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UNITED STATES
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
Form 10-K
☑    ANNUAL REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the fiscal year ended December 31, 20192021
OR
    TRANSITION REPORT PURSUANT TO SECTION 13 OR 15(d) OF THE SECURITIES EXCHANGE ACT OF 1934
For the transition period from to
Commission file number: 001-35444
YELP INC.
(Exact name of Registrant as specified in its charter)

Delaware20-1854266
(State or other jurisdiction of incorporation or organization)(I.R.S. Employer Identification No.)

140 New Montgomery350 Mission Street, 910th Floor
San Francisco, California 94105
(Address of principal executive offices) (Zip Code)
Registrant’s telephone number, including area code: (415) 908-3801

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:
Title of Each ClassTrading Symbol(s)Name of Each Exchange on Which Registered
Common Stock, par value $0.000001 per shareYELPNew York Stock Exchange LLC
Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:
None
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.
Yes ☑ No ¨
Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.
Yes ¨ No ☑
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days. Yes ☑ No ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has submitted electronically every Interactive Data File required to be submitted pursuant to Rule 405 of Regulation S-T during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to submit such files). Yes ☑ No ¨


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Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, a smaller reporting company or an emerging growth company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer,” “smaller reporting company” and “emerging growth company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act.
Large accelerated filerAccelerated filer
Non-accelerated filerSmaller reporting company
Emerging growth company
If an emerging growth company, indicate by check mark if the registrant has elected not to use the extended transition period for complying with any new or revised financial accounting standards provided pursuant to Section 13(a) of the Exchange Act ¨
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant has filed a report on and attestation to its management's assessment of the effectiveness of its internal control over financial reporting under Section 404(b) of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (15 U.S.C. 7262(b)) by the registered public accounting firm that prepared or issued its audit report. ☑
Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act). Yes No ☑
The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates of the registrant was approximately $1,991,454,326$2,538,873,385 as of June 30, 2019,2021, the last day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter, based upon the closing sale price of the registrant’s common stock on the New York Stock Exchange LLC reported for June 28, 2019, the last business day of the registrant's most recently completed second fiscal quarter.30, 2020. Excludes an aggregate of 13,668,05811,054,537 shares of the registrant’s common stock held by officers, directors, affiliated stockholders and The Yelp Foundation as of June 30, 2019.2021. For purposes of determining whether a stockholder was an affiliate of the registrant at June 30, 2019,2021, the registrant assumed that a stockholder was an affiliate of the registrant if such stockholder (i) beneficially owned 10% or more of the registrant’s capital stock, as determined based on public filings, and/or (ii) was an executive officer or director, or was affiliated with an executive officer or director, of the registrant at June 30, 2019.2021. Exclusion of such shares should not be construed to indicate that any such person possesses the power, direct or indirect, to direct or cause the direction of the management or policies of the registrant or that such person is controlled by or under common control with the registrant.
As of February 21, 2020,18, 2022, there were 71,839,64971,104,767 shares of the registrant’s common stock, par value $0.000001 per share, issued and outstanding.
DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE
Portions of the registrant’s definitive Proxy Statement for the 20202022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders to be filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pursuant to Regulation 14A not later than 120 days after the end of the fiscal year covered by this Annual Report on Form 10-K are incorporated by reference in Part III, Items 10-14 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.



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YELP INC.
20192021 ANNUAL REPORT ON FORM 10-K
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PART I
PART II
PART III
PART IV
FINANCIAL STATEMENTS

Unless the context suggests otherwise, references in this Annual Report on Form 10-K (the “Annual Report”) to “Yelp,” the “Company,” “we,” “us” and “our” refer to Yelp Inc. and, where appropriate, its subsidiaries.
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Unless the context otherwise indicates, where we refer in this Annual Report to our “mobile application” or “mobile app,” we refer to all of our consumer applications for mobile-enabled devices; references to our “mobile platform” refer to both our mobile app and the versions of our consumer-facing website that are optimized for mobile-based browsers. Similarly, references to our “website” refer to versions of our consumer-facing website dedicated to both desktop- and mobile-based browsers, as well as the U.S. and international versions of our consumer-facing website. These terms do not refer to the Yelp for Business Owners mobile application, web-based versions of our business owner account or other business owner products unless stated.

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS
This Annual Report contains forward-looking statements that involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause our results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. The statements contained in this Annual Report that are not purely historical are forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended or the Securities Act,(the “Securities Act”), and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended or the Exchange Act.(the “Exchange Act”). Forward-looking statements are often identified by the use of words such as, but not limited to, “anticipate,” “believe,” “can,” “continue,” “could,” “estimate,” “expect,” “intend,” “may,” “might,” “plan,” “project,” “seek,” “should,” “target,” “will,” “would” and similar expressions or variations intended to identify forward-looking statements. These statements are based on the beliefs and assumptions of our management, which are in turn based on information currently available to management. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties and other important factors that could cause actual results and the timing of certain events to differ materially from future results expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Factors that could cause or contribute to such differences include, but are not limited to, those discussed in the section entitled “Risk Factors” included under Part I, Item 1A below. Furthermore, such forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this report. Except as required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date of such statements.
NOTE REGARDING METRICS
We review a number of performance metrics to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends in our business, prepare financial projections and make strategic decisions. Please see the section titled “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Key Metrics” for information on how we define our key metrics. Unless otherwise stated, these metrics do not include metrics from Yelp Reservations, Yelp Waitlist, Yelp WiFi Marketing,subscription products or our business owner products or Yelp Eat24, which we sold on October 10, 2017.products.
While our metrics are based on what we believe to be reasonable calculations, there are inherent challenges in measuring usage across our large user base. Certain of our performance metrics, including the number of unique devices accessing our mobile app, ad clicks, average cost-per-click (“CPC”) and active claimed local business locations, are tracked with internal company tools, which are not independently verified by any third party and have a number of limitations. For example, our metrics may 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 successfully account for all such activity.
Our metrics that are calculated based on data from third parties — the number of desktop and mobile website unique visitors — are subject to similar limitations. Our third-party providers periodically encounter difficulties in providing accurate data for such metrics as a result of a variety of factors, including human and software errors. In addition, because these traffic metrics are tracked based on unique cookie identifiers, an individual who accesses our website from multiple devices with different cookies may be counted as multiple unique visitors, and multiple individuals who access our website from a shared device with a single cookie may be counted as a single unique visitor. As a result, the calculations of our unique visitors may not accurately reflect the number of people actually visiting our website.
Our measures of traffic and other key metrics may also differ from estimates published by third parties (other than those whose data we use to calculate such metrics) or from similar metrics of our competitors. 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. From time to time, we may discover inaccuracies in our metrics or make adjustments to improve their accuracy, including adjustments that may result in the recalculation of our historical metrics. We believe that any such inaccuracies or adjustments are immaterial unless otherwise stated.
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RISK FACTOR SUMMARY
Our business operations are subject to numerous risks and uncertainties, including the risks described in the section titled "Risk Factors" included under Part I, Item 1A of this Annual Report, that could cause our business, financial condition or operating results to be harmed, including risks regarding the following:
Business and Industry
the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic;
our ability to maintain and expand our advertiser base;
our ability to execute on our strategic initiatives and the effectiveness thereof;
our ability to hire, retain, motivate and effectively manage well-qualified employees;
our ability to maintain and increase user engagement on our platform;
competition in our industry;
our reliance on third-party service providers and strategic partners;
our reliance on internet search engines and application marketplaces;
our ability to generate, maintain and recommend sufficient content that consumers find relevant, helpful and reliable;
our ability to maintain, protect and enhance our brand;
Technology and Intellectual Property
actual or perceived security breaches as well as errors, vulnerabilities or defects in our software or in products of third-party providers;
our ability to protect our intellectual property rights;
our use of open source software;
Financial and Tax Matters
fluctuations in our operating results;
our significant operating losses and potential inability to maintain profitability;
real or perceived inaccuracies in our key metrics;
our credit obligations;
our tax liabilities;
Regulatory Compliance and Legal Matters
current and future disputes and assertions by others that we violate their rights;
complex and evolving U.S. and foreign laws and regulations;
Factors Related to Ownership of Our Common Stock
the volatility of the trading price of our common stock; and
provisions of Delaware law and our charter documents that could impair a takeover attempt if deemed undesirable by our board of directors.

