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 did I rebrand from David to Eisaiah?

On my 29th birthday in 2015, I rebranded from David Engel to my middle name, D. Eisaiah Engel. There are three reasons for the change:

  • When you type ‘David Engel’ into Google, there is a successful broadway actor and plenty of lawyers, professors and doctors all competing for placement in the SERP (SERP is an acronym which stands for: search engine results page). I am all for competition, but there are too many awesome people named David Engel. This was not one that I could win.

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