We derive a substantial majority of our revenue based on our users’ engagement with the ads that we display. Because traffic to and user engagement on our platform together determine the number of ad clicks we are able to deliver, affect the value of those ads to businesses and support the content creation that drives further traffic, our ability to attract, retain and engage visitors on our platform is critical to our business and financial success.
We have experienced, and expect to continue to experience, declines in our traffic in certain periods for a variety of reasons. For example, because a substantial majority of our traffic goes to our RR&O categories and RR&O traffic is particularly sensitive to changes in consumer confidence levels, our overall traffic levels generally fluctuate with macroeconomic conditions. We believe that the current uncertain and inflationary economic environment continued to have a negative impact on our RR&O traffic in 2025, offsetting modest growth in Services traffic, resulting in our traffic metrics being down modestly year over year. While we cannot predict the remaining duration of the current uncertain economic conditions or the duration or magnitude of their impact on our traffic, we expect traffic to remain challenged in 2026.
Other factors that could adversely affect our traffic and user engagement include, but are not limited to:
• our reliance on Internet search engines ;
• other adverse macroeconomic conditions and their negative impact on consumer spending at local businesses ;
• if users engage with other products, services or activities as an alternative to our platform;
• if consumers use AI-powered features of search engines, such as Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode, AI chatbots or other AI platforms instead of traditional search engines, as these tools often present their results in a format that de-emphasizes links to our platform;
Table of Contents
• if users have difficulty installing, updating or otherwise accessing our platform as a result of actions by us or third parties that we rely on to distribute our products, such as application marketplaces and device manufacturers ;
• if we fail to introduce new and improved products or features that users find engaging, or we introduce new products or features that do not effectively address consumer needs or otherwise alienate consumers;
• the quantity and quality of the content contributed by our users, as well as the perceived distribution of such content across the categories of businesses on our platform ;
• increasing competition in the market for information regarding local businesses ;
• our ability to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is relevant and helpful to them, including through the effective operation of our automated recommendation software;
• technical or other problems that negatively impact the availability and reliability of our platform or otherwise affect the user experience, including as a result of infrastructure performance problems and security breaches ;
• if users believe that their experience is diminished as a result of the decisions we make with respect to the frequency, relevance and prominence of the advertising we display;
• the adoption of any laws or regulations that adversely affect the growth, popularity or use of our platform or the Internet in general, such as the repeal of Internet neutrality regulations in the United States;
• any actions taken by companies with significant market power in the broadband and Internet marketplace that degrade, disrupt or increase the cost of user access to our products and services; and
• if we do not maintain our brand image or our reputation is damaged .
As a result of these dynamics, as well as the maturation of our business and our high penetration rates in most major geographic markets within the United States and Canada, we generally expect our traffic to decrease in certain periods going forward. Should our traffic continue to decline, our business and financial performance will become increasingly dependent on driving user engagement on our platform and with the ads that we display, which we may not do successfully.
We rely on Internet search engines and application marketplaces to drive traffic to our platform, certain providers of which offer products and services that compete directly with our products. If links to our applications and website are not displayed prominently, traffic to our platform could decline and our business would be adversely affected.
We rely heavily on Internet search engines, including primarily Google, to drive traffic to our platform through their unpaid search results and on application marketplaces, such as Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play, to drive downloads of our applications. If they fail to drive sufficient traffic to our platform, we may need to increase our marketing spend to acquire additional traffic. We cannot assure you that the value we ultimately derive from any such additional traffic would exceed the cost of acquisition, and the resulting increase in marketing expense may in turn harm our operating results. For example, despite our 2024 initiative to acquire Services projects through paid search resulting in an increase in projects, more ad clicks and lower average CPCs than in the prior year, these improvements did not drive our desired returns in advertiser retention or ad budget increases.
The amount of traffic we attract from search engines is due in large part to how and where information from and links to our website are displayed on search engine result pages. The specific links to our platform that are displayed in search engine results also impact the quality, including the value and engagement level, of the traffic we receive from search engines. The display, including rankings and links, of unpaid search results can be affected by a number of factors, many of which are not in our direct control, and may change frequently. Search engines have made changes in the past to their ranking algorithms, methodologies and design layouts that have reduced the prominence of links to our platform and negatively impacted the volume and quality our traffic, and we expect they will continue to make such changes from time to time in the future. For example, search engines such as Google have incorporated AI-generated responses to search queries above their organic search results, which has reduced the prominence of links to our platform and may be having a negative impact on our traffic.
We may not know how or otherwise be in a position to influence search results or our treatment in application marketplaces. With respect to search results in particular, even when search engines announce the details of their methodologies, their parameters may change from time to time, be poorly defined or be inconsistently interpreted. For example, Google previously announced that the rankings of sites showing certain types of app install interstitials could be penalized on its mobile search results pages. While we believe the type of interstitial we currently use is not being penalized, we cannot guarantee that Google will not unexpectedly penalize our app install interstitials, causing links to our mobile website to be featured less prominently in Google’s mobile search results and harming traffic to our platform as a result.
Table of Contents
In some instances, search engine companies and application marketplaces may change their displays or rankings in order to promote their own competing products or services or the products or services of one or more of our competitors. For example, Google has promoted its local product offering within certain of its products, including general search and maps. The promotion of Google’s own competing products ahead of its organic search results has negatively impacted the prominence of links to our platform. Because Google in particular is the most significant source of traffic to our website, our success depends on our ability to maintain a prominent presence in search results for queries regarding local businesses on Google. As a result, Google’s promotion of its own competing products, or similar actions by Google in the future that have the effect of reducing our prominence or ranking on its search results — such as its presentation of AI-generated responses to search queries in a manner that de-emphasizes links to our platform — could have a substantial negative effect on our business and results of operations.
Similarly, Apple, Google or other marketplace operators may make changes to their marketplaces, technical requirements or policies that make access to our products more difficult, reduce the prominence or rank of our applications within marketplaces, require us to change our current practices or make it more difficult for us to provide effective advertising tools to businesses on our platform. For example, Google now requires that apps that allow account creation must provide users with an option to delete their accounts and associated data directly within the app or through an online portal. Google has also updated their policies around data use and disclosures, including by requiring that apps limit certain data collection and use unless it is consistent with the application’s core use case. If application marketplaces change their policies — or interpretations of their policies — in a manner that adversely impacts the way in which we offer our services, or how we or our partners collect, use and share data from users, our ability to maintain and expand our base of advertisers will be harmed. However, if we do not comply with these requirements, we could lose access to the app store and users, and our business would be . For example, on multiple occasions in recent years, Apple and Google have required us to provide more information and make changes to our applications or app disclosures based on new policies or new interpretations of existing policies. Although our apps have remained available in the Apple and Google app stores, resolving these issues was time consuming and required additional expenditures. We cannot guarantee that similar issues will not arise again in the future or that, if they do, we would be to them at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner.
We rely on the performance of highly skilled personnel, and if we are unable to attract, retain and motivate well-qualified employees, our business could be harmed.
We believe our success has depended, and continues to depend, on the efforts and talents of our employees, including our senior management team, our product and engineering teams, marketing professionals and advertising sales staff. All of our U.S. employees, including all but one of our executive officers, are at-will employees, which means they may terminate their employment relationship with us at any time, and their knowledge of our business and industry would be extremely difficult to replace. Any changes in our senior management team in particular, even in the ordinary course of business, may be disruptive to our business. While we seek to manage these transitions carefully, including by establishing strong processes and procedures and succession planning, such changes may result in a loss of institutional knowledge and cause disruptions to our business. If our senior management team fails to work together effectively or execute our plans and strategies on a timely basis as a result of management turnover or otherwise, our business could be harmed.
Our ability to execute on our key strategic initiatives depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees while maintaining the beneficial aspects of our company culture, which may be more difficult with a distributed workforce. Qualified individuals are in high demand and we expect to continue to face significant competition from other companies in hiring such personnel. In recent years, we have undertaken a significant shift in our compensation mix away from equity toward cash, and the incentives to attract, retain and motivate employees provided by our current cash-focused compensation arrangements may not be as effective as our previous compensation arrangements. Identifying, recruiting, training and integrating new hires will require significant time, expense and attention; as a result, we may incur significant costs to attract them before we can validate their productivity. If we fail to manage our hiring needs effectively, our efficiency and ability to meet our forecasts, as well as employee morale, productivity and retention, could suffer, and our business and operating results could be adversely affected.
We face intense competition in rapidly evolving markets, and expect competition to increase in the future.
We compete in rapidly evolving and intensely competitive markets, and we expect competition to intensify further in the future with the emergence of new technologies, such as AI, and market entrants. We face competition for users, content and customers, including from: online search engines and directories, including those incorporating AI technologies; traditional, offline business guides and directories; online and offline providers of consumer ratings, reviews and referrals; social media platforms and features; providers of online marketing and tools for managing and optimizing advertising campaigns; various forms of traditional offline advertising; restaurant reservation and seating tools; food ordering and delivery services; and home and/or local services-related platforms and offerings.
Table of Contents
Some of our competitors enjoy certain competitive advantages, such as greater name recognition, longer operating histories, substantially greater market share, large existing user bases and substantially greater financial, technical and other resources. These companies may use these advantages to offer products similar to ours at a lower price, develop different products or partner with our existing or potential partners (to our exclusion) to compete with our current solutions, and respond more quickly and effectively than we do to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards or client requirements. For example, competitors have used, and may in the future use, their substantial financial resources to secure positions as the default or exclusive option in web browsers, mobile devices or other potential sources of traffic and app downloads, as Alphabet Inc., the parent company of Google, pays for Google to be the default search engine in Apple’s Safari browser. In particular, major Internet companies, such as Google and Meta, may be more than us in developing and marketing online advertising and other services directly to local businesses, and may leverage their relationships based on other products or services to additional share of advertising budgets. Certain competitors could also use or dominant positions in one or more markets to competitive us in areas in which we operate, including by:
• integrating review platforms, local offerings or other competitive products into products they control, such as search engines, web browsers or mobile device operating systems;
• leveraging their control of products to induce third parties to preference products that compete with ours;
• making acquisitions;
• changing their unpaid search result rankings to preference or promote their own products;
• refusing to enter into or renew licenses on which we depend;
• limiting or denying our access to advertising measurement or delivery systems;
• limiting our ability to target or measure the effectiveness of ads; or
• making access to our platform more difficult.