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PART I

Item 1. Business.
Company Overview
Since Yelp's founding 17 years ago, our mission ishas remained the same — to connect consumers with great local businesses. Since our founding in 2004,Over that time, we have built one of the best-known internet brands in the United States. Consumers trust us for our more than 220 million ratings and reviews of businesses across a trusted local platform that delivers significantbroad range of categories. This consumer trust is the foundation of our business, from which we are able to empower other businesses to succeed. Our advertising products help businesses of all sizes reach a large audience, advertise their products and drive conversion of their services. We believe our ability to provide value to both consumers and businesses by helping each discover and interact with the other. Our unrivaled content helps consumers save time and money. Our advertising and other products help business owners increase their visibility and connect with our large audience of purchase-oriented consumers. Yelp's core features and functionalities include:
Content.Yelp brings “word of mouth” online through consumer ratings, reviews, photos and more that share everyday business experiences. As of December 31, 2019, consumers had contributed approximately 205.4 million cumulative reviews of almost every type of local business. These contributions drive a powerful network effect whereby the expanded content draws in more consumers (and more prospective contributors), which improves the value proposition of our products to local businesses.
Discovery. Each day, millions of consumers search for great local businesses using Yelp's website and mobile app, aspositions us well as third-party partner services like Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa personal assistant programs. Business owners, in turn, use our free and paid products to showcase and differentiate their businesses to these intent-driven consumers. For example, business representatives are able to provide information about their businesses and respond to reviews, among other things, by registering for a free account and “claiming” the business listing page for each of their locations. By December 31, 2019, business representatives had claimed approximately 4.9 million active business listing pages on Yelp. Businesses that want to further promote themselves can also pay for premium services such as targeted search advertising and additional enhancements to their business listing pages.
Engagement. Yelp provides multiple channels for consumers and businesses to engage directly with each other. In addition to writing and responding to reviews, consumers and businesses can interact through messaging features like Request-A-Quote and through our convenient transaction capabilities such as online food ordering. Every month, consumers generate millions of leads for businesses by calling, clicking and submitting Request-A-Quote inquiries through Yelp. Our restaurants category accounts for a significant portion of the engagement on our platform, and frequently serves as the starting point for traffic and engagement in other categories, such as home & local services. Our investments in Yelp Reservations, our online reservations product, and Yelp Waitlist, which allows consumers to check wait times at restaurants and join waitlists remotely, have not only driven substantial engagement in the restaurants category, they have also driven a growing stream of recurring subscription revenue. We have also designedlocal, digital advertising market in the user experience on our mobile app, where we find our most engaged users, to highlight these and other features in our most highly trafficked category.United States.
Attribution and Analytics. We offer businesses a range of tools and features that measure the effectiveness of our products and provide business insights. In addition to the reporting and advertising-management features available through our Yelp for Business Owners app, we offer store-level attribution through our Yelp Store Visits product and integrations with third-party data partners. These detailed reporting and analytics capabilities continued to help us sell our advertising products more successfully to multi-location advertisers in 2019, growing revenue from these customers by 22% in 2019 compared to 2018. We also provide businesses with local analytics and insights based on our historical data and other proprietary content through our Yelp Knowledge program.
We generate revenue primarily from the sale of advertising on our website and mobile app to businesses and, to a lesser extent, from fees on transactions completed on our platform and subscription fees for our non-advertising products. During the year ended December 31, 2019, we generated net revenue of $1.0 billion, representing 8% growth over 2018, net income of $40.9 million and adjusted EBITDA of $213.5 million. For information on how we define and calculate adjusted EBITDA and a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to net income (loss), see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations — Non-GAAP Financial Measures” in this Annual Report.
Our Strategy
Following our transition to a multi-channel, on-demand business model, which we completed in 2018 with our move to non-term advertising contracts, we embarked onannounced an ambitious, multi-year business transformation plan designed to drive and sustain long-term profitable long-term growth. The strategy underlying this plan,growth through product innovation rather than local sales headcount. Our performance in 2021 — which included record revenue and profitable growth despite a difficult operating environment — demonstrates that the initiatives we began executing in 2019 lookssuccessfully transformed Yelp into a stronger, more efficient and product-led business. Through consistent execution and an elevated pace of product innovation, we delivered on our 2021 initiatives to:
Improve Monetization of Our Services Categories
In 2021, we focused on building increasingly differentiated product experiences for both consumers and businesses in our Services categories — home, local, auto, professional, pets, events, real estate and financial services — as well as increasing monetization in these categories. We launched several new Services products, such as Cost Guides, which help consumers make informed decisions when hiring service professionals, and Themed Ads, which enable advertisers to leveragebetter compete by highlighting their ads in a carousel on the search results page based on differentiating attributes, such as “fast responding.”
Products like Cost Guides and Themed Ads, as well as new custom search filters, help better match consumers with the right Services businesses for their projects, increasing the value of leads and driving monetization. In 2021, the percentage of monetized leads in our Services categories — consisting of calls, requests and URL clicks — increased to 25% in 2021 from approximately 20% in 2020 and less than 10% in 2018 (the year before we adopted this initiative). As a result of these efforts, we achieved record average revenue per paying advertising location in Services categories in 2021.
Expand Our Self-Serve and Multi-location Channels
Through investments in product,our national, mid-market and franchise (“Multi-location”) business, and marketing, we have significantly shifted our go-to-market mix in recent years toward our most efficient channels, allowing us to surpass our 2019 revenue in 2021 with a significantly smaller local sales force. In 2021, our Self-serve channel, together with our more-tenured local sales force, both acquired small and medium-sized businesses (“SMBs”) more efficiently and exhibited a higher retention rate than our pre-pandemic local sales force. Improvements to the claim and ads purchase flows as well as marketing investments drove record Self-serve customer acquisition and strong retention in 2021. As a result, revenue from our Self-serve channel reached a new record in 2021 and increased as a percentage of advertising revenue to 17%, up from 13% in 2020 and 10% in 2019.
Similarly, developing customer relationships and introducing new Multi-location products resulted in record revenue in 2021 from this channel as well. As our sales team helped these high-value clients navigate the pandemic as well as labor and supply chain headwinds, we introduced products such as Seasonal Spotlight Ads and Sponsored Collections, expanded our first-party attribution solution, Yelp Store Visits, and fully launched our off-platform solution, Yelp Audiences. Yelp Audiences in particular increased our market opportunity by enabling multi-platform brand awareness campaigns and providing non-location based advertisers with access to our audience. As a result of these efforts, Multi-location channel revenue increased as a percentage of total advertising revenue to 27% from 25% in 2020 and 24% in 2019.
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competitive advantages — our brand, our large audience of intent-driven consumers, our content and the network dynamics on our platform —Deliver More Value to increase the value we provide to consumers and businesses, while continuing to drive efficiency in our business model. As we continue executing on our plan in 2020, we will look to further advance the strategic initiatives we began in 2019.
Revenue GrowthAdvertisers
Winning in Key Categories. We are working to address our customers' operational needs with innovative solutions that build on our strengths in key categories. In restaurants, our most trafficked category, our Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist products delighted both consumers and business owners in 2019 — we more than doubled the number of diners seated via Yelp and increased the combined revenue from these products by a double-digit percentage compared to 2018. We expect to substantially increase the number of diners seated via Yelp again in 2020, and we believe this consumer activity will have the added benefit of supporting strong consumer usage and engagement across other categories. We also plan to increase monetization of these subscription services in 2020 through price optimization and cross selling.
In home & local services, our largest and fastest growing category by revenue, we have driven consumer adoption with innovative product experiences like Request-A-Quote, and plan to continue leveraging products with the goal of increasing our monetization of this category. Revenue attributable to Request-A-Quote increased nearly 60% in 2019 compared to 2018, and we significantly increased paid leads to advertisers in this category in 2019, which drove strong acquisition and retention among service provider customers. In 2020, we will continue to explore ways to increase the number of paid leads to customers in this category and provide customers with greater control over the types of leads they receive.
Expanding Our Product Offerings.In addition to developingthe many new advertising products to help our customers differentiate their businesses, we are adapting how we market and merchandise our products based on a business's unique attributes and needs. Matching advertisers to the right products at the right prices will be a priority for us in 2020 and we plan to provide more products across a range of price points to bridge the gap between our free offerings and our targeted search advertising product. For example, we plan to introduce additional profile products in 2020 to complement the affordably priced productsad formats we launched in 2019, including our Business Highlights, Portfolios and Yelp Connect products. The initial success of these products gives us confidence that delivering the right product fit to our customers will drive customer satisfaction and improve advertiser lifetime value in turn.
Providing More Value to Business Customers. We aim to provide advertisers with2021, we also delivered more value for their money, with the goal of driving monetization by increasing trial conversion, customer satisfaction and, ultimately, retention. We believe our efforts to increase the leads delivered to our paying customers, optimize cost-per-click, or CPC, prices and evolve our product experience to provide greater value to businesses have the potential to substantially increase revenueadvertisers through retention. For example, we delivered 34% more ad clicks to our advertisers in 2019 than 2018 at an 18% lower average CPC, and saw improved retention among non-term advertisers as a result. We plan to continue making improvements to our advertising auctionsystem in the form of both front-end merchandising and user interface enhancements as well as back-end optimizations to improve matching and targeting. Although traffic remained impacted by ongoing concerns related to COVID-19 and its variants, ad clicks increased by 24% and average CPC decreased by 5% from 2020, contributing to a record annual retention rate for non-term advertiser budgets (our “NTC retention rate”).
Reduce Costs by Operating on a Distributed Basis
In 2021, we announced our Request-A-Quote lead matching capabilitiesdecision to remain working on a distributed basis permanently. In addition to the savings from our smaller local sales force and other efficiencies resulting from our growth initiatives, our distributed operations have allowed us to operate with significantly less office space than prior to the pandemic, helping us achieve positive net income and a record annual adjusted EBITDA margin in 2020. Other initiatives include2021. We executed a number of office space reductions over the course of 2021, including reducing our office space in Phoenix, relocating our San Francisco and Washington, DC offices to smaller spaces, and subleasing portions of our remaining office space in San Francisco and New York.
Our Long-term Growth Opportunity is Large
We believe we are well positioned in the large and growing local, digital advertising market. The competitive advantages we have established over the past 17 years, together with our structurally more efficient, product-led business model, provide us with the opportunity for consistent, long-term growth in this market. We have:
A proven engine to generate and recommend trusted content. Our platform provides the type of reliable and useful review content that consumers value, which is the basis for a positive feedback loop in which more content attracts more users, content and advertisers in turn. The breadth and depth of our high-quality content is the result of our significant investments over the past 17 years in developing both communities of contributors as well as providing a great consumer experience that enables and encourages consumers to share their everyday business experiences through reviews, photos and other content. We have also developed industry-leading content moderation practices to maintain the quality and integrity of our advertisers with more ways to promote their businesses and more control over their ad campaigns.content. For example, we planour recommendation software and other machine learning algorithms are designed to introduce new typessurface the most useful and trustworthy information on our platform for consumers. This technology, together with content moderation by our User Operations team and other consumer protection efforts, helps us detect and mitigate attempts to manipulate ratings and reviews. As of ads, such as themed ads, which highlight advertisers that respond quicklyDecember 31, 2021, approximately 71% of the reviews submitted to consumers or provide free quotes or consultations, and to continue expanding customization options to allow advertisers to tailor their campaigns. We also plan to further develop our analytics tools to show advertisers how their ads are performing relative to competitors and how to optimize their spend.platform were recommended.
CapturingA strong brand and a large consumer audience. Our trusted content has attracted a large, high-intent consumer audience. This large audience of engaged consumers reflects the Multi-location Opportunity.strength of our brand as the go-to source for reliable local business information as well as our availability across a wide range of platforms and devices. It also provides a compelling value proposition to advertisers. In addition to its size, our audience has high purchase intent and is generally affluent — we estimate that over 50% of our audience has annual household income of more than $100,000.
We plan to drive continued momentum in our multi-locationA broad-based local advertising business by expanding upon our successful go-to-market strategyplatform and offering more solutionssophisticated advertising technology. Our large consumer audience supports a broad-based advertising model with products designed to meet the needs of large advertisers. In 2019, we expanded our multi-location sales force by more than 25% as we lookedbusinesses of all sizes. Our portfolio of products and attribution capabilities leverage first-party data to grow our business with the top 250 restaurantsprovide advertising solutions across categories and retailers by revenue, one-third of which were paying customers by the endeach stage of the year. We planconsumer funnel, both on and off platform. These products are backed by a scaled and extensible advertising technology platform. To establish the price of an individual ad click on our platform, we run an auction for each advertising unit displayed to further expanda consumer on our multi-location sales forcewebsite or mobile app, which resulted in 2020an average of 20 million auctions per day in 2021. The bidding algorithms used in our auction system are designed to extend coverageprioritize spending advertiser budgets efficiently and maximize ad clicks to multi-location businesses inoptimize the services category. Onvalue we deliver to advertisers, while our proprietary ad delivery technology is designed to determine the product side, we are continuingmost relevant ads to create compelling new ad formats tailoreddisplay to the needs of multi-location businesses, including more ways for multi-location advertisersconsumers to drive consumer purchases during their key selling seasons. We believe these initiatives will position us to capture a larger share of the multi-location opportunity.
Enhancing the Consumer Experience. Consumers drive the network dynamics on which our value proposition is based: increasing consumer traffic and content contribution further benefits consumers and underpins our ability to create value for businesses through our products and services. To maintain strong growth in our app usage and deepen user engagement, we remain focused on delivering unique product experiences that delight consumers. One of the ways wefulfillment.
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didOur Growth and Margin Strategy
We believe that in 2019 was by creating an even more personalizedthe strategic initiatives that have transformed our business continue to provide significant opportunities for growth. At the same time, the significant progress we have achieved has positioned us to expand our focus on the consumer experience. In 2022, we plan to continue elevating the Yelp experience for consumers, business owners and advertisers by focusing our users,product investments in the areas set forth below. We believe each of these investment priorities represents its own long-term opportunity and together will drive long-term sustainable and profitable growth.
