Why is Yelp the 10th most popular website?

According to Quantcast, Yelp is the tenth most popular website on desktop and the second most popular website on mobile in the United States. With so many sites out there, why is Yelp so special?

My theory involves Yelp’s use of identity. Identity is central to the human experience. One of the first things we learn is how to say our names, “I am Eisaiah. I am Susie. I am Peter.”

Yelp’s users call themselves as “Yelpers.” Top users are called “Yelp Elites.” Businesses identify themselves with stickers that say, “People love us on Yelp.” In the video above, there are 41 pieces of my identity attached to my Yelp profile.

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Why do people visit the top 10 Quantcast sites?

My friend Nicholas Mac Connell says that, “People read to answer questions.” Maybe this also explains why people visit the 10 most popular websites according to Quantcast.

Here are the questions that I think the top 10 websites answer.

RANK SITE QUESTION ANSWERED
1 What answer?
2 What story?
3 What person?
4 What news?
5 What answer?
6 What news?
7 What tool?
8 What person?
9 What trade / deal?
10 What opinion?

After adjusting for duplicates, we get the seven (7) most popular questions in the U.S. that drive people to websites on both desktop and mobile devices:

  1. what answers?
  2. what news?
  3. what people?
  4. what stories?
  5. what tools?
  6. what trades / deals?
  7. what opinions?

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