These risks may be exacerbated by the trend in recent years toward consolidation among online media companies, potentially allowing our larger competitors to offer bundled or integrated products that feature alternatives to our platform.
To compete effectively, we must continue to invest significant resources in product development to enhance user experience and engagement, as well as sales and marketing to expand our base of advertisers. However, there can be no assurance that we will be able to compete successfully for users and customers against existing or new competitors, and failure to do so could result in loss of existing users, reduced revenue, increased marketing expenses or diminished brand strength, any of which could harm our business.
We rely on third-party service providers and strategic partners for many aspects of our business, and any failure to maintain these relationships could harm our business.
We rely on relationships with various third parties to grow our business, including strategic partners and technology and content providers. For example, we rely on third parties for data about local businesses, mapping functionality, payment processing, information technology and systems, network infrastructure and administrative software solutions. We also rely on partnership integrations for various transactions available through Yelp, including DoorDash for food-ordering services. Identifying, negotiating and maintaining relationships with third parties require significant time and resources, as does integrating their data, services and technologies onto our platform. This may divert the attention of our management and employees from other aspects of our business operations, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to continue to realize the intended benefits of any given partnership.
It is possible that third-party providers and strategic partners may not be able to devote the resources we expect to the relationships. We may also have competing interests and obligations with respect to certain of our partners, which may make it difficult to maintain, grow or maximize the benefit for each partnership. For example, we have historically benefited from the integration of our content into Apple Maps driving a significant amount of traffic to our website and downloads of our application. If Apple were to offer products competitive with ours, such as local business reviews, our relationship with Apple would be negatively impacted and our longstanding partnership might be difficult to maintain as a result. Although traffic and app downloads driven by Apple Maps decreased following certain changes to the display of our content in Apple Maps, if our partnership with Apple ended, traffic to our platform and our business would be harmed. If our relationships with our partners and providers deteriorate, we could suffer increased costs and in our ability to provide consumers and advertisers with content or similar services. As in the case of the expiration or of any of our agreements with third-party providers, transitioning from one partner or provider to another could subject us to operational and and we may not be to replace the services provided to us in a timely manner or on terms that are to us, if at all.
Table of Contents
In addition, we exercise limited control over our third-party partners and vendors, which makes us vulnerable to any errors, interruptions or delays in their operations. If these third parties experience any service disruptions, financial distress or other business disruption, or difficulties meeting our requirements or standards, it could make it difficult for us to operate some aspects of our business. For example, we rely on AWS cloud computing infrastructure to host our website, mobile app and many of the internal tools we use to operate our business. Any significant disruption or limitation of our access to or other interference with our use of AWS would negatively impact our operations and business, including potentially causing harm to our reputation, results of operations and financial results. Any transition of the cloud services currently provided by AWS to another provider could cause us to incur significant time and expense, and any transition could also or our ability to deliver our products and services.
Similarly, the actions of our partners may affect our brand if users or customers do not have a positive experience interacting with or through them. For example, if advertisers do not have a positive experience purchasing our advertising products through our resale partners, such as Thryv, or the agency participants in our Yelp Ads Certified Partners Program, they may not continue advertising with us, which would negatively affect our revenue and operating results. Although such partners are contractually obligated to observe certain standards and best practices while selling our advertising products, our ability to ensure their compliance is limited. Any disagreements or disputes with these or other partners about our respective contractual obligations — which we have had in the past and may have again from time to time in the future — could result in legal proceedings or negatively affect our brand and reputation. Any termination of a partnership agreement, including as a result of disagreements or disputes, could also impact our revenue.
If we fail to manage our employee operations and organization effectively, our brand, results of operations and business could be harmed.
Our employee operations are complex and place substantial demands on management and our operational infrastructure. These operations may be negatively affected by a range of external factors that are not within our control, including catastrophic events, such as earthquakes or fires, and public health crises. Such factors may have a substantial impact on employee attendance or productivity, and the extent and duration of their impact are typically uncertain; if we are not able to respond to and manage the impact of such events effectively, our business will be harmed. For example, our rapid and broad-based shift to a remote working environment in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic added to the complexity of our employee operations by creating productivity, connectivity, security and oversight challenges. We expect challenges to continue to arise as we navigate uncertain political and economic environments, incorporate technological innovations into our business and otherwise respond to external factors going forward. Addressing these challenges could adversely affect our company culture and will require the attention of our executive team and other key employees, which could affect our business.
As our business matures, we make periodic changes and adjustments to our organization in response to various internal and external considerations, including market opportunities, the competitive landscape, new and enhanced products, acquisitions, sales performance, availability of employee talent and costs. In some instances, these changes have resulted in a temporary lack of focus and reduced productivity, which may occur again in connection with any future changes to our organization and may negatively affect our results of operations. If we are unable to adapt quickly and effectively to changes or adjustments to our organization, our business will be harmed.
We may also need to improve our operational, financial and management systems and processes to support our large and distributed workforce, which may require significant capital expenditures and allocation of valuable management and employee resources, as well as subject us to the risk of over-expanding our operating infrastructure. For example, it can be difficult to train thousands of sales employees across multiple offices according to the same business standards, practices and laws, and we have been the subject of lawsuits alleging that we have failed to do so. If we fail to scale our operations successfully and increase productivity, the quality of our platform and efficiency of our operations could suffer, which could harm our brand, results of operations and business.
Consumers frequently access online services through a variety of platforms other than desktop computers, including mobile devices. If we are unable to operate effectively on such devices or our products for such devices are not compelling, our business could be adversely affected.
Consumers frequently access the Internet through devices other than desktop computers, including mobile phones, tablets, handheld computers, voice-assisted speakers, automobiles and television set-top devices. We generate a substantial majority of our revenue from advertising delivered on mobile devices, and anticipate that this will continue to be the case for the foreseeable future. As a result, we must continue to drive adoption of and user engagement on our mobile platform, and on our mobile app in particular, which is less reliant on search results for traffic than our website. If we are unable to drive continued adoption of and engagement on our mobile app, our business may be harmed and we may be unable to decrease our reliance on traffic from Google and other search engines.
Table of Contents
In order to attract and retain engaged users of our platform on mobile and other alternative devices, the products and services we introduce on such devices must be compelling. However, the functionality and user experience associated with some alternative devices may make the use of our platform and products more difficult than through a desktop computer. For example, devices with small screen sizes or that lack a screen may exacerbate the risks associated with how and where our website is displayed in search results because they display or otherwise present fewer search results than desktop computers. We also expect that the ways in which users engage with our platform will continue to change over time as users increasingly engage via alternative devices. This may make it more difficult to develop products that consumers find useful, may make it more difficult for us to monetize our products and may also negatively affect our content if users do not continue to contribute high-quality content through such devices.
Similarly, as new devices and platforms develop, advertiser demand may increase for products that we do not offer or that may alienate our user base, which we must balance against our commitment to prioritizing the quality of user experience over short-term monetization. If we are not able to balance these competing considerations successfully to develop compelling advertising products, advertisers may stop or reduce their advertising with us and we may not be able to generate meaningful revenue from alternative devices despite the expected growth in their usage.
As new devices and platforms are continually being released, it is also difficult to predict the problems we may encounter in adapting our products and services — and developing competitive new products and services — to them, and we may need to devote significant resources to the creation, support and maintenance of such products. Our success will be dependent on the interoperability and compliance of our products with a range of technologies, systems, networks and standards that we do not control, such as mobile operating systems like Android and iOS. For example, in 2021, Apple made certain changes to its products and data use policies in connection with changes to its iOS operating system that reduced our ability to target and measure advertising. While these changes currently impact only a small portion of our advertising business, they could limit our ability to expand the relevant advertising products in the future. We may not be successful in developing products that operate effectively with these technologies, systems, networks and standards or in creating, maintaining and developing relationships with key participants in related industries, some of which may be our competitors.
If we experience difficulties or increased costs in integrating our products into alternative devices, or if manufacturers elect not to include our products on their devices, make changes that degrade the functionality of our products, give preferential treatment to competitive products or prevent us from delivering advertising, our user growth and operating results may be harmed. This risk may be exacerbated by the frequency with which users change or upgrade their devices; in the event users choose devices that do not already include or support our platform or do not install our products when they change or upgrade their devices, our traffic and user engagement may be harmed.
We may acquire or invest in other companies or technologies, which could divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders, or otherwise disrupt our operations and harm our operating results. We may also be unable to realize the expected benefits and synergies of any acquisitions or investments.
Our success will depend, in part, on our ability to expand our product offerings and grow our business in response to changing technologies, user and advertiser demands, and competitive pressures. In some circumstances, we may determine to do so through the acquisition of complementary businesses or technologies rather than through internal development. For example, in February 2026, we acquired Hatch to advance our AI transformation and expand our subscription offerings to help Services businesses operationally. Similarly, we may pursue investments in privately held companies in furtherance of our strategic objectives. We have limited experience as a company in the complex processes of acquiring and investing in businesses and technologies. The pursuit of potential future acquisitions or investments may divert the attention of management and in many cases causes us to incur expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing transactions, whether or not they are consummated. If we do not complete an announced strategic transaction, or we do not complete it within the time frame we anticipate, our business and financial results could be harmed.
Acquisitions that are consummated could result in dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, which could adversely affect our results of operations. The incurrence of debt in particular could result in increased fixed obligations or include covenants or other restrictions that would impede our ability to manage our operations. For example, we funded the purchase price of Hatch in part with borrowings under our revolving credit facility. In addition, any transactions we announce could be viewed negatively by users, businesses or investors. We may also fail to accurately forecast the financial impact of a transaction, including tax and accounting charges.