Revenue Growth
Grow quality leads and monetization of our Services categories. Although we have made significant progress on increasing the percentage of monetized leads in our Services categories in recent years, the substantial majority of leads in these categories remain unmonetized. As a result, we believe that our large and high-intent consumer audience positions us well to capture more of the significant opportunity that the advertising market for Services businesses represents. Because the needs of both consumers and businesses in our Services categories are generally distinct from those in our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories — restaurants, shopping, beauty & fitness, health and other — we continue to believe that differentiating the Services experience on Yelp will allow us to both monetize more of our consumer traffic and convert more Services businesses into advertisers. In 2022, we also plan to expandexplore adjacent opportunities to improve the personalized recommendations we offer in 2020. We are also creating new features that draw on Yelp’s unique contentexperience for consumers and comprehensive local data,Services businesses by improving lead quality as well as partnerships,the distribution of leads to deliver only-on-Yelp product experiences. For example, in 2019 we introduced new features for Yelp Waitlist, including Predictive Wait Times and Notify Me, that contributed to a doubling of diners seated via Yelp in 2019 compared to 2018. We believe experiences like booking sought-after seats at Yelp-exclusive restaurants, skippingmatch more consumers with the line at popular eateries and saving time and money on projects arranged via Request-A-Quote will help maintain strong growth in app usage and deepen consumer engagement, thereby increasing our value proposition toright Services businesses. To that end, we plan to launch an updated user interface for our mobile app in 2020 that we believe will better engage consumers, be easier to use and offer added convenience.
Improved Profitability
Focusing on Our Most Efficient Sales Channels. In 2019, we shiftedDrive sales through our emphasis to the most efficient channels. Through our investments in product, Multi-location sales and high-marginmarketing, our go-to-market mix has shifted significantly in recent years towards our most efficient sales channels our multi-location— Self-serve and self-serve channels. The success of this initiative — revenue from the multi-location and self-serve channels increased by 22% and 30% compared to 2018, respectively — improved the economics of our business, allowing us to reduce our local sales force by 10% in 2019 without sacrificing revenue growth.Multi-location. We plan to continuebuild on that progress in 2022 by continuing to explore ways to drive SMBs through our effortsfully digital Self-serve channel, including through marketing and a more streamlined ads purchase flow, new tools to expand our multi-locationdrive business in 2020.owner engagement and by providing businesses with more control over their ad campaigns. We also plan to continue expanding the productsfurther expand our Multi-location product offerings and customization options available throughattribution solutions as well as leverage our self-serve channel in 2020, which allows businessesstrengthened customer relationships to purchase ads directly throughboth acquire new multi-location customers and expand our website and generates high-margin revenue without heavy involvement from our sales force.business with existing customers.
Improve Retention by Delivering More Value.Deliver more value to advertisers. We believe there is substantial opportunity to drive profitable growth by improving customer and revenue retention. In 2019, we accomplished thisOur performance in recent years has demonstrated that by delivering greater value to advertisers which improved theirin the form of more ad clicks and tailored product offerings, we can improve customer satisfaction with our products and led to increased spending over time. For example, in 2019,increase our NTC retention rate. We believe that we improved non-term advertising revenuecan achieve further retention by a mid-teens percentage as we delivered more leads at lower CPCs.gains through this approach. In 2020,2022, we plan to continue these effortsimproving the relevance of our ads by introducing new ad formats as well as further enhance the qualityby driving efficiency through ad system optimizations and targeting of our ads.improved matching.
Optimizing Cost StructureEnhance the consumer experience. Our trusted content fuels our consumer flywheel, bringing more users and Controlling Expenses. Our abilitybusinesses to improve our margins will depend on our ability to effectively control and, where possible, reduce our expenses.Yelp. In 2019, we reduced the size of our local sales force by 10%, significantly reduced the size of our San Francisco sales office and relocated a number of G&A positions from San Francisco to our Phoenix office, reducing some of the ongoing operating expenses associated with those teams. We do not plan to grow our local sales headcount in 2020, consistent with our focus on our most efficient sales channels. We also plan to expand the product and engineering teams in our Toronto office to further take advantage of lower-cost markets.
We intend to continue evaluating opportunities to control or reduce other corporate expenses throughout 2020. In 2019, we reduced our marketing spend on consumer traffic, instead relying more heavily on in-app and cross-product marketing as well as on the organic traffic growth driven by our community development efforts. In 2020,2022, we plan to continue capitalizing on theinvest in a broad set of consumer product and marketing investments we made in prior years — particularly the investments we made in Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlistinitiatives designed to drive consumer engagement and content contributions. For example, we are working to controlreduce review contribution friction, convert more users into contributors, and improve the distribution of reviews across categories and geographies, which we believe will increase the percentage of reviewed businesses and thereby attract more consumers and further benefit businesses in turn. We are also investing in product initiatives to further differentiate the experience between categories and increase engagement, as well as bring the consumer experience on our marketing spend.Android app to parity with our iOS app.
Margin Improvement
Our revenue growth strategies also drive improved profitability. Retention improvements also benefit our margins and, accordingly, we believe our investments designed to improve lead quality and deliver more value to advertisers will also drive margin expansion. We expect that our plans to drive sales through our Self-serve and Multi-location sales channels will also help improve our margins; in addition to being more margin-accretive than Local sales, these channels have historically exhibited better revenue retention characteristics than Local sales. As a result, we expect our Self-serve and Multi-location sales initiatives will continue to help improve our overall revenue retention as revenue from these channels makes up an increasing percentage of our total advertising revenue.
Reduce expenses through distributed work. We believe that operating on a distributed basis is in the best interests of both Yelp and our employees; it reduces our reliance on the San Francisco Bay Area and provides employees with more flexibility. As we hire into geographies outside of the Bay Area, we believe that we can improve employee retention and a more diverse workforce. We also expect that this will result in our stock-based compensation as a
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percentage of revenue to trend toward a less dilutive mix over time. In addition, we continue to explore additional opportunities to reduce our real estate footprint.
Our Products and Services
Advertising
We provide a range of free and paid advertising products to businesses of all sizes, including through the products listed below, which provide the ability to deliver targeted search advertising to large local audiences through our website and mobile app.audiences. As in past years, advertising accounted for the vast majority of our revenue during the year ended December 31, 2019, accounting for2021, contributing 96% of our revenue, which was flat compared tofairly consistent with the yearyears ended December 31, 20182019 and up from approximately 91% for the year ended December 31, 2017.2020. We recognize revenue from our business listing and advertising products, including advertising sold by partners, as advertising revenue.
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Advertising Products
CPC Search AdvertisingWe allow businesses to promote themselves as a sponsored search result on our platform, on the Yelp pages of businesses in the same or related categories, and other places on our platform, as well as through the ability to provide competing quotes for consumers using our Request-A-Quote feature. We primarily sell performance-based ads, which our advertising platform matches to individual consumers through auctions priced on a CPC basis. We generate a majority of our advertising revenue from the sale of CPC advertising.
Multi-location Ad ProductsWe offer a range of ad products designed for multi-location advertisers, including: Showcase Ads, which showcase special offerings with limited-time localized promotions in relevant search results; Spotlight Ads, which highlight special offers and promotions related to holidays or other special events in a carousel directly on the Yelp app home screen; and Yelp Audiences, which extends campaign reach to our high-intent audience both on and off platform. We also offer a first-party attribution solution, Yelp Store Visits.
Business Page Products
Free Online Business AccountWe enable businessesBusinesses have the ability to create a free online business account and claim the listingYelp page for each of their business locations. With their freeOnce a business accounts, businesseshas claimed its listing page, it can view trends (e.g. statistics and charts of the performance of their pages on our platform), use the Revenue Estimator tool to quantify the revenue opportunity Yelp provides, message customers (e.g. by replying to messages or reviews either publicly or directly), update its listing information (e.g. address, hours of operation) and offer Yelp Deals and Gift Certificates.has the option to purchase premium listing page features.
Upgrade PackageOur most popular product after search ads is our Upgrade Package, which includes our Enhanced Profile, Business Highlights, Yelp Portfolio and Yelp Connect products, each as described below, among other features.
Branded ProfileOur Branded Profile product provides businesses with access to premium features in connection with their business listingYelp pages, such as the ability to update listing information and select photos or videos to highlight on the page through a slideshow feature. Businesses can also promote a desired transaction of their choosing — such as scheduling an appointment or printing a coupon — directly on their business listing pages with our Call to Action feature. This feature transfers consumers from a business’s listing page to the business’s own website to complete the action. Account support is available via phone and email for businesses that purchase a Branded Profile program.
Enhanced ProfileIn addition to providing businesses with the same premium features and support options as our Branded Profile product, our Enhanced Profile product restricts howprevents ads from other businesses appearfrom appearing on the business listingYelp pages of our Enhanced Profile customers.
Yelp Verified LicenseYelp Verified License is a badge that appears on Yelp business listing pages as a paid upgrade for certain licensed advertisers, primarily in our home & local services category. The badge indicates that we have verified the business's trade license and confirmed it was in good standing as of a certain date, allowing businesses to distinguish themselves as licensed and helping consumers make safe and confident decisions when selecting businesses for their projects.
Business HighlightsBusinesses in eligible categories can pay to highlight up to six attributes that make their business unique, — e.g.such as "Family Owned" or "Pet Friendly." These highlights appear on business listing pages in a section called "Highlights from the Business," and the top two highlights also appear in organic and sponsored search results for that business.
Yelp PortfolioOur Yelp Portfolio product allows businesses to showcase their specialties to prospective customers through a photo collection of projects. A business's Portfolio is displayed on its business listing page and can include additional details such as costs, timelines and services provided, allowing potential customers to learn more about the business and helping them decide if the business is the best fit for their upcoming project. Yelp Portfolio is currently available for businesses in certain home & local services categories.
Yelp ConnectYelp Connect gives businesses an opportunity to tell users more about what makes their business special through posts appearing on their business listing pages by highlighting the unique features of the business, upcoming events, limited time offers and other timely content. Yelp automatically promotes Yelp Connect posts to a business's followers.
Search and Other AdsWe allow businesses to promote themselves as a sponsored search result on our platform, on the listing pages of related businesses and as suggested “additional businesses” for consumers using our Request-A-Quote feature. We sell ads primarily on a CPC basis, though we also offer impression-based ads.
Ad ResalesWe also generate revenue through the resale of our advertising products by certain agencies and partners, such as Thryv (formerly DexYP), as well as monetization of remnant advertising inventory through third-party ad networks. In 2018, we launched the Yelp Ads Certified Partners Program, which allows partner agencies to independently sell and manage ad campaigns on behalf of their small and medium-sized business clients, providing increased centralization and flexibility.
Transactions
In addition to our advertising products, we also offer several features and consumer-interactive tools to facilitate transactions between consumers and the local businesses they find on Yelp. We recognize revenue from these sources on a net basis as transactions revenue.
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Eat24 and the Grubhub PartnershipYelp ConnectPrior to our sale of Eat24 to Grubhub on October 10, 2017, we generated revenue from our Yelp Eat24 business through arrangements with restaurants in which restaurants paid a commission percentage fee on orders placed through Yelp Eat24. Following the sale, Eat24’s restaurant network remains integrated on our platform and, pursuant to our strategic partnership, Grubhub’s restaurant network was integrated onto our platform mid-2018. This partnership has provided consumersConnect provides advertisers with a wider selection of restaurants and better delivery options, while improving our per-order profitability.channel to market new offerings, such as new menu items, or communicate business updates to customers. Yelp automatically promotes Yelp Connect posts to a business's followers.
Yelp PlatformLogoThe Yelp Platform allows consumersLogo provides businesses with the ability to transact with businesses directly on our website or mobile app through partner integrations. Consumers can order flowers, purchase event tickets,display their logos in high-visibility locations, including prominently at the top of Yelp business pages and book spa and salon appointments, among many other transaction opportunities, all without leaving Yelp.in search results.
Yelp DealsOur Yelp Deals product allows local business owners to create promotional discounted deals for their products and services, which are marketed to consumers through our platform. We typically earn a fee based on the discounted price of each deal sold. We process all customer payments and remit to the business the revenue share of any Yelp Deal purchased.
Transactions
In addition to our advertising products, we also offer features and consumer-interactive tools to facilitate transactions between consumers and the local businesses they find on Yelp. These features are primarily available through partner integrations, the largest of which — by both transaction volume and revenue — is our partnership with Grubhub, which allows consumers to place food orders for pickup and delivery through Yelp. We recognize revenue from these sources on a net basis as transactions revenue.
Other Services
We generate other revenue through subscription services, licensing payments for access to Yelp data and other non-advertising, non-transaction arrangements. We recognize revenue from these sources as other services revenue.
Yelp ReservationsWe provide restaurants, nightlife and certain other venues with the ability to offer online reservations directly from their Yelp business listing pages through our Yelp Reservations product, which also includes front-of-house management tools. We offer this product as a monthly subscription service.
Yelp WaitlistGuest ManagerPreviously referred to as Yelp Waitlist, Yelp Guest Manager is a subscription-based waitlist management solution that allows consumers to check wait times and join waitlists remotely and businesses to efficiently manage seating and server rotation. Yelp WaitlistGuest Manager helps simplify restaurants’ front-of-house operations and is available to consumers directly on business listing pages as well as in-store kiosks.
Yelp KnowledgeThrough partnerships with companies such as Sprinklr InMoment and Chatmeter, our Yelp Knowledge program offers business owners local analytics and insights through access to our historical data and other proprietary content. Our Yelp Knowledge partners pay us programlicense fees for access to Yelp Knowledge content.
Yelp FusionOur Yelp Fusion program enables developers to build products that include our high-quality content and data. We partner with industry leaders like Apple, which makes our content available through Apple Maps and its virtual assistant Siri, as well as several auto manufacturers, including Mercedes-Benz, to make our content available in their in-dash experiences. We offer free access to certain basic information through our publicly available APIs as well as paid access to broader sets of content and data for consumer-facing enterprise use. We typically enter into multi-year license agreements with paying Yelp Fusion customers, with rates determined based on the type and volume of usage.
Other PartnershipsOther non-advertising partner arrangements include content licensing and allowing third-party data providers to update and manage business listing information on behalf of businesses.
Revenue by Product
The following table provides a breakdown of our revenue by product for the years indicated (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Net revenue by product:
Advertising$976,925  $907,487  $775,678  
Transactions12,436  13,694  60,251  
Other services24,833  21,592  14,918  
Total net revenue$1,014,194  $942,773  $850,847  

Sales
We sell our advertising products directly through our sales force, indirectly through partners and online through our website.
Self-serve Ads. Our Self-serve sales force consistedchannel allows businesses to purchase and manage their Yelp ads directly from our website or Yelp for Business Owners app. Businesses can purchase sponsored CPC search advertising, Yelp Connect and business page upgrades such as Business Highlights and Yelp Portfolios directly through this channel. The convenience of 3,844 employees as of December 31, 2019our Self-serve sales channel has helped us improve revenue retention and is located acrossreduce our offices in San Francisco, California, Scottsdale, Arizona, New York, New York, Chicago, Illinois, Washington, D.C.,reliance on sales and Toronto, Ontario,customer support headcount, and continues to be a strategic priority for us. In 2021, we improved the claim and ads purchase flow as well as across a remote workforceour business owner platform to an increasing extent.better guide new customers through key actions to help them be successful on Yelp. We plan to invest further in driving business owner engagement and providing businesses with more control over their ad campaigns in 2022 to drive SMB customer acquisition through this channel.
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Direct Local Sales. A large majority of ourOur Local sales force — 3,600 employees as of December 31, 2019 — is dedicated to selling our advertising products, with a significantly smaller component responsible for selling our subscription products. Our sales forceteam primarily sells CPC advertising; only a small percentage of ads continueadvertising to be impression-based. SalesSMBs. Local sales representatives are primarily responsible for generating qualified sales leads by identifying and contacting businesses through direct engagement, direct marketing campaigns and weekly e-mails to claimed local businesses. Although our directLocal sales forceteam is primarily focused on increasing revenue by adding new customers, sales representatives on our client partner team engage with existing customers with the goal of increasing their overall spend. Sales representatives are typically compensated on
Revenue from direct Local sales has historically comprised the basislargest share of advertising soldrevenue and was driven by growth in Local sales headcount. As we have increased our focus on our more margin-accretive Self-serve and Multi-location channels in recent years, however, we have become less reliant on Local sales headcount to drive growth. We have been able to substantially reduce the size of the Local sales team accordingly, while also retaining our most tenured and successful sales representatives and optimizing their compensation structure. Although Local sales revenue was still the largest share of advertising revenue in 2021, its share has decreased in recent years as Self-serve and Multi-location sales revenue has increased.
Multi-location Sales. Our Multi-location sales team is responsible for selling our advertising products to national, mid-market and franchise businesses. We believe that Multi-location advertising budgets represent a given period.significant growth opportunity and this channel has been a focus of our strategic investments throughout the pandemic as we expanded our products and attribution capabilities to meet the needs of these advertisers. We believe that our enhanced suite of Multi-location products, together with strengthened customer relationships, provide a significant opportunity to expand revenue from this sales channel. We plan to continue investing in initiatives to grow revenue from our Multi-location sales channel in 2022.
Sales Partnerships. Since 2014, we have allowedWe also generate revenue through the resale of our advertising products by certain agencies and partners, such as Thryv, to sell certainas well as monetization of ourremnant advertising products as part of a package with their own advertising products to their advertiser bases. The products covered by these arrangements include our Enhanced Profile and CPC advertising. In 2018, we launched theinventory through third-party ad networks. Our Yelp Ads Certified PartnerPartners Program with the aim of making it more efficient for agencies to manage ad campaigns on behalf of their small and medium-sized business clients. By allowingallows partner agencies to independently sell and manage ad campaigns rather than working through Yelp to do so, this program has improved the processon behalf of their SMB clients, providing increased centralization and increased flexibility. We continue to explore additional partnerships for the sale or bundlingThe products covered by these arrangements include all of our profile products as well as with select marketing agencies.
Self-Serve Ads. Our online, or self-serve, sales channel allows businesses to purchase advertising solutions directly from our website. Businesses can purchase sponsored CPC search advertising, Yelp Connect and business listing page upgrades such as Business Highlights and Yelp Portfolios directly through this channel. The convenience of our self-serve sales channel has helped us expand our customer base, and we are continuing to test approaches to this sales channel, including by offering advertisers more options to customize their ads.advertising.
Customer Success. While the focus of our sales force was historically on adding new customers, we also see opportunity to deepen our relationships with existing customers. To this end, ourOur customer success team supports existing business advertisers through account management, cross-selling and retention initiatives.
Technology
We rely on a set of core technologies that enable us to be a trusted local resource for consumers and a partner in success to businesses of all sizes. We provide scalable services across platforms and devices using a combination of proprietary, open source and third-party technology solutions and products:
Anticipating Consumer Needs. We analyze the large volumes of data collected from our platform and apply our proprietary indexing and ranking techniques to provide our users with contextual, relevant and up-to-date information. Our sophisticated search platform is 30% to 50% faster than the industry-standard solution while costing as much as 40% less to run for some use cases, allowing better search matching and ad targeting. We also apply machine learning algorithms to predict user needs and preferences based on factors such as the user's recent activity, location, time of day and season, then tailor the user's experience on Yelp accordingly. In our Services categories, for example, if a user recently searched for movers, we might suggest searches for businesses offering self-storage or junk removal. Similarly, if our data suggests that a user is a homeowner, we might promote collections of businesses that offer spring cleaning or other seasonally appropriate services.
Recommendation Software. Our recommendation software refers to the proprietary automated trust and safety software systems that we have developed to analyze the relevance, reliability and utility of each review submitted to our platform. “Recommended” reviews — those that the software deems to be the most useful and reliable — appear directly on Yelp business pages, while less trustworthy and unreliable content appear on secondary pages and do not factor into a business’s overall star rating. Our recommendation software applies the same objective standards to each review, regardless of whether the business being reviewed advertises on Yelp, based on hundreds of signals associated with the business, review and reviewer. These signals include the reviewer’s type and level of activity with Yelp (which might correspond to the reviewer’s reliability or suggest reviewer biases) and whether certain reviews originate from related Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses (which might mean the reviews were submitted by the same person). The software evaluates each review based on hundreds of signals every day and, as a result, its analysis can change over time as new data becomes available; reviews that were previously recommended may become not recommended, and reviews that were previously not recommended may be restored to recommended status.
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Mobile Solutions. With our most engaged users on our mobile app, we have invested significant resources into developing a comprehensive mobile platform for consumers. Although our platform supports both major smartphone operating systems available today, iOS and Android, our iOS app has a more modern and personalized user experience and iOS app users drove the majority of ad clicks from any source in 2021. In 2022, we plan to continue developinginvest in opportunities to increase engagement with Android users by, among other things, bringing the Android user experience in line with the iOS experience.
Similarly, we designed our customer success teamYelp for Business Owners app to make it easier for businesses to engage with their customers and streamliningmanage their presence on Yelp. Currently available for iOS and Android, this app provides businesses with daily metrics reports, page view analytics and leads data, as well as the ability to manage quote requests and opportunities in Nearby Jobs. Businesses can also purchase, customize and manage Yelp ads through the Yelp for Business Owners app.
Ad Delivery. We use proprietary ad targeting and delivery technologies that are designed to quickly target and display hyper-relevant advertisements to users of our customer success processesplatform. When a consumer enters a search on our app, these technologies determine the most relevant ads to bolstershow and serve those ads alongside the organic search results, typically in less than half a second. Our targeting software leverages machine learning models that evaluate more than 350 signals about the user, business and search context to make sure consumers see the right ad at the right time and drive ad clicks.
Auction System. We use an auction system to determine the price we charge advertisers for ad clicks. Our auction system uses advanced algorithms to bid on ad placements on behalf of advertisers, taking into account their budgets, current and predicted levels of relevant consumer traffic, changes in user behavior and competition from other advertisers, among other things. These bidding algorithms are also designed to prioritize spending advertiser budgets efficiently and maximize ad clicks, with the goal of delivering as much value to advertisers as possible. For example, if our abilitymodels predict that relevant consumer traffic will meaningfully decrease for a period of time during an ad campaign, our bidding algorithms will dynamically allocate advertiser budget around that period to avoid spending a disproportionate amount of the budget while supply is constrained. To conduct an average of 20 million auctions per day, we predict demand for 16 million ad categories and distinct time intervals to set bid pricing and pacing, then optimize bids 48 times per day per advertiser.
Infrastructure. The vast majority of our platform is currently hosted by Amazon Web Services from multiple locations, which allows us to scale our infrastructure dynamically according to demand as well as optimize the cost and performance of our infrastructure. Our platform is designed to have high availability, from the Internet connectivity providers we choose, to the servers, databases and networking hardware that we deploy. We design our systems such that the failure of any individual component is not expected to affect the overall availability of our platform. We also leverage other third-party cloud-based services such as content delivery networks, rich-content storage, map-related services, ad serving and bulk processing.
Network Security. Computer viruses, malware, phishing attacks, denial-of-service and other attacks and similar disruptions from unauthorized use of computer systems have become more prevalent in our industry, have occurred on our systems in the past and we expect them to occur periodically on our systems in the future. For this reason, our platform includes a host of encryption, antivirus, multi-factor authentication, firewall and patch-management technologies designed to help protect and maintain the systems and computers across our business. We regularly conduct security audits and penetration tests of our applications and network infrastructure, as well as run a bug reporting program that offers financial incentives to encourage security researchers to identify and report vulnerabilities.
Maintaining the Integrity of Our Content
Providing access to useful and reliable information to help inform consumers’ spending decisions is critical to our mission of connecting people with great local businesses. With misinformation and deceptive behavior common across the internet, we have prioritized combating this sort of conduct since our earliest days to maintain user trust and level the playing field for hard-working businesses that earn their great reputations honestly. Our industry-leading trust and safety measures include investments in both technology and human moderation:
Recommendation Software. Our automated recommendation software is our first line of defense against unreliable content and misinformation submitted to our platform. As described in more detail under "—Technology" above, our recommendation software analyzes billions of data points and hundreds of signals from all reviews, businesses and reviewers in an effort to recommend the most useful and reliable reviews. Our recommendation software helps us mitigate misinformation at scale by detecting and de-emphasizing less trustworthy reviews, including content that may be:
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Biased: including reviews written by those with ties to a business, such as competitors, disgruntled employees, friends or family.
Solicited: when someone associated with a business requested the review, which can create a positive bias that is unfair to other businesses. When asked to write a review by a business, customers may feel pressured to give the business a higher star rating than someone who was inspired to write a review on their own. Businesses also tend to ask for reviews from customers they know will give them a great rating.
Less reliable: including reviews written by less active users, whom we don't know enough about to recommend their opinion to our community, and reviews connected to suspicious behavior, such as when a disproportionate number of reviews for a business are submitted from the same IP address.
Less useful: including unhelpful rants and raves, as well as activity driven by a recent media story.
As of December 31, 2021, approximately 71% of the reviews submitted to our platform were recommended by our automated software and approximately 21% were not recommended but still accessible on secondary pages. Although they do not factor into a business’s overall star rating, we provide access to reviews that are not recommended because they provide additional perspectives and information on reviewed businesses and reviewers, as well as transparency as to the efficacy of our recommendation software.
Community. Yelp has always been a community-driven review platform, and we encourage authentic content from the start of the user experience. We encourage users to complete a public profile, which not only helps build a community but also helps signal the reliability of their content. We also established the Yelp Elite Squad to provide recognition to users who are active in the Yelp community and consistently contribute high-quality content. We also work to educate our local business communities on our stance against review solicitation, why it harms consumers and how it can undermine a business’s reputation. We believe that by engaging with businesses and sharing our commitment to maintaining a level playing field, we can reduce the frequency with which businesses engage in such activities.
In addition to encouraging reliable content and fair play from the outset, our communities serve as additional layers of oversight. For example, we provide easy ways for our communities of users and business owners to report content that they believe violates our guidelines and suggest updates to business information. We also provide multiple ways for business owners to respond to changesreviews.
Human Content Moderation. In addition to investigating individual reports of content that violates our policies, our User Operations team conducts and facilitates larger investigations into attempts to deceive consumers. For example, we proactively work to identify businesses and individuals who offer or receive cash, discounts or other benefits in revenue retentionexchange for reviews, such as review solicitation and reputation management companies that offer to artificially inflate search rankings and online reputations. Our human-powered moderation is also able to identify and thwart more nuanced attempts to mislead consumers that platforms with less sophisticated and fully automated content moderation may miss. In 2018, for example, after learning that some crisis and faith-based pregnancy centers were misleading people seeking abortion care, our User Operations team manually investigated more than 2,000 business listings to verify that our platform was accurately representing the services that these clinics offered.
In addition to taking direct corrective action — such as recategorizing businesses to appropriately reflect their services, as in the example above — if we identify or confirm any such issues through our investigations, we typically pursue one or more of the courses of action described below (each of which we may also employ on a stand-alone basis).
Consumer Alerts Program. Our consumer alerts program warns consumers when we find evidence of extreme attempts to manipulate a business’s ratings and reviews or other egregious conduct that may emergeharm consumers and unfairly put other businesses at a disadvantage. When we issue a consumer alert, a warning message appears above the review section of the business’s Yelp page with information about the reason for the alert and, where available, a link to the evidence we collected in support of the alert. We issue consumer alerts for the following types of activity:
Unusual activity: in order for Yelp to remain a useful resource, reviews must be based on genuine, first-hand experiences. When people take to a business’s Yelp page to express their views after the business receives increased public attention, our User Operations team may temporarily disable the posting of content to the page and publish an alert as they investigate and remove content that violates our policies. In 2020, we expanded this category of alert to add new notifications informing consumers when a business gains public attention for either being accused of, or the target
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of, racist behavior. Additionally, throughout 2021, we placed alerts on businesses that chose to ignore mask mandates or that were on the receiving end of backlash when they implemented vaccine requirements for customers.
Suspicious review activity: this alert informs consumers if we have uncovered a disproportionate number of positive reviews submitted from the same IP address, which can indicate a concerted effort to inflate the business’s overall star rating on Yelp. We also issue this type of alert when we discover a business has a possible connection to a deceptive review ring.
Compensated activity: we issue this type of consumer alert if we encounter a business attempting to purchase favorable reviews, incentivizing new or updated reviews, or offering compensation to remove reviews.
Questionable legal threats: when we receive evidence that a business is making dubious legal threats against a reviewer or using a contractual gag clause in an attempt to prevent critical reviews, we issue this type of alert to warn others that the business may be attempting to abuse the legal system to maintain an inflated star rating.
Removal of Reviews. We regularly remove reviews from our non-termplatform that we believe violate our terms of service, including, without limitation: reviews that do not reflect a firsthand consumer experience; content that has been bought, sold or traded; and reviews that are posted by someone we believe to be affiliated with the reviewed business. We also take steps to ensure that Yelp is a safe and welcoming place for everyone by removing threatening, harassing or lewd content, as well as hate speech and other displays of bigotry. Consumers can access information about reviews that we have removed for a particular business by clicking on a link on the business’s Yelp page. As of December 31, 2021, approximately 8% of the reviews submitted to our platform had been removed.
Coordination with Law Enforcement. We regularly cooperate with law enforcement and consumer protection agencies to investigate and identify businesses and individuals who may be engaged in false advertising customersor other deceptive practices relating to reviews.
Legal Action. Our terms of service prohibit the buying and selling of reviews, as well as writing fake reviews. We regularly issue demands to third parties engaging in particular, who have the abilitythese and other deceptive activities that they cease such activities in relation to cancel their advertising at any time.our platform. In egregious cases, we take legal action against businesses we believe to be engaged in deceptive practices based on these prohibitions.
Consumer Engagement
At the heart of our business are the vibrant communities of contributorsusers that contribute the content on our platform. These contributors provideWe help businesses succeed by empowering them to reach a large audience of purchase-oriented consumers, which depends on our ability to attract consumer traffic with valuable content. The rich, firsthand information about local businesses that our contributors share — in the form of reviews, ratings, tips, photos and videos. Each review, rating, tip, photomore — is the reason consumers come to Yelp when making their spending decisions and video expandsis therefore the breadth and depthfoundation of the content on our platform, which drives a powerful network effect: the expanded content draws in more consumers and more prospective contributors.value proposition to businesses. Although measures of our content (including our cumulative review metric) and traffic (including our desktop and mobile unique visitors and app unique device metrics) do not factor directly into the advertising arrangements we have with our advertising customers, this network effectdynamic underpins our ability to deliver ad clicks and ad impressions to advertisers.drive conversion of advertisers' services. Increases in these metrics improve our value proposition to local businesses as they seek easy-to-use and effective advertising solutions.
Community Management
For the above reasons, we foster and support communities of contributors and make the consumer experience a top priority. We have a team of Community Managers and Community Ambassadors based across the United States and Canada whose primary goals are to support and grow their local communities of contributors in the local markets that they serve, raise brand awareness and engage with their surrounding communities through:
planning and executing fun and engaging events for the community, such as parties, outings and activities at restaurants, museums, hotels and other local places of interest;