We have in the past and may in the future discover liabilities or deficiencies associated with the companies or assets we acquire or invest in that we did not identify in advance, which may result in significant unanticipated costs or losses. The effectiveness of our due diligence review and our ability to evaluate the results of such due diligence are dependent upon the
Table of Contents
accuracy and completeness of statements and disclosures made by the companies we acquire or their representatives, as well as the limited amount of time in which acquisitions are executed.
In order to realize the expected benefits and synergies of any acquisition that is consummated, we must meet a number of significant challenges that may create unforeseen operating difficulties and expenditures, including:
• integrating the operations, strategies, services, sites and technologies of an acquired company;
• managing the post-transaction business effectively;
• retaining and assimilating the employees of an acquired company;
• retaining existing customers and strategic partners, and minimizing disruption to existing relationships, as a result of any integration of new personnel or departure of existing personnel;
• difficulties in the assimilation of corporate cultures;
• implementing and retaining uniform standards, controls, procedures, policies and information systems; and
• addressing risks related to the business of an acquired company that may continue to impact the business following the acquisition.
Any inability to integrate services, sites and technologies, operations or personnel in an efficient and timely manner could harm our results of operations. Transition activities are complex and require significant time and resources, and we may not manage the process successfully, particularly if we are managing multiple transactions concurrently. Our ability to integrate complex acquisitions is unproven, particularly with respect to companies that have significant operations or that develop products with which we do not have prior experience. We expect to invest resources to support any future acquisitions, which will result in ongoing operating expenses and may divert resources and management attention from other areas of our business. We cannot assure you that these investments will be successful. Even if we are able to integrate the operations of any acquired company successfully, we may not realize the full benefits of synergies, cost savings, innovation and operational efficiencies that may be possible from the transaction, or we may not these benefits within a reasonable period of time.
Similarly, investments in private companies are inherently risky in that such companies are typically at an early stage of development, may have no or limited revenues, may not be or may never become profitable, may not be able to secure additional funding, or their technologies, services or products may not be successfully developed or introduced into the market. The success of any such investment is typically dependent on a liquidity event, such as a public offering or acquisition. If any company in which we invest decreases in value, we could lose all or part of our investment. These risks would be heightened to the extent any such investment is a minority investment in which we have limited management or operational control over the business.
If we fail to generate, maintain and recommend sufficient content from our users that consumers find relevant, helpful and reliable, our traffic and revenue will be negatively affected.
Our success depends on our ability to attract consumer traffic with valuable content, which in turn depends on the quantity and quality of the content provided by our users, as well as consumer perceptions of the relevance, helpfulness and reliability of that content. We may be unable to provide consumers with valuable information if our users do not contribute sufficient content or if our users remove content they previously submitted. For example, users may be unwilling to contribute content as a result of concerns that they may be harassed or sued by the businesses they review, instances of which have occurred in the past and may occur again in the future.
Consumers also may not find the content on our platform to be valuable if they do not perceive it as relevant, helpful or reliable. For example, we believe consumers consider AI-created reviews to be less trustworthy than reviews written by humans, and we cannot guarantee that we will identify and remove all such reviews. Similarly, we do not phase out or remove dated reviews, and consumers may view older reviews as less relevant or reliable than more recent reviews. If the high concentration of reviews in our restaurants and shopping categories creates a perception that our platform is primarily limited to these categories, consumers may not believe that we can provide them with helpful information about businesses in other categories and seek that information elsewhere.
Our automated recommendation software is a critical part of our efforts to provide consumers with relevant, helpful and reliable content. However, although we have designed our technology to avoid recommending content that we believe to be biased, unreliable or otherwise unhelpful, we cannot guarantee that our efforts will be successful, or that each of the recommended reviews available on our platform at any given time is useful or reliable. If our automated software does not recommend helpful content or recommends unhelpful content, consumers may reduce or stop their use of our platform.
Table of Contents
Even if we are successful in our efforts to generate, maintain and recommend valuable content, our ability to attract consumer traffic may nonetheless be harmed if consumers can find equivalent content through other services. From time to time, other companies copy information from our platform, or from other sources on the Internet that may have obtained information from our platform, without our permission, including through website scraping, robots or other means, and publish or aggregate it with other information for their own benefit. This may make them more competitive and may decrease the likelihood that consumers will visit our platform to find the local businesses and information they seek; it may also negatively impact our ability to license content from our platform. Because web scraping is a common method for gathering data for use with AI models, the increasing prevalence of products incorporating AI has exacerbated this risk; we have discovered AI-powered products using content originally from our platform without our permission and expect we will continue to do so from time to time in the future. We may not be able to detect this third-party conduct in a timely manner and, even if we could, may not be to prevent it. In some cases, particularly in the case of third parties operating outside of the United States, our available remedies may be to protect us such conduct.
Our business depends on a strong brand. Maintaining, protecting and enhancing our brand requires significant resources and our efforts to do so may not be successful.
We have developed a strong brand that we believe has contributed significantly to the success of our business. Maintaining, protecting and enhancing the “Yelp” brand are critical to expanding our base of users and advertisers and increasing the frequency with which they use our solutions. If we fail to maintain and enhance our brand successfully, or if we incur excessive expenses in this effort, our business and financial results may be adversely affected.
Our ability to do so will depend largely on our ability to maintain business owner and consumer trust in the integrity of our products and in the quality of the user content and other information found on our platform, which we may not do successfully. Although we dedicate significant resources to these goals, we may fail to respond to user or business owner concerns expeditiously or in a manner they perceive to be appropriate, which could erode confidence in our brand. For example, some consumers and businesses have alternately expressed concern that our technology either recommends too many reviews, thereby recommending some reviews that may not be legitimate, or too few reviews, thereby not recommending some reviews that may be legitimate. The actions of our partners, over whom we have limited, if any, control, may also affect the perceived integrity of our brand if users or advertisers do not have a positive experience interacting with or through them. In addition, our website and mobile app serve as a platform for expression by our users, and third parties or the public at large may attribute the political or other sentiments expressed by users on our platform to us, which could our reputation.
Negative publicity about our company, including our technology, sales practices, personnel, customer service, litigation, strategic plans or political activities, could also diminish confidence in our brand and the use of our products. Certain media outlets have previously reported allegations, although untrue, that we manipulate our reviews, rankings and ratings in favor of our advertisers and against non-advertisers. Although we have taken action to combat this perception, our reputation and brand, and our traffic and business in turn, may suffer if negative publicity about our company persists or if users otherwise perceive that our content is manipulated or biased. Allegations and complaints regarding our business practices, and any resulting negative publicity, may also result in increased regulatory of our company. In addition to requiring management time and attention, any regulatory or could itself result in further publicity regardless of its merit or outcome.
Trademarks are also an important element of our brand and require substantial investments to maintain, which may not be successful. We have faced in the past, and may face in the future, oppositions from third parties to our applications to register key trademarks. If we are unsuccessful in defending against these oppositions, our trademark applications may be denied. Whether or not our trademark applications are denied, third parties may claim that our trademarks infringe their rights. As a result, we could be forced to pay significant settlement costs or cease the use of these trademarks and associated elements of our brand. Doing so could harm our brand recognition and adversely affect our business. Conversely, if we are unable to prevent others from our brand or passing themselves off as being endorsed or affiliated with us, it could our reputation and our business could . For example, we have encountered instances of reputation management companies representing themselves as being affiliated with us when soliciting customers; this practice could be contributing to the perception that business owners can pay to reviews, rankings and ratings.
We are committed to providing a great consumer experience, which may cause us to forgo short-term gains and advertising revenue.
We base many of our decisions on our commitment to providing the consumers who use our platform with a great experience. In the past, we have forgone, and we may in the future forgo, certain expansion or revenue opportunities that we believe excessively degrade the consumer experience, even if such decisions negatively impact our results of operations in the short term. For example, we prohibit businesses from soliciting customers to write reviews on our platform, which can create a
Table of Contents
positive bias that is unfair to consumers and other businesses. While we believe this policy is a critical to maintaining trustworthy content that consumers can rely on, it also prevents us from partnering with some digital marketing agencies, whose actions often include review solicitation on our platform, which might otherwise be a source of revenue. Any decisions we make that prioritize consumers may negatively impact our relationship with existing or prospective advertisers. For example, unless we believe that a review violates our terms of service, such as reviews that contain hate speech or bigotry, we will allow the review to remain on our platform, even if the business disputes its accuracy. Certain advertisers may therefore perceive us as an impediment to their success as a result of reviews and ratings that are critical of them. This practice could result in a loss of advertisers, which in turn could our results of operations. However, we believe that this approach has been essential to our in attracting users and increasing the frequency with which they use our platform. As a result, we believe this approach has served the long-term interests of our company and our stockholders and will continue to do so in the future.
Our aspirations and disclosures related to ESG matters expose us to risks that could adversely affect our reputation and performance.
Many governments, regulators, investors, employees, customers and other stakeholders are increasingly focused on environmental, social and governance (“ESG”) considerations relating to businesses, including climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, data privacy, human and civil rights, and diversity, equity and inclusion (“DEI”). We make statements about goals and initiatives related to ESG matters through information provided on our website, press releases and other communications. These statements reflect our current plans and aspirations and are not guarantees that we will be able to achieve them. In addition, some stakeholders may disagree with our goals and initiatives. Our failure, or perceived failure, to accomplish or accurately track and report on our goals, further our initiatives, adhere to our public statements, or comply with federal, state and international laws that relate to ESG could adversely affect our reputation, financial performance and growth, and expose us to increased scrutiny from the investment community as well as enforcement authorities and private .
Further, if our ESG practices do not meet evolving investor or other stakeholder expectations and standards, then our reputation, ability to attract or retain employees, and attractiveness as an investment, business partner, acquiror or service provider could be negatively impacted. For example, “anti-ESG” sentiment has gained momentum across the United States in recent years, with several states and policymakers having proposed or enacted anti-ESG policies, legislation or initiatives. In addition, the Trump Administration has issued executive orders targeting certain DEI initiatives in the private sector. These or other anti-ESG- and anti-DEI-related policies, legislation, initiatives, legal decisions and scrutiny could result in investigations, litigation or enforcement actions against us by governments, regulators or others. Responding to and resolving such actions may require significant time and resources, regardless of their merit, and may result in us sustaining reputational harm.