getting to know community members and helping them get to know one another to foster an offline community experience that can be transferred online;
promoting Yelp, including guest appearances on local television and radio, and at local events such as concerts and street fairs; and
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writingrecurring weekly e-mail newsletters to share information with the community about local businesses, events and activities.
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Through these activities, we believe our community managementCommunity Management team helps us increase awareness of our platform and grow avid communities who are willing to contribute content to our platform. Even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, our Community Management team have continued these efforts by hosting virtual events and helping consumers and local businesses stay connected during these extraordinary times. We plan to continue these community development efforts in 2022.
Yelp Elite Squad
Our Community Managers' responsibilities include engaging with our most important contributors — Yelp Elite Squad members. From the earliest days of Yelp, it was clear that some of our contributors went above and beyond with their prolific reviews, thoughtful photos and commitment to supporting local businesses by sharing their experiences. These users were not only active contributors may be invitedin their Yelp communities, but were also role models on and offline. Their voices helped make Yelp what it is today, and we started the Yelp Elite Squad to attendrecognize these passionate individuals, signal our trust in them and their contributions, and encourage similar beneficial activities in our communities.
Beyond having well-written reviews, high-quality photos and a detailed personal profile, members are active evangelists for their Yelp communities. Yelp Elites receive a badge on their Yelp profile pages and Community Managers organize sponsored social events butfor them, which facilitates face-to-face interactions, builds the Yelp brand and fosters the sense of true community in which we believe so strongly. These behind-the-scenes looks at top-rated businesses often include interacting with business owners, hearing their unique stories and engaging with other locals in their community; however, Yelp Elites do not receive compensation for their contributions. This community growth drives the network effect whereby contributed reviews expand the breadth and depth of our content base. This expansion draws an increasing number of consumers to access the content on our platform, thus inspiring new and existing contributors to create additional reviews that can be shared with this growing audience.
In general, the communities we entered into earlier are more populous than those we entered into later, and we have already entered most of the largest cities in the United States and Canada. For these and other reasons, launching additional communities may not yield results similar to those of our existing communities. As a result, we continue to believe that development of our existing communities currently provides the greatest opportunity for growth, and plan to continue to focus our community development efforts on existing communities in 2020.
Reviews
As of December 31, 2019, our communities had contributed approximately 205.4 million cumulative reviews of almost every type of local business. Of these cumulative reviews, approximately 145.5 million were recommended and available on business listing pages; approximately 44.4 million were not recommended and available on secondary pages; and approximately 15.5 million had been removed from our platform. Although they do not factor into a business’s overall star rating, we provide access to reviews that are not recommended because they provide additional perspectives and information on reviewed businesses, as well as transparency of the efficacy of our automated recommendation software.
The reviews contributed to our platform cover a wide set of local business categories, including restaurants, shopping, home and local services, beauty and fitness, health and other categories. In the chart below, we highlight the percentage of businesses in a given category that had received a review, the percentage of total reviews by category as of December 31, 2019 and the percentage of our advertising revenue associated with each category. The categories associated with these reviews reflect Yelp's category definitions as of December 31, 2019.
yelp-20191231_g1.jpg
(1) Businesses that had received reviews that were available on our platform — i.e., including reviews that were recommended and not recommended, but not including reviews that had been removed from our platform — as of December 31, 2019, including some businesses that had received only reviews that were not recommended.
(2) Cumulative reviews as of December 31, 2019, including reviews that had been removed from our platform.
(3) Our top five categories accounted for an aggregate of 79% of our advertising revenue (excluding advertising sold by partners) for the year ended December 31, 2019.
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We believe that the concentration of reviews in the restaurant and shopping categories in particular is primarily due to the frequency with which individuals visit specific businesses or engage in certain activities versus others. For example, an individual may eat at a restaurant three times in one week or go shopping once a week, but the same individual is unlikely to visit a mechanic, get a haircut or use a home or local service with the same frequency.
Technology
Product development and innovation are core pillars of our strategy. We devote a substantial portion of our resources to researching and developing new solutions and enhancing existing solutions, conducting product testing and quality assurance testing, improving core technology and strengthening our technological expertise. In addition, we acquired talent and technology through our acquisitions of Nowait, Inc. and Turnstyle Analytics Inc. in 2017. For the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, product development expenses totaled $230.4 million, $212.3 million and $175.8 million, respectively.
We aim to delight our users and business partners with our products. We provide our web-based and mobile services using a combination of in-house and third-party technology solutions and products:
Search and Ranking Technology. We leverage the data stored on our platform and our proprietary indexing and ranking techniques to provide our users with contextual, relevant and up-to-date results to their search queries. For example, a consumer desiring environmentally-friendly carpet cleaners does not have to call individual cleaners to inquire about their use of chemical-based cleaning solutions. Instead, the consumer can search for “environmentally-friendly carpet cleaners” on Yelp and discover cleaners with the best service and “green” cleaning products that serve a specific neighborhood.
Recommendation Software. We employ our proprietary automated recommendation software to analyze and screen all reviews submitted to our platform. We believe our recommendation technology is one of the key contributors to the quality and integrity of the reviews on our platform and the success of our service. See “—Consumer Protection Efforts” below for additional details regarding our recommendation software.
Mobile Solutions. The number of consumers who access information about local businesses through mobile devices increased substantially in recent years, and we anticipate that use of our mobile platform will be the driver of our growth for the foreseeable future. Our most engaged users are on our mobile app, making it particularly critical to our continued success; for example, in the quarter ended December 31, 2019, mobile devices accounted for approximately 79% of all searches and approximately 75% of all ad clicks on our platform. As a result, we have invested significant resources into the development of our comprehensive mobile platform for consumers supporting the major smartphone operating systems available today, iOS and Android. Over time, we have enhanced the functionality of our mobile platform, such that it provides similar and, in some areas, greater functionality than our website. Some of the innovations we introduced through our mobile platform include “check-ins,” “tips,” “comments,” “Nearby” and “Monocle,” our augmented reality feature. We also offer a mobile app for business owners, designed to make it easier for them to engage with their customers and manage their Yelp profiles. The Yelp for Business Owners app is currently available for iOS and Android.
Advertising Technologies. We use proprietary ad targeting and delivery technologies designed to provide relevant local advertisements to consumers viewing our content. Our proprietary ad delivery system leverages our unique repository of data to provide useful ads to users and high value leads to advertisers.
Infrastructure. Our web and mobile platforms are currently hosted from multiple locations, almost entirely through Amazon Web Services. We also host parts of our infrastructure within shared data environments in California and Virginia, as well as with third-party leased server providers. Our web and mobile platforms are designed to have high availability, from the Internet connectivity providers we choose, to the servers, databases and networking hardware that we deploy. We design our systems such that the failure of any individual component is not expected to affect the overall availability of our platform. We also leverage other third-party Internet-based (cloud) services such as rich-content storage, map-related services, ad serving and bulk processing.
Network Security. Computer viruses, malware, phishing attacks, denial-of-service and other attacks and similar disruptions from unauthorized use of computer systems have become more prevalent in our industry, have occurred on our systems in the past and we expect them to occur periodically on our systems in the future. For this reason, our platform includes a host of encryption, antivirus, firewall and patch-management technologies designed to help protect and maintain the systems located at data centers as well as other systems and computers across our business.
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Consumer Protection Efforts
Our success depends on our ability to maintain consumer trust in our solutions and in the quality and integrity of the user content and other information found on our platform. We dedicate significant resources to the goal of maintaining and enhancing the quality, authenticity and integrity of the reviews on our platform, primarily through the following methods:
Automated Recommendation Software. We use proprietary software to analyze the relevance, reliability and utility of each review submitted to our platform. The software applies the same objective standards to each review based on a wide range of data associated with the review and reviewer, regardless of whether the business being reviewed advertises on Yelp. These objective standards include various measures of relevance, reliability and utility, such as the reviewer’s type and level of activity with Yelp (which might correspond to the reviewer’s reliability or suggest reviewer biases) and whether certain reviews originate from related Internet Protocol addresses (which might mean the reviews were submitted by the same person). The results of this analysis can change over time as the software factors in new information, which may result in reviews that were previously recommended becoming not recommended, and reviews that were previously not recommended being restored to recommended status. Reviews that the software deems to be the most useful and reliable are published directly on business listing pages, though neither we nor the software purport to establish whether or not any individual review is authentic. As of December 31, 2019, our software recommended approximately 71% of the reviews submitted to our platform. Reviews that are not recommended are published on secondary pages and do not factor into a business’s overall star rating. As of December 31, 2019, approximately 22% of the reviews submitted to our platform were not recommended but still accessible on our platform.
Education. We provide businesses with information and materials regarding our stance against review solicitation and work with businesses to ensure that any they are aware that Yelp does not work with third-party review solicitation companies that offer to artificially inflate search rankings and online reputations. By working to educate businesses about why review solicitation harms consumers and can undermine a business’ reputation, we believe we can reduce the frequency with which businesses engage in such activities.
Sting Operations. We routinely conduct sting operations to identify businesses and individuals who offer or receive cash, discounts or other benefits in exchange for reviews. For example, we may respond to advertisements offering to pay for reviews that are posted on Craigslist, Facebook and other platforms. We also receive and investigate tips from our users about potential paid reviews. If we identify or confirm any such issues through our investigations, we typically pursue one or more of the courses of action described below (each of which we may also employ on a stand-alone basis).
Consumer Alerts Program. We issue consumer alert warnings on business listing pages from time to time when we encounter suspicious activity that we believe is indicative of attempts to deceive or mislead consumers. For example, we may issue a consumer alert if we encounter a business attempting to purchase favorable reviews, or if a large number of favorable reviews are submitted from the same Internet Protocol address. Consumer alerts generally remain in effect for 90 days, or longer if the deceptive practices continue.
Coordination with Law Enforcement. We regularly cooperate with law enforcement and consumer protection agencies to investigate and identify businesses and individuals who may be engaged in false advertising or deceptive business practices relating to reviews. For example, in 2013, we assisted the New York Attorney General with “Operation Clean Turf,” an undercover investigation targeting review manipulation that resulted in 19 companies agreeing to pay more than $350,000 in fines to the State of New York. In 2016, in a continuation of this investigation, the New York Attorney General announced settlements with six additional businesses that tried to mislead consumers, resulting in the businesses agreeing to pay fines and to take measures to increase the honesty and transparency of their online reviews.
Legal Action. Our terms of service prohibit the buying and selling of reviews, as well as writing fake reviews. In egregious cases, we take legal action against businesses we believe to be engaged in deceptive practices based on these prohibitions.
Removal of Reviews. We regularly remove reviews from our platform that we believe violate our terms of service, including, without limitation: fake or defamatory reviews; content that has been bought, sold or traded; threatening, harassing or lewd content, as well as hate speech and other displays of bigotry; and content that violates the rights of any third party or any applicable law. Consumers can access information about reviews that we have removed for a particular business by clicking on a link on the business’s listing page. As of December 31, 2019, approximately 7% of the reviews submitted to our platform had been removed.
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Intellectual Property
We rely on federal, state, and international statutory, common law and internationalother legal rights, as well as contractual restrictions, to protect our intellectual property. We control access to and distribution of our proprietary technology and algorithms, including our trade secrets, by entering into confidentiality and inventions assignment agreements with our employees and contractors, as well as confidentiality agreements with third parties.parties and other reasonable precautions intended to prevent unauthorized disclosure.
In addition to these contractual arrangements, we also rely on a combination of patent, trade secrets, copyrights, trademarks, service marks and domain names to protect our intellectual property. We pursue the registration of our copyrights, trademarks, service marks and domain names in the United States and in certain locations internationally. Our registration efforts have focused on gaining protection of our trademarks for Yelpthe word mark “Yelp” and the Yelp burst logo, among others. These marks are material to our business and essential to our brand identity as they enable others to easily identify us as the source of the services offered underin connection with these marks. We currently have limited patent protection for our core business, which may make it more difficult to assert certain of our intellectual property rights. For example, the contractual restrictions, policies and processes that protect our trade secrets, that protectincluding our proprietary technology and algorithms, provide only a limited safeguardsafeguards against infringement.misappropriation.
Circumstances outside our control could pose a threat to our intellectual property rights. For example, effective intellectual property protection may not be available in the United States or other countries in which we operate. Also, the efforts we have taken to protect our proprietary rights may not be sufficient or effective. Any significant impairment of our intellectual property rights could harm our business or our ability to compete. Protecting our intellectual property rights is also costly and time consuming. Any unauthorized disclosure or use of our intellectual property could make it more expensive to do business and harm our operating results.
Companies in the Internet, technology and media industries own large numbers of patents and other intellectual property rights, and frequentlymay request license agreements or threaten to enter into litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of such rights. From time to time, we receive notice letters from patent holders alleging that certain of our products and services infringe their patent rights. We are also currently subject to, and expect to face in the future, allegations that we have infringed the trademarks, copyrights, patents and other intellectual property rights of third parties, including our competitors and non-practicing entities. As we face increasing competition and as our business grows, we will likelymay face more claims of infringement.
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Competition
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 and market entrants. Our competitors consist of companies that help businesses — particularly businesses in our strategically important Services categories and, to a lesser extent, restaurants and home & local services categoriescategory — connect and engage with consumers, including:
online search engines and directories, such as Google, as well as traditional, offline business guides and directories;
online and offline providers of consumer ratings, reviews and referrals, such as TripAdvisor;
providers of online marketing and tools for managing and optimizing advertising campaigns, such as Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as various forms of traditional offline advertising, including radio, direct marketing campaigns, yellow pages and newspapers;
restaurant reservation and seating tools, such as OpenTable, as well as food ordering and delivery services; and
home and/or local services-related platforms and offerings, such as ANGI Homeservices.Angi.
Our competitors may enjoy competitive advantages, such as greater name recognition, longer operating histories, substantially greater market share, established marketing relationships with, and access to, 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 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. Certain competitors could also use strong or dominant positions in one or more markets to gain competitive advantage against us in markets in which we operate.
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We believe our ability to compete successfully for users, content, and advertising and other customers depends upon many factors both within and beyond our control, including:
the popularity, usefulness, ease of use, performance and reliability of our products and services compared to those of our competitors;
our ability, in and of itself as well as in comparison to the ability of our competitors, to develop new products and services and enhancements to existing products and services;
the quantity, quality and reliability of our content, including its breadth, depth and timeliness;
our ad targeting and measurement capabilities, and those of our competitors;
the size, composition and level of engagement of our consumer audience relative to those of our competitors;
our marketing and selling efforts, and those of our competitors;
the pricing of our products and services relative to those of our competitors;
the actual or perceived return our customers receive from our products and services relative to returns from our competitors;
the frequency and relative prominence of the ads displayed by us or our competitors;
acquisitions or consolidation within our industry, which may result in more formidable competitors; and
our reputation and brand strength relative to our competitors.
Government Regulation
As a company conducting business on the Internet,internet, we are subject to a variety of laws and regulations in the United States and abroad that involve matters central to our business, including laws regarding privacy, data retention, distribution ofprotection, data security, user-generated content consumer protection and dataconsumer protection, among others. For example:
Privacy, Data Protection and Data Security. Because we receive, store and process personal information and other user data, including credit card information in certain cases, we are subject to numerous federal, statedomestic and localforeign privacy, data protection and data security laws aroundand regulations restricting the world regarding privacycollection, storing, use, retention, processing and the storing, sharing, use, processing, disclosure and protection of personal information and other user data. The laws in many jurisdictions require companies to implement specific security controls and contractual arrangements to protect certain types of information. Likewise, many
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jurisdictions have laws in place requiring companies to notify users if there is a security breach that compromises certain categories of their information. For example, in the United States, many states require companies to implement reasonable security measures and all states and U.S. territories require businesses to notify affected individuals and government entities of the occurrence of security breaches affecting certain personal information.
Liability for Third-Party Action. We rely on laws limiting the liability of providers of online services for activities of their users and other third parties.parties, such as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act ("CDA 230") in the United States.
Advertising. We are 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.
Information SecurityWe operate in a rapidly evolving industry, and Data Protection. The laws in many jurisdictions require companies to implement specific information security controls to protect certain types of information. Likewise, many jurisdictions have laws in place requiring companies to notify users if there is a security breach that compromises certain categories of their information.
Many of these laws and regulations that impact our business are being proposed, still evolving and could be interpretedor being tested in ways that harm our business.courts. The application and interpretation of these laws and regulations are often uncertain, particularlyand they could be interpreted and applied in the new and rapidly evolving industry in which we operate.ways that harm our business. They may also conflict with other rules, be interpreted and applied inconsistently (including from country to countrycountry) and inconsistentlyin ways that are at odds with our current policies and practices. As our business grows and evolves, we will also become subject to additional laws and regulations, including in jurisdictions outside of the United States.
For example, laws providing immunity to websites that publish user-generated content are currently beingregularly tested by a number of claims, including actions based on invasion of privacy and other torts, unfair competition, copyright and trademark infringement and other theories based on the nature and content of the materials searched, the ads posted or the content provided by users.
Similarly, new legislation and regulations may significantly impact our business. There have been variousare also regular Congressional efforts to restrict the scope of the protections available to online platforms under SectionCDA 230, of the Communications Decency Act, and our current protections from liability for third-party content in the United States could decrease or change as a result. Claims and legislation applicable to user-generated content also regularly arise in other jurisdictions.
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Regulatory frameworks for privacy issues in particular are also currently in flux worldwide, and are likely to remain so for the foreseeable future. In the United States, states have begun to introduce stringent and comprehensive privacy, data protection and data security legislation, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act ("CCPA"), which took effect in 2020. The CCPA and its implementing regulations give California residents expanded rights to access and require deletion of their personal information, opt out of certain personal information sharing and receive detailed information about how their personal information is used. The CCPA will be expanded substantially on January 1, 2023, when the California Privacy Rights Act of 2020 (“CPRA”) becomes fully operative.The CPRA will, among other things, give California residents the ability to limit use of certain sensitive personal information, further restrict the use of cross-contextual advertising, establish restrictions on the retention of personal information, expand the types of data breaches subject to the CCPA’s private right of action, provide for increased penalties for CPRA violations concerning California residents under the age of 16, and establish a new California Privacy Protection Agency to implement and enforce the new law. If additional individual states pass privacy, data protection and data security laws that place different obligations or limitations on the processing of personal information of individuals in those states, it will become more complex to comply with these laws and our compliance costs and potential liability may increase. There is also discussion in Congress of new comprehensive federal data protection and privacy law to which we likely would be subject if it is enacted.
Foreign laws and regulations concerning privacy, data protection and data security are also evolving and are often more restrictive and burdensome than those in the United States; any failure on our part to comply with them may subject us to significant liabilities. For example, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR,("GDPR"), which took effect in May 2018, imposes comprehensive privacy, data protection and data security obligations on businesses and imposes significant penalties for non-compliance. Among other obligations under the California Consumer Privacy Act, which took effect in January 2020,GDPR, businesses are required to make contractual privacy, data protection and data security commitments; give detailed disclosures about how they collect, use and share personal information; maintain adequate security measures; notify regulators and affected individuals of certain personal information breaches; meet extensive governance and documentation requirements; and honor individuals’ rights to their personal information.
European data protection laws including the GDPR also restrict the transfer of personal information from Europe to the United States and most other countries unless the parties to the transfer have implemented specific safeguards to protect the transferred personal information. However, recent judicial and administrative decisions have called into question the viability of one of the primary safeguards allowing such transfers, and there are currently few, if any, viable alternative safeguards. If we are unable to implement a valid solution for personal information transfers from Europe, we will face increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines, and injunctions against processing or transferring personal information from Europe and may be required to increase our data processing capabilities in Europe at significant expense.
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Other countries outside of Europe have enacted or are considering enacting similar cross-border data transfer restrictions and laws requiring local data residency as well, which could increase the cost and complexity of operating our business.
For additional information, see the section titled "Risk Factors—Our business is subject to varying interpretationscomplex and evolving practices that create uncertaintyU.S. and foreign regulations and other legal obligations related to privacy, data protection and other matters. Our actual or result in significantly greater compliance burdens for us.
Changes in existing laws or regulations or their interpretations, as well as new legislation or regulations, may be costlyperceived failure to comply with such regulations and may delay or impedeobligations could harm our business."
Human Capital Management
At Yelp, we deeply value our community of employees who sustain our culture through their dedication to our mission of connecting people with great local businesses and to living our values of authenticity, tenacity, creativity, collegiality, and prioritizing consumer trust. We are committed to providing them with a great work experience by creating an equitable and inclusive environment. We have long focused on building a diverse team of innovators and problem solvers who can bring their most authentic selves to work, which we believe positions our employees to relate to and solve the developmentdiverse needs of new products, increaseconsumers and businesses.
As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately 4,400 employees globally across the following teams:
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Distributed Work
With the health and well-being of our operating costsemployees, extended workforce and require significant management timecommunities in mind, we promptly migrated our workforce to work from home in March 2020 as the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic started to become clear. While the rapid transition presented challenges, over the course of 2020 it became evident that we were able to operate successfully as a distributed remote workforce and attention. Such changes could also make it more difficult for consumersthat distributed operations were beneficial to useboth Yelp and our platform, resultingemployees. For example, in less traffic and revenue, or make it more difficult foraddition to allowing us to providereduce our office space and our reliance on the San Francisco Bay Area, distributed work provides employees with greater opportunities for flexible work schedules and reduces time spent commuting.
The success of this shift in 2020 demonstrated the feasibility of a distributed workforce at Yelp for the longer term, and in 2021 we announced that we would continue our distributed operations on a permanent basis. While we plan to maintain offices in the locations where we had a presence prior to the pandemic, a significant portion of our team works remotely on a full-time basis or comes into the office only a few days each week. We believe this model provides even greater flexibility to our employees, who now have the opportunity to relocate within the countries where we operate so they can live where they want to live and work where they will feel most effective, advertising toolsand will result in improved employee retention. It also allows us to businesses on our platform, resulting in fewer advertisersaccess and less revenue. As our business grows and evolves, we will also become subject to additional laws and regulations, including in jurisdictions outsideattract great talent from a more diverse pool of the United States. Foreign data protection, privacy and other laws and regulations can be more restrictive than those incandidates across the United States, as is the case with GDPR. Any failure on our part to comply with these laws may subject us to significant liabilities.Canada and Europe.
Our Culture and Employees
We take great pride inconsider our company culture and consider it to be one of our competitive strengths. Our culturestrengths; it is at the foundation of our success and it continues to help drive our business forward as a pivotal part of our everyday operations. It allows us to attract and retain a talented group of employees, create an energetic work environmentexperience and continue to innovate in a highly competitive market. As
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Distributed Workforce.While we had 5,950 employees globally.have always taken great pride in our company culture, it has never been static, and our decision to remain a distributed workforce is driving its latest evolution. We are working to build on our existing strong and collaborative culture with the goal of supporting and fostering a thriving distributed workforce. These efforts include focusing on equity in opportunities for career advancement, regardless of whether an employee is remote or spending a few days each week in an office, as well as in opportunities to contribute by continuing to hold meetings in digital space. At the same time, we are also working to reestablish our pre-pandemic in-person office environments that invited collaboration and creativity, now with increased flexibility.
Employee Engagement. To ensure that we are maintaining our vibrant culture and addressing any areas of employee concern, we conduct an annual employee engagement survey to inform our plans, policies and programs. This survey covers a wide range of topics including: compensation and benefits; management; work-life balance; feedback and recognition; Company confidence; inclusion; and learning and development. In 2021, we also conducted a manager effectiveness survey, a benefits survey to assess whether our benefits programs were meeting employee needs, and a remote work survey on issues such as managing remotely, employee well-being in a remote environment, how teams are adjusting to remote work, and remote growth and connection opportunities. We implemented a number of initiatives in response to the results of our 2021 surveys, including efforts to further facilitate flexible employee schedules, increasing the remote work stipend for new hires to set up their home offices, and further expanding our wellness offerings to include a caregiver reimbursement, fertility benefits and additional paid wellness days, among other things.
Fostering Local Communities. Our culture extends beyond our offices and into the local communities in which people use Yelp. Our community managementCommunity Management team’s responsibilities include fostering and supporting the sharingcommunities of experiences by consumersusers in the local markets that they serve, and increasing brand awareness. Weas well as encouraging consumers to share their experiences with local businesses. Community Managers organize events several times athroughout the year to recognizeengage our most important contributors, facilitatingwhich facilitates face-to-face interactions, buildingbuilds the Yelp brand and fosteringfosters the sense of true community in which we believe so strongly. We also engage with small businesses. For example, we attendbusinesses, including through conferences and events hosted by industry groups to interact with and get feedback from our core community of local business owners. Even in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have continued these efforts by hosting virtual events and offering tools to help consumers and local businesses stay connected during these extraordinary times.
Content Moderation. Consumer trust is a top priority at Yelp, and we take significant measures to maintain the integrity and quality of the content on our platform while leveling the playing field for hard-working business owners who rightfully earn their great reputations. We place a high value on personal expression and provide a platform that encourages people to share their experiences. At the same time, we take active steps to enhance the trust and safety of our users, as well as to provide them with reliable content to inform their spending decisions. Our User Operations team is on the front lines of our consumer protection efforts; it works to maintain the high quality of content on our platform, including by evaluating reviews, photos and other information about businesses. User Operations also manages our consumer alerts program, which includes warnings about businesses that have been accused of, or are the target of, racist incidents to help inform users' spending decisions and whether they will feel welcome. In addition to these content moderation efforts, our User Operations team communicates with the contributors and businesses impacted by our moderation decisions to promote constructive participation on Yelp.
Making a Difference. We endeavor to have a positive impact on the diverse communities in which people use Yelp by using our platform to raise awareness, promote economic opportunity for those in need and support organizations that serve local communities. Our initiatives in 2021 included: programs to support Asian- and LGBTQ-owned businesses as well as underserved business communities; partnerships aimed at promoting diverse businesses and encouraging businesses owners to make their businesses a safe and welcoming place for everyone; and hosting our inaugural Women in Business and Black in Business Summits to celebrate diverse business owners and provide a forum for them to share their stories and offer tactical advice for entrepreneurs.
The Yelp Foundation. The Yelp Foundation or the Foundation,(the “Foundation”), a non-profit organization established by our board of directors in November 2011, directly supports consumers and local businesses in the communities in which we operate. In 2011, our board of directors approved the contribution and issuance to the Foundation of 520,000 shares of our common stock of whichto fund the Foundation had sold 247,500 shares as of December 31, 2019. The Foundation uses the proceeds from the sale of its shares of our common stock to makeFoundation’s grants to local non-profit organizations that are actively engaged in supporting community and small business growth. AsThe Foundation held 215,500 shares as of December 31, 2019, the Foundation held 272,500 shares of common stock, representing2021, which represented less than 1% of our outstanding capitalcommon stock.
One of the Foundation’s missions is to promote a culture of philanthropy among Yelp employees. In 2021, we built on the Foundation’s employee-matching program to double match Yelp employee donations made around issues that matter most to our employees. For example, the Foundation doubled matched donations to organizations fighting to stop Asian hate and
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prevent gun violence from March through May, as well as donations to organizations advocating for gender equality and providing reproductive health services and financial support to underserved women in October.
Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging
Every local business has a unique story; having a diverse workforce means our employees are better equipped to relate to and solve for the diverse needs of consumers and businesses. As a result, we are committed to increasing diversity at all levels of our organization to reflect the diversity of the communities in which we live and work. Our Executive Diversity Task Force, which includes our chief executive officer, chief operating officer and chief financial officer, oversees the implementation of our diversity initiatives, including by holding individual department heads accountable for growing the diversity of their organizations.
Over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, we learned new ways of working and our understanding of the potential approaches to maintaining an engaged and productive workforce evolved. While transitioning to a distributed workforce was initially reactive, we are now focused on proactively growing and cultivating an employee community based on a variety of backgrounds, talents and perspectives, including by evaluating new opportunities to improve access and equity. For example, our ability to attract talent was previously limited by our requirement that employees work in our physical office space; we now have the opportunity to access talent in areas where we do not currently have offices. This has allowed us to reach a wider pool of individuals from a broader variety of backgrounds, which we believe will allow us to create an even more diverse organization and address other inequalities, such as the urban-rural employment gap.
While our 2021 Diversity Report* showed that we have more work to do, it also showed that our efforts have had a positive impact.
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*    Our 2021 Diversity Report and the diversity data presented above are based on self-reported information from our employees between September 8, 2020 and August 31, 2021, reflect judgments about our organizational structure and, with respect to the ethnic diversity data presented above, do not include employees who declined to provide the relevant information. The Native American grouping includes Native Americans, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiian and other Pacific Islanders per U.S. EEO-1 reporting requirements. Management includes all people managers.
We also firmly believe that inclusion is just as important as diversity. We aim to cultivate a sense of belonging through company-supported employee resource and affinity groups, hosting events that provide our employees with the opportunity to celebrate and learn about the diverse cultures of their colleagues, and instituting a mandatory company-wide diversity training program that covers systemic racism and institutional bias. For example, our Yelp Employee Resource Groups (“YERGs”) serve as a resource for employees with shared social identities, characteristics or life experiences and help foster employee engagement, professional development and a sense of belonging. We now have 20 YERGs that count nearly half of our employee population as members and provide key insights and support for employees.
Talent Attraction and Retention
Our future depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate, and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand and we expect to continue to face significant competition from other companies in hiring and retaining such personnel. While our plans to continue operating on a distributed basis may mitigate this challenge by expanding the pool of candidates from which we draw, we may continue to face significant competition for product and engineering employees in the San Francisco Bay Area in particular, where our headquarters is located and where the cost of living is high.
We focus on attracting top talent through our employment marketing and outreach initiatives. We advertise our career opportunities on premier job boards and aggregators in addition to running targeted brand campaigns that enable us to connect with diverse talent pools. We maintain an active voice on social media through our Life at Yelp channel, which highlights employee testimonials regarding their Yelp experiences. Our distributed workforce model has expanded our hiring reach,
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allowing us to access and attract great talent pools regardless of geography. We also focus on attracting early-in-career talent through university outreach and on-campus recruiting efforts, including at historically Black colleges and universities.
We believe that happy employees are successful employees and that providing an environment in which our employees can thrive both personally and professionally will help us attract and retain great talent. In addition to offering our employees the flexibility to work remotely, we offer competitive compensation and comprehensive benefits, including standard health, dental, vision, life and disability insurance benefits as well as a 401(k) plan with company matching. To foster a sense of ownership and align the interests of our employees and stockholders, we also grant equity awards, primarily in the form of restricted stock units, to eligible employees under our equity incentive plans. In addition, the Foundation offers up to $1,000 in matching donations each year to charitable organizations made by our regular full-time employees.
We also provide comprehensive talent development programs, as described below, as well as health and financial wellness programs. In addition to our insurance benefits, our wellness program includes a monthly wellness subsidy, access to mental health support and services through Talkspace and our Employee Assistance Program, as well as financial wellness programs such as financial counseling and tools to help manage student loans.
COVID-19 Response
Our focus on the health and well-being of our employees is also reflected in our continuing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has been driven by guidance from applicable governmental and public health authorities. In addition to continuing our distributed operations, we continue to provide additional time off to employees for health and wellness, offer various stipends for home office equipment and to assist with caregiver expenses, and communicate regularly with employees regarding the impacts of the pandemic, including health and safety protocols and procedures. We also hosted virtual trainings and events to help employees adapt to working and managing remotely, as well as maintaining their mental well-being while working and parenting from home. We are continuing to monitor the evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic and relevant medical guidance as we evaluate office re-openings and in-person gatherings to ensure that we are putting the health and safety of our employees first.