Standards for tracking and reporting ESG matters continue to evolve. Our use of disclosure frameworks and standards, and the interpretation or application of those frameworks and standards, may change from time to time or differ from those of others. This may result in a lack of consistent or meaningful comparative data from period to period or between Yelp and other companies in the same industry. In addition, our processes and controls may not comply with evolving standards for identifying, measuring and reporting ESG metrics, including ESG-related disclosures that may be required of businesses of our size by regulators, and such standards may change over time, which could result in significant revisions to our current goals, reported progress in achieving such goals or ability to achieve such goals in the future.
Risks Related to Our Technology and Intellectual Property
Our business is dependent on the uninterrupted and proper operation of our technology and network infrastructure. Any significant disruption in our service could damage our reputation, result in a potential loss of users and engagement and adversely affect our results of operations.
It is important to our success that users in all geographies in which we operate be able to access our platform at all times. If our platform is unavailable when users attempt to access it or it does not load as quickly as they expect, users may seek other services to obtain the information for which they are looking, and may not return to our platform as often in the future, or at all. This would negatively impact our ability to attract users and advertisers and increase the frequency with which they use our platform.
We have previously experienced, and may experience in the future, service disruptions, outages and other performance problems. Such performance problems may be due to a variety of factors, including those set forth below; however, in some instances, we may not be able to identify the cause or causes of these performance problems within an acceptable period of time.
• Infrastructure Changes and Capacity Constraints . We may experience capacity constraints due to an overwhelming number of users accessing our platform simultaneously. It may become increasingly difficult to maintain and improve
Table of Contents
the availability of our platform, especially during peak usage times, as our products become more complex and our traffic increases.
• Human or Software Errors . Our products and services are highly technical and complex, and may contain errors or vulnerabilities that could result in unanticipated downtime for our platform. Users may also use our products in unanticipated ways that may cause a disruption in service for other users attempting to access our platform. We may encounter such difficulties more frequently as we acquire companies and incorporate their technologies into our service.
• Service Providers . We rely on a number of providers of infrastructure and software services, including AWS. Although we use these systems and services in a manner designed to achieve high reliability and minimize risk, large-scale outages affecting our service providers could negatively impact our ability to maintain the full functionality of our systems.
• Catastrophic Occurrences . Our systems are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, fires, floods, power losses, telecommunications failures, terrorist attacks and similar events. Acts of terrorism, which may be targeted at metropolitan areas that have higher population densities than rural areas, could cause disruptions in our or our advertisers’ businesses or the economy as a whole. While our distributed operations may help to reduce this risk in the context of local or regional catastrophic events, coordinating a response to a larger-scale event could be complex and we may not manage it successfully.
We may not have sufficient protection or recovery plans in certain circumstances, such as a large-scale outage affecting our major service providers, such as AWS, and our business interruption insurance may be insufficient to compensate us for losses that may occur. Our disaster recovery program contemplates transitioning our platform and data to a backup center in the event of a catastrophe. Although this program is functional, if our primary data center shuts down, there will be a period of time that our services will remain shut down while the transition to the back-up data center takes place. During this time, our platform may be unavailable in whole or in part to our users.
We expect to continue to make significant investments to maintain and improve the availability of our platform and to enable rapid releases of new features and products. To the extent that we do not address capacity constraints, upgrade our systems as needed and continually develop our technology and network architecture to accommodate actual and anticipated changes in technology in a cost-effective manner, while at the same time maintaining the reliability and integrity of our systems and infrastructure, our business and operating results may be harmed.
If our security measures, or those of the third parties with whom we work, are compromised, or if our platform is subject to attacks that degrade or deny the ability of users to access our content, users may curtail or stop use of our platform.
Our industry is prone to cyber-attacks by third parties seeking unauthorized access to our data or users’ data, or to disrupt our ability to provide our services. Any failure to prevent or mitigate security breaches could expose us to the risk of loss or misuse of private user and business information, which could result in liability and litigation. We may be a particularly compelling target for such attacks as a result of our brand recognition.
Malicious code (such as computer viruses and worms), break-ins, malware (including as a result of advanced threat intrusions), social engineering (particularly spear phishing attacks and through the use of deep fakes), attempts to overload servers with denial-of-service attacks, credential stuffing attacks, ransomware attacks, and other similar attacks and disruptions have become more prevalent in our industry. Ransomware attacks in particular are becoming increasingly common and could lead to significant interruptions in our operations, ability to provide our products and services, loss of sensitive data, reputational harm and diversion of funds. Extortion payments may mitigate the negative impacts of a ransomware attack, but we may be unwilling or unable to make such payments for various reasons, including due to applicable laws or regulations prohibiting such payments. Our distributed and international workforce could impact the security of our systems, as well as our ability to protect attacks and detect and respond to them quickly.
Cyber-attacks and other attempts to gain unauthorized access to our computer systems have occurred on our systems in the past and are expected to occur periodically on our systems in the future. For example, we have been the target of distributed denial of service attacks and our employees are subject to phishing attempts from time to time. Although none of the disruptions we have experienced to date have had a material impact on our business, any future disruptions could lead to interruptions, delays or website shutdowns, causing loss of critical data or the unauthorized disclosure or use of personal information or confidential information. Even if we experience no significant shutdown or no critical data is lost, obtained or in connection with an attack, the occurrence of such an attack or the perception that we are to such attacks may our reputation, the user experience, cause of confidence in our products or result in financial to us.
We also face risks associated with security incidents, including security breaches, affecting our third-party partners and service providers. Our ability to monitor these third parties’ information security practices is limited and they may not have
Table of Contents
adequate information security measures in place. A security incident or breach at any such third party could be perceived by consumers, businesses or others as a security incident or breach relating to our systems and result in negative publicity, damage to our reputation and expose us to other losses. While we may be entitled to damages if such third parties fail to satisfy their privacy- or security-related obligations to us, any such award may be unrecoverable or insufficient to cover our damages. Similarly, threat actors may leverage a compromise of our networks or systems to gain access to the networks or systems of third parties with whom we work, which could us to further liabilities and reputational .
Future or past business transactions (such as acquisitions or integrations) could expose us to additional cybersecurity risks and vulnerabilities, as our systems could be negatively affected by vulnerabilities present in acquired or integrated entities’ systems and technologies. Furthermore, we may discover security issues that were not found during due diligence of such acquired or integrated entities, and it may be difficult to integrate companies into our information technology environment and security program.
Cyber-attacks continue to evolve in sophistication and volume, are increasingly difficult to detect, and may be enhanced or facilitated by AI. Although we have developed systems and processes that are designed to detect, mitigate and remediate vulnerabilities in our information systems to protect our data and prevent data loss and other security breaches, the techniques used to obtain unauthorized access, disable or degrade service, or sabotage systems change frequently, often are not recognized until launched against a target or long after, and may originate from sources that cannot be meaningfully deterred or prosecuted, such as sophisticated nation states and nation-state-supported actors. As a result, these preventative measures may not be adequate and we cannot assure you that they will provide absolute security.
Any or all of these issues could negatively impact our ability to attract new users, deter current users from returning to our platform, cause existing or potential advertisers to cancel their contracts, or subject us to third-party lawsuits or other liabilities. For example, we work with third-party vendors to process credit card payments by users and businesses, and are subject to payment card association operating rules. Compliance with applicable operating rules, however, will not necessarily prevent illegal or improper use of our payment systems, or the theft, loss or misuse of payment information. If our security measures fail to prevent fraudulent credit card transactions and protect payment information adequately as a result of employee error, malfeasance or otherwise, or we fail to comply with the applicable operating rules, we could be liable to the users and businesses for their , as well as the vendor under our agreement with it, and be subject to and higher transaction fees. Our agreements may not contain of liability, and even where they do, there can be no assurance that such provisions will be sufficient to protect us from liabilities, , or related to our data privacy and security obligations. We cannot be sure that our insurance coverage will be adequate or sufficient to protect us from or to mitigate liabilities arising out of privacy and security matters, that such coverage will continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms or at all, or that such coverage will pay future .
In addition, governmental authorities could also initiate legal or regulatory actions against us in connection with such incidents, which could cause us to incur significant expense and liability or result in orders or consent decrees forcing us to modify our business practices. Applicable data privacy and security obligations may require us, or we may voluntarily choose, to notify relevant stakeholders, including affected individuals, customers, regulators, and investors, of security incidents, or to take other actions, such as providing credit monitoring and identity theft protection services. Such disclosures and related actions can be costly, and the disclosure or the failure to comply with such applicable requirements could lead to adverse consequences.
We are increasingly using AI technologies on our platform and in our business operations, which involves significant risks and may not provide the expected benefits to our business.
We are increasingly incorporating AI and AI-generated content into our platform, products and services, including using it to recommend relevant content to our users, provide call answering services to businesses, facilitate transactions, summarize content, and enhance our advertising products and systems, among other uses. We are also increasingly using AI tools to support our business operations, such as AI software coding tools and AI features of other tools used in our operations, including tools used in third-party risk management, security and human resources software.
There are significant risks involved in developing and deploying AI in our products and services and using AI in our business operations, and there can be no assurance that our usage of AI will enhance our products or benefit our business. For example, creating AI-enabled products is complex and they may contain errors or inadequacies that are not easily detectable, which may result in these products not operating properly or as we expect them to. If the recommendations, analyses or other content incorporated into or produced by such products are (or are perceived to be) deficient, biased or inaccurate, we could be subject to competitive harm, potential legal liability and brand or reputational harm.