Talent Development
To help our employees succeed in their current roles and to aid their career development, we emphasize continuous learning and development opportunities. Our talent development programs begin with a global onboarding program to acclimate new employees to our culture and collaborative ways of working in a distributed work environment. We believe this investment in creating early connections and establishing a solid foundation for further career growth is a critical factor in employee success and ultimately employee retention. Similarly, effective leadership is an important driver of an employee’s growth and feelings of belonging and connection to our purpose. To that end, we provide leadership development programs for new and continuing managers that focus on developing the self, developing others and driving business results.
We also provide ongoing learning opportunities for individual contributors that focus on managing the self, emotional intelligence, and career and professional development. We also recently began offering a professional development program that facilitates employees partnering with their managers to create career development plans and provides an annual development reimbursement to invest in their growth. We also offer customized coaching resources to provide individual support and develop critical skills, as well as regular, ongoing training in compliance and workplace conduct matters to all employees.
Seasonality and Cyclicality
Our business is affected by seasonal fluctuations in Internet usage and advertising spending, as well as cyclicality in economic activity.activity:
Seasonality. Based on historical trends, we expectour revenue is typically lowest in the first quarter and increases through the year to its highest level in the fourth quarter. This is also the typical spending pattern for our multi-location customers, whose ad budgets are generally lowest at the beginning of the year and peak in the fourth quarter, though SMBs tend to decrease their advertising spending at that time. Our traffic numbers to beis also typically weakest in the fourth quarter of the year in connection with end of the yearyear-end holidays. In addition, although our multi-location customers tend to increase spending on advertising in the fourth quarter, the small and medium-sized business, or SMBs, on which we rely heavily typically decrease their advertising spending during this quarter. In 2019, we experienced a more pronounced impact on our fourth quarter advertising revenue from seasonal decreases in advertising spending by SMBs than in prior years, which we believe was the result of more customers being on non-term contracts.
Cyclicality. SMBs 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 or bankruptcies. As a result, SMBs may be disproportionately affected by negative fluctuations in the business cycle, and a
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worsening economic outlook would likely cause such businesses to decrease investments in advertising, which would adversely affect our revenue.
We believe our rapid growth This has masked mostbeen the case in connection with the COVID-19 pandemic; while restrictive measures to control the spread of the seasonalityCOVID-19 have eased, they have had and cyclicality of our business. Asmay continue to have significant macroeconomic impacts that have been particularly challenging for SMBs. Any protracted economic downturn would have significant negative effects on our business matures and the proportionresults of our customers who can cancel their ad campaigns at any time increases, we expect that the seasonality and cyclicality in our business may become more pronounced, causing our operating results to fluctuate.
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operations.
Corporate and Available Information
We were incorporated in Delaware on September 3, 2004 under the name Yelp, Inc. We changed our name to Yelp! Inc. in late September 2004 and to Yelp Inc. in February 2012.2004. Our principal executive offices are located at 140 New Montgomery350 Mission Street, 9th10th Floor, San Francisco, California 94105, and our telephone number is (415) 908-3801. Our website is located at www.yelp.com, and our investor relations website is located at www.yelp-ir.com.
We file or furnish electronically with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission or SEC,("SEC") annual reports on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, current reports on Form 8-K and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act. We make copies of these reports available free of charge through our investor relations website as soon as reasonably practicable after we file or furnish them with the SEC. These reports are also accessible through the SEC website at www.sec.gov.
We webcast our earnings calls and certain events we participate in or host with members of the investment community on our investor relations website. Additionally, we provide notifications of news or announcements regarding our financial performance, including filings with the SEC, investor events, press and earnings releases, and blogs as part of our investor relations website. Investors and others can receive notifications of new information posted on our investor relations website in real time by signing up for e-mail alerts and RSS feeds.
Information contained on or accessible through our websites is not incorporated into, and does not form a part of, this Annual Report or any other report or document we file with the SEC, and any references to our websites are intended to be inactive textual references only.