Table of Contents
Similarly, if the AI-assisted tools we use in our operations do not operate properly or as we expect them to, our business and operations could also be negatively impacted. For example, AI technologies may create outputs that appear correct but are factually inaccurate, flawed or biased. If we rely on such inaccurate, flawed or biased output, employee efficiency may be reduced, security vulnerabilities may be introduced into our systems, we may take actions that do not support our business goals, do not comply with our policies or applicable law, or our business and operations may be otherwise disrupted or harmed. Sensitive information of ours, our customers, our employees or others could also be improperly disclosed as a result of our or our vendors’ use of generative AI. Any or all of these risks could result in competitive harm, potential legal liability, and brand or reputational .
In addition, certain legal issues related to use of AI technologies and AI-generated content, including issues arising under copyright law, have not been fully addressed by U.S. courts or by federal or state laws or regulations. This uncertainty exposes us to risks with respect to both our ability to adequately protect the intellectual property underlying our AI technologies and the content generated by such technologies, as well as our inadvertent infringement of third-party intellectual property. It is also uncertain how existing laws granting protections to online services for display of third-party content, such as CDA 230, will apply to AI-generated content. If we are unable to mitigate these risks, or if we incur excessive expenses in our efforts to do so, our reputation, business operating results and financial condition may be harmed.
The U.S. federal government, certain U.S. states, the European Union and other jurisdictions outside of the United States have also proposed, enacted or are considering enacting laws governing the development and use of AI technologies, such as the California Bot Disclosure Law, the Colorado Artificial Intelligence Act and the European Union’s AI Act, and we expect additional jurisdictions to do so going forward. These laws may impose onerous compliance obligations, including transparency, risk assessment, monitoring and human oversight requirements, as well as significant penalties for non-compliance. These obligations may make it harder for us to conduct our business using AI technologies, require us to change our business practices, retrain our AI technologies, or prevent or limit our use of AI technologies. If our use of AI technologies is restricted or we are subject to regulatory fines and penalties, our business and results of operations may be harmed.
Failure to protect or enforce our intellectual property rights could harm our business and results of operations.
We regard the protection of our trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, patent rights and domain names as critical to our success. In particular, we must maintain, protect and enhance the “Yelp” brand. We strive to protect our intellectual property rights by relying on federal, state and common law rights, as well as contractual restrictions. We pursue the registration of our domain names, copyrights, trademarks and service marks in the United States and in certain jurisdictions abroad. While we have pursued a number of patent applications, we currently have only limited patent protection for our core business, which may make it more difficult to assert certain of our intellectual property rights. We typically enter into confidentiality and invention assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, as well as confidentiality agreements with parties with whom we conduct business in order to limit access to, and disclosure and use of, our proprietary information. However, these contractual arrangements and the other steps we have taken to protect our intellectual property may not prevent the misappropriation or disclosure of our proprietary information or deter independent development of similar technologies by others, which may the value of our brand and other intangible assets and allow competitors to more effectively mimic our products and services.
Effective trade secret, copyright, trademark, patent and domain name protection is expensive to develop and maintain, both in terms of initial and ongoing registration requirements and expenses and the costs of defending our rights. Seeking protection for our intellectual property is expensive, time consuming and may not be successful; accordingly, we may determine not to seek such protections for all of our intellectual property or in every location in which we operate. Litigation may become necessary to enforce our intellectual property rights, protect our trade secrets or determine the validity and scope of proprietary rights claimed by others. For example, we may incur significant costs in enforcing our trademarks against those who attempt to imitate our “Yelp” brand and our copyrights against infringement. Any litigation of this nature, regardless of outcome or merit, could result in substantial costs and diversion of management and technical resources, any of which could adversely affect our business and operating results.
Some of our products contain open source software, each of which may pose particular risks to our proprietary software and solutions.
We have used open source software in our products and will use open source software in the future. From time to time, we may face claims from third parties claiming ownership of, or demanding release of, the open source software or derivative works that we developed using such software (which could include our proprietary source code), or otherwise seeking to enforce the terms of the applicable open source license. These claims could result in litigation and could require us to purchase a costly license or cease offering the implicated solutions unless and until we can re-engineer them to avoid infringement. This re-engineering process could require significant additional research and development resources. In addition to risks related to
Table of Contents
license requirements, use of certain open source software can lead to greater risks than use of third-party commercial software because open source licensors generally do not provide warranties or controls on the origin of the software. Any of these risks could be difficult to eliminate or manage, and, if not addressed, could have a negative effect on our business and operating results.
We may be unable to continue to use the domain names that we use in our business, or prevent third parties from acquiring and using domain names that infringe on, are similar to, or otherwise decrease the value of our brand or our trademarks or service marks.
We have registered domain names for the websites that we use in our business, such as Yelp.com. If we lose the ability to use a domain name, whether due to trademark claims, failure to renew the applicable registration or any other cause, we may be forced to market our products under a new domain name, which could cause us substantial harm or cause us to incur significant expense in order to purchase rights to the domain name in question. In addition, our competitors and others could attempt to capitalize on our brand recognition by using domain names similar to ours. Domain names similar to ours have been registered by others in the United States and elsewhere. We may be unable to prevent third parties from acquiring and using domain names that infringe on, are similar to or otherwise decrease the value of our brand or our trademarks or service marks. Protecting and enforcing our rights in our domain names may require litigation, which could result in substantial costs and diversion of management’s attention.
Risks Related to Our Financial Statements and Tax Matters
We expect a number of factors to cause our operating results to fluctuate on a quarterly and annual basis, which may make it difficult to predict our future performance.
Our operating results could vary significantly from period to period as a result of a variety of factors, many of which may be outside of our control. This volatility increases the difficulty in predicting our future performance and means comparing our operating results on a period-to-period basis may not be meaningful. In addition to the other risk factors discussed in this section, factors that may contribute to the volatility of our operating results include:
• the impact of macroeconomic conditions on local economies, including the current uncertain economic environment, as well as the resulting effect on consumer spending at local businesses and the level of advertising spending by local businesses;
• changes in advertiser budgets or their ability to pay for our products, including due to the impact of adverse macroeconomic conditions;
• changes in consumer behavior with respect to local businesses, such as increased demand for food delivery;
• changes in the products we offer and the market acceptance of those products and online advertising solutions generally;
• changes or updates to our business strategies;
• changes in our pricing policies and terms of contracts, whether initiated by us or as a result of competition;
• changes in the markets in which we operate, such as the wind down of our international sales and marketing operations to focus on our core markets of the United States and Canada;
• cyclicality and seasonality, which may become further pronounced as our growth rate slows;
• the effects of changes in search engine placement and prominence, such as Google’s incorporation of AI-generated responses to search queries above its organic search results;
• the adoption of any laws or regulations that adversely affect the growth, popularity or use of the Internet, such as the repeal of Internet neutrality regulations in the United States;
• the success of our sales and marketing efforts;
• adverse litigation judgments, settlements or other litigation-related costs, including the costs associated with investigating and defending claims;
• interruptions in service and any related impact on our reputation;
• changes in our tax rates or exposure to additional tax liabilities;
• new accounting pronouncements or changes in existing accounting standards and practices; and
• the effects of natural or man-made catastrophic events.
Table of Contents
We rely on data from internal tools to calculate our performance metrics. Real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.
We track our key performance metrics with internal tools, which are not independently verified by any third party. Our internal tools have a number of limitations and our methodologies for tracking these metrics may change over time, which could result in unexpected changes to our metrics, including key metrics that we report. If the internal tools we use to track these metrics over- or under-count performance or contain algorithm or other technical errors, the data we report may not be accurate and our understanding of certain details of our business may be distorted, which could affect our longer-term strategies. For example, in 2018, we discovered a software error that caused our previously reported claimed local business locations metric to be overstated for the third quarter of 2017 through the first quarter of 2018, and revised them accordingly. Our metrics may also be affected by mobile applications that automatically contact our servers for regular updates with no discernible user action involved; this activity can cause our system to count the device associated with the app as an app unique device in a given period. Although we take steps to exclude such activity and, as a result, do not believe it has had a material impact on our reported metrics, our efforts may not account for all such activity.
There are also inherent challenges in measuring usage across our large user base. For example, because our traffic metrics are based on users with unique identifiers, an individual who accesses our website from multiple devices with different identifiers may be counted as multiple unique devices, and multiple individuals who access our website from a shared device with a single identifier may be counted as a single unique device. In addition, although we use technology designed to block low-quality traffic, such as robots, spiders and other software, we may not be able to prevent all such traffic, and such technology may have the effect of blocking some valid traffic. For these and other reasons, the calculations of our desktop unique devices and mobile website unique devices may not accurately reflect the number of people actually visiting our website.
We are continually seeking to improve our ability to measure these key metrics, and regularly review our processes to assess potential improvements to their accuracy. For example, in 2025, as a result of such a review, we updated our methodology for measuring our desktop unique devices metric to exclude devices that visit the Yelp home page, but take no further action. Although this change did not have a material impact on the desktop unique devices reported for previous years, we have adjusted the number of desktop unique devices we are reporting for 2024 to remove such traffic to provide greater accuracy and transparency, as well as for comparative purposes against 2025.
Our measures of traffic and other key metrics may differ from estimates published by third parties or from similar metrics of our competitors. In addition, as both the industry in which we operate and our business continue to evolve, so too might the metrics by which we evaluate our business. We may revise or cease reporting metrics if we determine such metrics are no longer accurate, appropriate or relevant measures of our performance. For example, we stopped reporting our claimed local business locations metric and instead disclose the number of active claimed local business locations, which we believe provides a better measure of the number of businesses that represent the highest quality leads available to our local sales force than our claimed local business locations metric. We also phased out our paid advertising accounts metric and replaced it with paid advertising locations, which we believe provides a better measurement of our market penetration. If our users, advertisers, partners and stockholders do not perceive our metrics to be accurate representations, or if we discover material inaccuracies in our metrics, our reputation may be .
We have incurred significant operating losses in the past, and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to maintain profitability. Our failure to achieve an adequate growth rate will adversely affect our business and results of operations.
You should not rely on the revenue growth of any prior quarterly or annual period, or the net income we realize in certain periods, as an indication of our future performance. Although our revenue has grown significantly over time, our revenue growth rate has decelerated in recent periods — even turning negative year over year in the fourth quarter of 2025 — as a result of a variety of factors, including the maturation of our business. Moreover, our strategy to grow our business involves significant risks and executing on it may prove more difficult than we currently anticipate.
Our revenue has also been significantly negatively impacted as businesses reduced their advertising spending as a result of the adverse macroeconomic conditions impacting local economies. Advertiser demand from RR&O businesses remained weak throughout 2025, resulting in advertising revenue from RR&O businesses decreasing 6% year over year. We believe the performance of our RR&O categories in 2025 was primarily due to the challenging operating environment businesses in these categories continue to face, including supply chain issues, inflation and its impact on consumer spending, labor shortages and an increased cost of labor. As adverse conditions in local economies continued through 2025, they increasingly impacted our Services categories as well, as consumers forwent, delayed or scaled down services projects, which negatively impacted advertiser demand from businesses in these categories. We cannot predict the remaining duration of the current adverse
Table of Contents
economic conditions or the duration or magnitude of the adverse impact on our revenue; however, we expect the challenges facing local economies to persist and have a significant adverse impact on our results of operations in 2026.
Historically, our costs have increased each year and we expect our costs to increase in future periods as we continue to expend substantial financial resources on:
• product and feature development;
• sales and marketing;
• our technology infrastructure;
• market development efforts;
• strategic opportunities, including commercial relationships and acquisitions;
• our stock repurchase program; and
• general administration, including legal and accounting expenses related to being a public company.
These investments may not result in increased revenue or growth in our business. Our expenses may grow faster than our revenue and may be greater than we anticipate in a particular period or over time. If we are unable to maintain adequate revenue growth and to manage our expenses, we may continue to incur significant losses in the future and may not be able to maintain profitability.
If we default on our credit obligations, our business, revenue and financial results could be harmed.
We have a revolving credit facility (“credit facility”) established pursuant to our Revolving Credit and Guaranty Agreement, dated as of April 28, 2023, with certain lenders and JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as administrative agent and collateral agent, as amended by the First Amendment to Revolving Credit and Guaranty Agreement, dated as of December 18, 2025, with the lenders party thereto, JPMorgan Bank, N.A., as the existing administrative agent and collateral agent, and Wells Fargo Bank National Association, as the successor administrative agent and collateral agent (as amended, the “Credit Agreement”). The Credit Agreement provides our lenders with a first-priority lien against substantially all of our domestic assets, including certain domestic intellectual property, and contains financial covenants and other restrictions on our actions that limit our operational flexibility and may adversely affect our results of operations. It contains a number of covenants that limit our ability to, among other things, incur indebtedness, grant liens, make distributions, pay dividends, repurchase shares, make investments, or engage in transactions with our affiliates, merge or consolidate with other companies, sell material businesses or assets, or license or transfer certain of our intellectual property. We are also required to maintain certain financial covenants. Complying with these covenants may make it more difficult for us to successfully execute our business strategy and compete companies who are not subject to such restrictions.
If we fail to comply with the covenants under the Credit Agreement, lenders would have a right to, among other things, terminate the commitments to provide additional loans under the facility, enforce any liens on collateral securing the obligations under the facility, declare all outstanding loans and accrued interest and fees to be due and payable, and require us to post cash collateral to be held as security for any reimbursement obligations in respect of any outstanding letters of credit issued under the facility. If any remedies under the facility were exercised, we may not have sufficient cash or be able to borrow sufficient funds to refinance the debt or sell sufficient assets to repay the debt, which could immediately materially and adversely affect our business, cash flows, operations and financial condition. Even if we were able to obtain new financing, it may not be on commercially reasonable terms or on terms that are acceptable to us.
Additionally, the Credit Agreement utilizes Secured Overnight Financing Rate (“SOFR”) or various alternative methods to calculate the amount of accrued interest on any loans. If a published U.S. dollar SOFR is unavailable, the interest rates on our debt indexed to SOFR will be determined using one of the alternative methods, any of which could, at any time the revolver is drawn, result in interest obligations that are more than the current form, which could have a material adverse effect on our financing costs.
We operate in an evolving industry, which makes it difficult to evaluate our future prospects and may increase the risk that we will not be successful.
We operate in an evolving industry that may not develop as expected, if at all. If the demand for connecting consumers and local businesses does not develop as we expect, or if we fail to address the needs of this demand, our business will be harmed. This risk may be higher for initiatives incorporating AI technologies, including the product roadmap underlying our 2026 strategic initiatives, which are complex and rapidly evolving. As a result, our historical operating results may not be indicative
Table of Contents
of our future operating results, making it difficult to assess our future prospects. You should consider our business and prospects in light of the risks and difficulties we may encounter in this rapidly evolving industry, which we may not be able to address successfully. These risks and difficulties include numerous factors, many of which we are unable to predict or are outside of our control, including those discussed elsewhere in these Risk Factors. Failure to address these risks and difficulties adequately could harm our business and cause our operating results to suffer.
If our goodwill or intangible assets become impaired, we may be required to record a significant charge to our statements of operations.
We have recorded a significant amount of goodwill related to our acquisitions to date, and a significant portion of the purchase price of any companies we acquire in the future may be allocated to acquired goodwill and other intangible assets. Under accounting principles generally accepted in the United States (“GAAP”), we review our intangible assets for impairment when events or changes in circumstances indicate the carrying value of our goodwill and other intangible assets may not be recoverable. Goodwill is required to be tested for impairment at least annually. Factors that may be considered include declines in our stock price, market capitalization and future cash flow projections. If our acquisitions do not yield expected returns, our stock price declines or any other adverse change in market conditions occurs, a change to the estimation of fair value could result.
For example, we performed an impairment test after identifying indicators of impairment during the first quarter of 2020 as a result of COVID-19. While we ultimately recorded only an immaterial impairment charge related to intangible assets as a result of this test, any further adverse changes in our business environment, stock price, market capitalization and future cash flow projections could result in additional impairment charges to our intangible assets or goodwill, particularly if such change impacts any of our critical assumptions or estimates, and may have a negative impact on our financial position and operating results.
We may require additional capital to support business growth, and such capital might not be available on acceptable terms, if at all.
We intend to continue to invest in our business and may require or otherwise seek additional funds to respond to business challenges, including the need to develop new features and products, enhance our existing services, improve our operating infrastructure and acquire complementary businesses and technologies. As a result, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. If our access to capital is restricted or our borrowing costs increase as a result of developments in financial markets relating to the current macroeconomic uncertainty or otherwise, our operations and financial condition could be adversely impacted.
If we raise additional funds through future issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences and privileges superior to those of our common stock. Any future debt financing we secure could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. We may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, if at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when we require it, our ability to continue to support our business growth and respond to business challenges could be significantly impaired, and our business may be harmed.
We may have exposure to greater than anticipated tax liabilities.
Our income tax obligations are based in part on our corporate operating structure and intercompany arrangements, including the manner in which we develop, value and use our intellectual property and the valuations of our intercompany transactions. For example, our corporate structure includes legal entities located in a jurisdiction with an income tax rate lower than the U.S. statutory tax rate. Our intercompany arrangements allocate income to such entities in accordance with arm’s length principles and commensurate with functions performed, risks assumed and ownership of valuable corporate assets. We believe that income taxed in certain foreign jurisdictions at a lower rate relative to the U.S. statutory rate will have a beneficial impact on our worldwide effective tax rate.
However, significant judgment is required in evaluating our tax positions and determining our provision for income taxes. During the ordinary course of business, there are many transactions and calculations for which the ultimate tax determination is uncertain. For example, our effective tax rates could be adversely affected by changes in the valuation of our deferred tax assets and liabilities, or by changes in relevant tax, accounting and other laws, regulations, principles and interpretations.
Table of Contents
In addition, the application of the tax laws of various jurisdictions, including the United States, to our international business activities is subject to interpretation and depends on our ability to operate our business in a manner consistent with our corporate structure and intercompany arrangements. The taxing authorities of jurisdictions in which we operate may challenge our methodologies for valuing developed technology or intercompany arrangements, including our transfer pricing, or determine that the manner in which we operate our business does not achieve the intended tax consequences, which could increase our worldwide effective tax rate and harm our financial position and results of operations. As we operate in numerous taxing jurisdictions, the application of tax laws can also be subject to diverging and sometimes conflicting interpretations by tax authorities of these jurisdictions. It is not uncommon for taxing authorities in different countries to have conflicting views, for instance, with respect to, among other things, the manner in which the arm’s-length standard is applied for transfer pricing purposes, or with respect to the valuation of intellectual property.
Changes in tax laws or tax rulings, or the examination of our tax positions, could materially affect our financial position and results of operations.
Tax laws are dynamic and subject to change as new laws are passed and new interpretations of the law are issued or applied. Our current practices, existing corporate structure and intercompany arrangements have been implemented in a manner we believe is in compliance with current prevailing tax laws. However, the tax benefits that we intend to eventually derive could be undermined due to changing tax laws or new interpretations of existing laws that are inconsistent with previous interpretations or positions taken by taxing authorities on which we have relied.
For example, the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”), which was enacted on December 22, 2017, made broad and complex changes to the U.S. tax code, including, among other things, reducing the federal corporate tax rate. Beginning in 2022, the Tax Act required the capitalization of research and development expenses with amortization periods over 5 or 15 years pursuant to Internal Revenue Code Section 174 (“Section 174”). In July 2025, the congressional bill known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (“OBBBA”) was signed into law, which, among other things, restored certain favorable corporate tax provisions, including permitting full expensing of domestic research and development expenses. We will continue to monitor future developments, including regulatory guidance and interpretations, which could have a material impact.
Furthermore, taxing authorities in various U.S. states as well as other jurisdictions worldwide have enacted or proposed new tax laws, rules and regulations directed at taxing the digital economy and multinational entities. Over the last several years, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) has been working on a Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Project with model rules that, if implemented, would change various aspects of the existing framework under which our tax obligations are determined in certain countries where we do business. Although this framework is subject to further negotiation and implementation by each member country, many countries have approved its 15% global minimum tax rate, among other provisions. If additional jurisdictions adopt the OECD’s framework, and as transition relief expires and other provisions of the framework become effective in jurisdictions that have adopted the framework, our effective tax rate and cash tax payments could increase. In January 2026, the OECD released guidance known as the “side-by-side package,” which introduced additional permanent and transitional safe harbors to the global minimum tax rules; however, this package represents international tax guidance only, and, as a result, the overall effect on our future tax obligations remain uncertain. Various jurisdictions have also unilaterally enacted or are considering a digital services tax on companies that generate revenues from the pr ovision of digital services. These ongoing efforts to modernize the international tax framework and address the digitalization of the global economy could increase our future tax obligations. We will continue to monitor the developments and assess any impacts on our long-term tax planning and consolidated financial statements.
In addition, the taxing authorities in the United States and other jurisdictions where we do business regularly examine our income and other tax returns. The ultimate outcome of these examinations cannot be predicted with certainty. Should the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) or other taxing authorities assess additional taxes as a result of examinations or changes to applicable law or interpretations of the law, we may be required to record charges to our operations, which could harm our business, operating results and financial condition.
Risks Related to Regulatory Compliance and Legal Matters
We are, and may be in the future, subject to disputes and assertions that we violate the rights of other parties. These disputes may be costly to defend and could harm our business and operating results.
We currently face, and we expect to face from time to time in the future, allegations that we have violated the rights of other parties, including patent, trademark, copyright and other intellectual property rights, privacy or data protection rights of our users, and the rights of current and former employees, users and business owners.
Table of Contents
The nature of our business also exposes us to claims relating to the information posted on our platform, including claims for defamation, libel, negligence and patent, copyright or trademark infringement, among others. For example, businesses have in the past claimed, and may in the future claim, that we are responsible for the content of reviews posted by our users. We expect claims like these to continue, and potentially increase in proportion to the amount of content on our platform. In some instances, we may elect or be compelled to remove the content that is the subject of such claims, or may be forced to pay substantial damages if we are unsuccessful in our efforts to defend against these claims. For example, laws in Germany may impose significant for to comply with certain content removal and disclosure obligations. If we elect or are compelled to remove content from our platform, our products and services may become less useful to consumers and our traffic may be , which would have a impact on our business. This risk may increase if the protections afforded us by CDA 230 are limited by legislative or judicial actions. This risk may also be in certain jurisdictions outside of the United States where our protection from such liability may be unclear.
We are also regularly exposed to claims based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. Companies in the Internet, technology and media industries own large numbers of patent and other intellectual property rights, and frequently enter into litigation. Various “non-practicing entities” that own patents and other intellectual property rights also often aggressively attempt to assert claims in order to extract value from technology companies. From time to time, we receive complaints that certain of our products and services may violate the intellectual property rights of others, and have previously been involved in patent lawsuits, including lawsuits involving plaintiffs targeting multiple defendants in the same or similar suits. While we have pursued a number of patent applications, we currently have only limited patent protection for our core business, and the contractual restrictions and trade secrets that protect our proprietary technology provide only limited safeguards appropriation. This may make it more to certain of our intellectual property rights, particularly related to our core business.
We expect other claims to be made against us in the future, and the results of litigation and claims to which we may be subject cannot be predicted with any certainty. Even if the claims are without merit, the costs associated with defending against them have in the past been and may in the future be substantial in terms of time, money and management distraction. In particular, patent and other intellectual property litigation may be protracted and expensive, and the results may require us to stop offering certain features, purchase licenses or modify our products and features while we develop non-infringing substitutes, or otherwise involve significant settlement costs. The development of alternative non-infringing technology or practices could require significant effort and expense or may not be feasible. Even if claims do not result in or are resolved in our favor without significant cash settlements, such matters, and the time and resources necessary to them, could our business, results of operations and reputation.
Our business is subject to complex and evolving domestic and foreign laws, regulations and other obligations related to privacy, data protection, data security and other matters. Our actual or perceived failure to comply with such laws, regulations and obligations (or that of the third parties with whom we work) could harm our business.
We and the third parties with whom we work are subject to numerous domestic and foreign laws and regulations that involve matters central to our business, including laws regarding privacy, data protection, data security, user-generated content and consumer protection, among others, as described in more detail under the section titled “ Business—Government Regulation ” in Part I, Item 1 of this Annual Report. For example, we are subject to numerous laws around the world that restrict the collection, use, storing, processing and disclosure of personal information and other user data. We are also subject to a variety of laws, regulations and guidelines that regulate the way we distinguish paid search results and other types of advertising from unpaid search results. We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, and many laws and regulations that impact our business are being proposed, are still evolving or are being tested in courts, which adds to the complexity of operating our business.
Our business could be adversely affected if we are required to change our current policies, practices or the design of our platform, products or features based on new laws, regulations or judicial interpretations. For example, in 2022, the European Union enacted the Digital Services Act (“DSA”), which included extensive new obligations for online platforms related to content moderation and transparency. The DSA introduced “trusted flaggers” with rights to expedited decisions on the reports they make to platforms, mandated an appeals process for content moderation decisions and gave consumers the right to challenge those decisions with out-of-court settlement bodies. Fines for failing to comply with the DSA can reach 6% of worldwide annual turnover. Similarly, in late 2023, the United Kingdom enacted the Online Safety Act (“OSA”), which created a new duty of care for online platforms, requiring various proactive efforts to protect users from “harmful” content. Violations of OSA are subject to fines up to 10% of worldwide annual turnover. Aspects of the DSA, OSA and other new and emerging laws concerning content moderation and , including at the state and federal levels in the United States, remain unclear and we may be required to modify our policies and practices further in an effort to comply with them.
Table of Contents
Regulatory frameworks for privacy issues and behavioral advertising are also currently in flux worldwide and are trending toward more restrictive obligations. Changes to privacy and data security laws could make it more difficult for consumers to use our platform, resulting in lower traffic and revenue, or make it more difficult for us to provide effective advertising tools to businesses on our platform, resulting in fewer advertisers and lower revenue. Delivering targeted advertising off Yelp in particular is becoming more difficult due to changes in our ability to gather information about user behavior through third-party platforms, new laws and regulations, and consumer resistance. Current and proposed laws and regulations regulate the use of cookies and other tracking technologies, electronic communications and marketing. For example, in addition to giving residents expansive rights related to their personal information, various state privacy laws govern the “sale” of personal information, allow users to opt out of targeted advertising and, in certain states, require the adoption of universal opt-out signals for targeted advertising and the sale of data. If these and other future restrictions negatively impact our ability to offer ad products that are highly targeted to audience interests, or to measure the effectiveness of our ad products, such as our ability to offer store-level attribution through integrations with third-party data partners, our ability to maintain and expand our base of advertisers will be . In addition, if we encounter widespread consumer withholding of consent, opt-outs of targeted advertising, or adoption of universal opt-out signals, “do not track” mechanisms or “ad-blocking” software to prevent the collection of personal information for targeted advertising purposes, we may be required to change the way we market our products, our ability to reach new or existing customers may be materially or our operations may be otherwise .
These challenges may be compounded to the extent that different jurisdictions adopt inconsistent or conflicting laws and regulations applicable to our business, which would add complexity to our operations and increase our compliance costs. For example, laws in all states and U.S. territories require businesses to notify affected individuals and governmental entities of the occurrence of certain security breaches affecting personal information. However, these laws are not consistent, and compliance with them in the event of a widespread data breach would be complex and costly. It is also possible that the interpretation and application of various laws and regulations may conflict with other rules or our practices, such as industry standards to which we adhere, our privacy policies and our privacy-related obligations to third parties (including, in certain instances, voluntary third-party certification bodies).
Uncertainty regarding the application and interpretation of existing laws and regulations due to court challenges, evolving legislation or regulator interpretation may also result in a significantly greater compliance burden for us. For example, there have been ongoing efforts to restrict the scope of the critical liability protections afforded to online platforms like ours under CDA 230, which could increase our content moderation costs and our exposure to liability in connection with the publication of third-party content, including user-generated reviews. There have also been efforts to limit the applicability of CDA 230 to new types of content, such as AI-generated content. Changes to CDA 230 or new interpretations of its application, whether the result of legislative, administrative or judicial action, could also cause us to remove more content from our platform, particularly critical consumer commentary, in response to takedown demands that may or may not be legitimate, which would negatively affect the quality and quantity of information available through our service. Similarly, the mechanisms for transferring personal information from Europe and the United Kingdom to the United States in compliance with the GDPR and UK GDPR have been subject to legal challenges, and there is no assurance that we can or rely on these measures to lawfully transfer personal data to the United States. If there is no lawful manner for us to transfer personal data from Europe or the United Kingdom to the United States, or if the requirements for legally compliant transfers are too , we could face significant consequences, including increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial , and processing or transferring personal information from Europe, and may be required to increase our data processing capabilities in Europe at significant expense.
In addition to various laws and regulations, we are or may become bound by industry standards and other contractual obligations, particularly related to data privacy and security, and our efforts to comply with such obligations may not be successful. We must also comply with the technical requirements and policies of the search engines, application marketplace operators , mobile operating systems and other third-party products and services on which we rely. For example, Apple has made certain changes to its products and data use policies in connection with changes to its iOS operating system that reduce our ability to target and measure advertising across third-party platforms. Key web browsers, including Safari and Firefox, disable certain third-party tracking cookies by default. While we believe we comply with these requirements, these third parties generally retain discretion to interpret them and may discontinue our access to such products and services, which would harm our business. We also publish privacy policies, marketing materials and other statements, such as compliance with certain third-party certifications, regarding data privacy and security. If these policies, materials or statements are found to be deficient, lacking in transparency, , or not representative of our practices, we may be subject to , enforcement actions by regulators or other consequences.
Our actual or perceived failure to comply with laws, regulations and other obligations has led to, and could lead to further, costly legal actions, which in turn could result in adverse publicity, significant liability and decreased demand for our services, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and financial condition. For example, our failure or perceived
Table of Contents
failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations may result, and in some cases has resulted, in inquiries and other proceedings, lawsuits and actions against us by governments, regulators or others. Responding to and resolving any current or future litigation, investigations, settlements or other regulatory actions may require significant time and resources, and could diminish confidence in, and the use of, our products. We may also be forced to implement new measures to reduce our legal exposure, which may require us to expend substantial resources, delay development of new products or discontinue certain products or features, which would negatively impact our business. For example, if we fail to comply with our privacy-related obligations to users or third parties, or any compromise of security that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of personal information or other user data, we may be compelled to provide additional disclosures to our users, obtain additional consents from our users before collecting or using their information or implement new safeguards to help our users manage our use of their information, among other changes. Any resulting publicity could affect our reputation and brand, regardless of whether the internal resources expended and expenses incurred in connection with such inquiries and their resolutions are material.
The requirements of being a public company may strain our resources, divert management’s attention and affect our ability to attract and retain qualified board members.
As a public company, we are subject to the reporting requirements of the Exchange Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, the Dodd-Frank Act, the listing requirements of the New York Stock Exchange LLC (“NYSE”) and other applicable securities rules and regulations. Compliance with these rules and regulations has increased, and will likely continue to increase, our legal and financial compliance costs, make some activities more difficult, time-consuming or costly, and place significant strain on our personnel, systems and resources. In addition, changing laws, regulations and standards relating to corporate governance and public disclosure are creating uncertainty for public companies, increasing legal and financial compliance costs and making some activities more time consuming. These laws, regulations and standards are subject to varying interpretations, in many cases due to their lack of specificity, and, as a result, their application in practice may evolve over time. This could result in continuing uncertainty regarding compliance matters, higher administrative expenses and a diversion of management’s time and attention. Further, if our compliance efforts differ from the activities intended by regulatory or governing bodies due to ambiguities related to practice, regulatory authorities may initiate legal proceedings against us and our business may be . Being a public company that is subject to these rules and regulations also makes it more expensive for us to obtain and retain director and officer liability insurance, and we may in the future be required to accept reduced coverage or incur substantially higher costs to obtain or retain adequate coverage. These factors could also make it more for us to attract and retain qualified members of our Board and qualified executive officers.
Risks Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
Our share price has been and will likely continue to be volatile.
The trading price of our common stock has been, and is likely to continue to be, highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. In addition to the factors discussed in these Risk Factors and elsewhere in this Annual Report, factors that may cause volatility in our share price include:
• the impact of adverse macroeconomic conditions on local economies, including the current challenging operating environment for local businesses, as well as the timing and pace of recovery;
• actual or anticipated fluctuations in our financial condition and operating results;
• changes in projected operating and financial results;
• actual or anticipated changes in our growth rate relative to our competitors;
• repurchases of our common stock pursuant to our stock repurchase program, which could also cause our stock price to be higher that it would be in the absence of such a program and could potentially reduce the market liquidity for our stock;
• announcements of changes in strategy;
• announcements of technological innovations or new offerings by us or our competitors;
• announcements by us or our competitors of significant acquisitions, strategic partnerships, joint ventures or capital-raising activities or commitments;
• additions or departures of key personnel;
• actions of securities analysts who cover our company, such as publishing research or forecasts about our business (and our performance against such forecasts), changing the rating of our common stock or ceasing coverage of our company;
Table of Contents
• investor sentiment, including that of derivatives traders, with respect to us or our competitors, business partners and industry in general;
• any disruption to the proper operation of our network infrastructure or compromise of our security measures;
• any failure to maintain effective controls or difficulties encountered in their implementation or improvement;
• reporting on our business by the financial media, including television, radio and press reports and blogs;
• fluctuations in the value of companies perceived by investors to be comparable to us;
• changes in the way we measure our key metrics, such as our new methodology for measuring traffic to our website;
• sales of our common stock;
• changes in laws or regulations applicable to our solutions;
• share price and volume fluctuations attributable to inconsistent trading volume levels of our shares; and
• general economic and market conditions such as recessions or interest rate changes.
Furthermore, in recent periods of macroeconomic uncertainty, the stock markets have experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. In some cases, these fluctuations have been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. In the past, companies that have experienced volatility in the market price of their stock have been subject to securities class action litigation. For example, in January 2018, we and certain of our officers were sued in a putative class action lawsuit alleging violations of the federal securities laws for allegedly making materially false and misleading statements. We may be the target of additional litigation of this type in the future as well. Securities litigation against us could result in substantial costs and our management’s time and attention from other business , which could our business.
We cannot guarantee that our stock repurchase program will be fully consummated or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value. Share repurchases could also increase the volatility of the trading price of our stock and could diminish our cash reserves.
Since we implemented our stock repurchase program in July 2017, our Board has authorized the repurchase of up to an aggregate of $2.45 billion of our common stock, of which $513.7 million remained available as of February 17, 2026 and which does not have an expiration date. Although our Board has authorized this repurchase program, the program does not obligate us to repurchase any specific dollar amount or to acquire any specific number of shares. The actual timing and amount of repurchases remain subject to a variety of factors, including liquidity, cash flow and market conditions, all of which may be negatively impacted by the current uncertain macroeconomic conditions. In addition, the terms of our Credit Agreement impose limitations on our ability to repurchase shares during the term of our revolving credit facility. We cannot guarantee that the program will be fully consummated or that it will enhance long-term stockholder value. The program could affect the trading price of our stock and increase volatility, and any announcement of a termination of this program may result in a decrease in the trading price of our stock. In addition, this program could diminish our cash and cash equivalents, and marketable securities.
We do not intend to pay dividends for the foreseeable future and, as a result, our stockholders’ ability to achieve a return on their investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.
We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not intend to pay any cash dividends in the foreseeable future. Any determination to pay dividends in the future will be at the discretion of our Board. Accordingly, investors must rely on sales of their common stock after price appreciation, which may never occur, as the only way to realize future gains on their investments.
Anti-takeover provisions in our charter documents and under Delaware law could make an acquisition of our Company more difficult, limit attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management and limit the market price of our common stock.
Provisions in our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws may have the effect of delaying or preventing a change in control or changes in our Board and management. Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and amended and restated bylaws include provisions that:
• authorize our Board to issue, without further action by the stockholders, up to 10,000,000 shares of undesignated preferred stock;
Table of Contents
• require that any action to be taken by our stockholders be effected at a duly called annual or special meeting and not by written consent;
• specify that special meetings of our stockholders can be called only by our Board, the Chair of our Board or our Chief Executive Officer;
• establish an advance notice procedure for stockholder proposals to be brought before an annual meeting, including proposed nominations of persons for election to our Board;
• prohibit cumulative voting in the election of directors;
• provide that vacancies on our Board may be filled only by a majority of directors then in office, even though less than a quorum; and
• require the approval of our Board or the holders of a supermajority of our outstanding shares of capital stock to amend our bylaws and certain provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation.
These provisions may frustrate or prevent any attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our current management by making it more difficult for stockholders to replace members of our Board, which is responsible for appointing the members of our management. In addition, because we are incorporated in Delaware, we are governed by the provisions of Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law, which generally prohibits a Delaware corporation from engaging in any of a broad range of business combinations with any “interested” stockholder for a period of three years following the date on which the stockholder became an “interested” stockholder.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the U.S. federal district courts will be the exclusive forums for the adjudication of certain disputes, which could limit our stockholders’ ability to obtain a favorable judicial forum for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or employees.
Our amended and restated certificate of incorporation provides that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware is the sole and exclusive forum for the following types of actions or proceedings under Delaware statutory or common law:
• any derivative action or proceeding brought on our behalf;
• any action asserting a claim of breach of a fiduciary duty owed by any director, officer or other employee of Yelp to us or our stockholders;
• any action asserting a claim against us arising pursuant to any provision of the General Corporation Law of the State of Delaware, our amended and restated certificate of incorporation or our amended and restated bylaws; and
• any action asserting a claim against us that is governed by the internal affairs doctrine.
This exclusive-forum provision would not apply to suits brought to enforce a duty or liability created by the Exchange Act.
Furthermore, section 22 of the Securities Act creates concurrent jurisdiction for federal and state courts over all Securities Act actions. Accordingly, both state and federal courts have jurisdiction to entertain such claims. To prevent having to litigate claims in multiple jurisdictions and the threat of inconsistent or contrary rulings by different courts, among other considerations, our amended and restated bylaws provide that the U.S. federal district courts will be the exclusive forum for resolving any compliant asserting a cause of action arising under the Securities Act.
While the Delaware courts have determined that such choice of forum provisions are facially valid, a stockholder may nevertheless seek to bring a claim in a venue other than those designated in the exclusive forum provisions. In such instance, we would expect to vigorously assert the validity and enforceability of the exclusive forum provisions of our amended and restated certificate of incorporation and bylaws. This may require significant additional costs associated with resolving such action in other jurisdictions and there can be no assurance that the provisions will be enforced by a court in such other jurisdictions.
These exclusive-forum provisions further provide that any person or entity that acquires any interest in shares of our capital stock will be deemed to have notice of and consented to such provisions and may limit a stockholder’s ability to bring a claim in a judicial forum that it finds favorable for disputes with us or our directors, officers, or other employees, which may discourage lawsuits against us and our directors, officers, and other employees. If a court were to find either exclusive-forum provision to be inapplicable or unenforceable in an action, we may incur further significant additional costs associated with resolving the dispute in other jurisdictions, all of which could harm our business.
Table of Contents
Future sales of our common stock in the public market could cause our share price to decline.
Sales of a substantial number of shares of our common stock in the public market, particularly sales by our directors, officers, employees and significant stockholders, or the perception that these sales might occur, could depress the market price of our common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. As of December 31, 2025, we had 59,954,496 shares of common stock outstanding.