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Item 1A. Risk Factors

Risks Related to Our Business and Industry

If we are unableThe COVID-19 pandemic has had, and may continue to increase traffic to our mobile app and website, or user engagementhave, a significant adverse impact on our platform declines, our revenue, business and operating results of operations, and also exposes our business to other risks.
The COVID-19 pandemic has had, and it may be harmed.
We derivecontinue to have, a substantial majority of our revenue basedsignificant adverse impact on our users' engagement withbusiness and results of operations in turn. Although vaccines are currently available in the ads that we display. Because traffic to our platformUnited States and user engagement on our platform together determinesome public health restrictions have eased, the number of ads we are ableCOVID-19 cases has continued to show, affect the value of those ads to businessesfluctuate, negatively impacting consumer confidence and support the content creation that drives further traffic, our ability to attract, retain and engage visitorsuser activity on our platform is critical toplatform. While our business showed significant improvement in 2021 from 2020, consumer traffic remained below pre-pandemic 2019 levels during due to ongoing concerns related to COVID-19 and financial success. A number of factors could adversely affect ourits variants. Our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories have been particularly sensitive to changes in consumer confidence; traffic and user engagement, including, butrevenue in these categories did not limited to:fully recover to their 2019 levels in 2021. As the pandemic continues, our business is exposed to a variety of risks, including:
continued reduced demand for our reliance on Internet search engines;products, lower retention rates, and increased challenges in or cost of acquiring new customers;
if users engage with other products, services or activities as an alternative toreductions in cash flows from operations and liquidity, which impacts our platform;capital allocation strategy in turn;
ifsetbacks on our progress on our strategic initiatives as we failreallocate resources 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;responding to the pandemic;
reductions in traffic, engagement, and the quantity and quality of the content contributedprovided by our users, as well as the perceived distribution of such content across the categories of businesses on our platform;users;
increasing competitionincreased fluctuation in the market for information regarding local businesses;our operating results and volatility and uncertainty in our financial projections;
inefficiencies, delays and disruptions in our abilitybusiness due to manage and prioritize information to ensure users are presented with content that is relevant and helpful to them, including through the effective operationillness of key employees or a significant portion of our automated recommendation software;workforce;
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;impairment charges;
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 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;
adverse macroeconomic conditions and their negative impact on consumer spending at local businesses;
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;additional restructuring charges; and
if we do not maintain our brand image or our reputation is damaged.
We anticipate that our traffic growth rate will continue to slow over time, and potentially decrease in certain periodsoperational difficulties due to the maturationadverse effects of our business and our high penetration rates in most major geographic markets within the United States and Canada. As our traffic growth rate slows, our business and financial performance will become increasingly dependentCOVID-19 on our abilitythird-party service providers and strategic partners.
While the positive trends we have seen in user activity during periods of higher consumer confidence and looser public health restrictions give us confidence that traffic will return organically as the pandemic recedes, it is not possible for us to increase levelspredict the remaining duration of user engagement withthe pandemic, the severity of future COVID-19 variants and resulting restrictions, or the duration or magnitude of the adverse impact on our platformbusiness. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, health measures taken by governments and private industry in response to the ads thatpandemic may have a long-term adverse effect on the economy. Adverse macroeconomic conditions have historically been particularly challenging for the SMBs on which we display.rely and any protracted economic downturn would have significant negative effects on our business.

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. We sell ads primarilyAdverse macroeconomic conditions may make this more difficult, particularly when such macroeconomic conditions disproportionately affect the SMBs on which we rely, as has been the case with the economic impact of COVID-19. Although public health restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic have eased, many businesses are still operating at limited capacity as a CPC basis,safety precaution or in response to reduced consumer demand and have been forced to reduce their advertising spending with us as a result. This reduction in demand for our products has already had, and may continue to have, a significant adverse impact on our business and revenue; we expect that our business would continue to be significantly adversely affected for the pricingduration of which depends, in part, on competition among advertisers through an auction mechanism. Demand for ads in certain business categories that receive lower levels of traffic can exceed our inventory,
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resulting in relatively high prices for ads in those categories. Such prices reduce our competitiveness and we may not be able to retain advertisers who frequently encounter them. This issue may be exacerbated by any changes to search engine algorithms and methodologies that haverecessionary period or protracted economic downturn even after the effect of further reducing traffic to impacted categories.COVID-19 pandemic has subsided.
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 do not have long-term obligations to purchase our products; in fact, as a result of our transition to non-term contracts for most of our new local advertising customers in May 2018, a substantial and increasing portion of our advertisers have the ability to cancel their ad campaigns at any time without penalty. As a result,If we are unable to quickly and effectively respond to any decrease in customer satisfaction, economic downturn (including as a result of COVID-19 and any related labor and supply chain issues) or other change negatively affecting our ability to retain advertisers, may have an earlier and more concentrated effect on our results going forward than prior to our transition to non-term contracts, when our multi-month advertising contracts imposed a fee for early cancellations. If we are unable to quickly and effectively respond to such developments, our ability to maintain and expand our advertiser base will be harmed. In addition, the negative impact
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Table of attrition on our financial results may be greater with respect to advertisers who are billed in arrears, as the vast majority of our advertisers now are, if they fail to make payment on ads that have already been delivered.Contents
In addition, a significant portion of our advertiser base consists primarily 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 increasedrive traffic to our platform and increase user engagement, including engagement with the ads displayed on our platform;
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 effectiveness of our sales force, which may be affected by a range of factors, not all of which are within our control, including:
the employment market in cities where our sales offices are located;
our sales force's ability to connect with potential customers' key decision makers which may be harmed if such decision makers, their telecommunications carriers or their mobile operating systems increase their use of call
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blocking technologies, or decision makers answer their phones less frequently to avoid, for example, calls from unknown numbers, telemarketing calls, calls from political campaigns and other solicitations; and
catastrophic occurrences, such as earthquakes or fires, and major public health issuescrises like the COVID-19 pandemic that negatively impact the productivity of our sales force;
the degree to which businesses choose to reach users through our free products in lieu of our paid products and services; and
adverse macroeconomic conditions, which may disproportionately affect the SMBs on which we rely.pricing of our products, including the CPC ad prices determined by our auction system.
Any of these or other factors could result in a reduction in demand for our products, which may reduce the prices we are able to charge, either of 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 improving monetization of our Services categories, driving sales through our Self-serve and Multi-location channels, delivering more value to advertisers and enhancing the consumer experience. These initiatives involve 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.
Our ability to increaseexecute each of our revenuestrategic priorities depends on our ability to introduce successful new products and services. Our ongoing investments in developing products and services, including products and services outside of our historical core business, involve significant risks, could disrupt our current operations and may not produce the long-term benefits that we expect.
Our industry is rapidly evolving and intensely competitive; our ability to compete successfully and increase our revenue depends on our ability to continue to deliverdevelop innovative, relevant and useful products to our customers in a timely manner. AsDeveloping 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, which is a result, we have invested, and expect to continue to invest, significant resources in developing products and services to drive traffic to our platform and engage our users. Our product development efforts may include significant changes to our existing products orparticular risk for new products that are unproven or that are outside of our historical core business, such as our investments in Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist. Such investments may not prioritize short-term financial results and may involve significant risks and uncertainties, including distracting management and disrupting our current operations. We cannot assure you that any resulting new or enhanced products and services will engage users and advertisers. We may fail to generate sufficient revenue, operating margin or other value to justify our investments in such products, thereby harming our ability to generate revenue directly and, with respect to investments in products outside of our core business, indirectly as a result of foregoing the opportunity for higher investment in our advertising business, in other product lines and other initiatives.

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, such as 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. Although search results and application marketplaces have allowed us to attract a large audience with low organic traffic acquisition costs to date, 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 any increase in marketing expense may in turn harm our operating results.
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 display, including rankings, 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 our traffic, and we expect they will continue to make such changes from time to time in the future. For example, we believe Google's update to its search algorithm in the fourth quarter of 2019 may have harmed and may be continuing to harm our traffic. Similarly, Apple, Google or other marketplace operators may make changes to their marketplaces that make access to our products more difficult. For example, our applications may receive unfavorable treatment compared to the promotion and placement of competing applications, such as the order in which they appear within marketplaces.
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.business.
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We will also face industry challenges in our efforts to monetize more of the leads we deliver to Services businesses. In some instances,addition to being a highly competitive, fragmented market, it has not yet fully embraced online solutions of the type we offer. Many of our consumers continue to search engine companiesfor, select and application marketplaceshire 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 changenot occur as quickly as we expect, or at all.
Our efforts to provide advertisers more value for their displays or rankingsmoney may include lowering prices while making significant investments in order to promote their own competingproduct development. We cannot guarantee that any resulting increase in demand for our products or servicesimprovement in retention will offset lower prices or the products or services of one or moreotherwise generate sufficient revenue to justify our investments.
Certain of our competitors.past strategic decisions may also continue to impact our opportunities and long-term prospects. For example, Google has integrated its local product offering with certain of its products, including searchwe wound down our international sales and maps. The resulting promotion of Google’s own competing productsmarketing operations in its web search results has negatively impacted2016 and reallocated the search ranking of our website. Because Google in particular is the most significant source of trafficassociated resources primarily to our website, accounting for a substantial portion ofU.S. and Canadian markets. While our decision to focus our sales and marketing resources primarily on the visitsUnited States and Canada has resulted in some cost savings, it also limited the markets from which we generate revenue and affects our ability to our website, our successexpand internationally in the future. Our continued growth depends on our ability to maintainfurther expand our U.S. and Canadian business for the foreseeable future; however, our business in these markets is in a prominent presencerelatively late stage of development, and further expansion may not yield similar results. If we are not able to develop these markets as we expect, or if we fail to address the needs of those markets, our business will be harmed.

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 officers and other U.S. employees 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, 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. Although we expect our decision to continue operating on a distributed basis to reduce our reliance on the San Francisco Bay Area, where the cost of living is high and competition for qualified candidates is particularly high, we may not succeed in realizing the benefits of these efforts within the time frame we expect or at all. 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. As we continue to mature, the incentives to attract, retain and motivate employees provided by our equity awards may not be as effective as in the past, and if we issue significant equity to attract additional employees or to retain our existing employees, we would incur substantial additional stock-based compensation expense and the ownership of our existing stockholders would be further diluted. Volatility in the price of our common stock may also make it more difficult or costly in the future to use equity compensation to motivate, incentivize and retain our employees. 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.

If 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 our platform and user engagement on our platform together determine the number of ads we are able to show, 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. A number of factors could adversely affect our traffic and user engagement, including, but not limited to:
our reliance on Internet search resultsengines;
if users engage with other products, services or activities as an alternative to our platform;
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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 queriesinformation 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 have difficulty installing, updating or otherwise accessing our platform as a result of actions by us or third parties that we rely on Google.to distribute our products, such as application marketplaces and device manufacturers;
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;
adverse macroeconomic conditions and their negative impact on consumer spending at local businesses;
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.
While we believe that traffic will rebound organically as the pandemic recedes, we cannot predict the remaining duration of the pandemic or the magnitude of its impact on our traffic, and we expect that our traffic levels will continue to fluctuate with consumers’ level of confidence, particularly in our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories. We further anticipate that our traffic growth rate will continue to slow over the medium and long term, and potentially decrease in certain periods due to the maturation of our business and our high penetration rates in most major geographic markets within the United States and Canada. As our traffic growth rate slows, our business and financial performance will become increasingly dependent on our ability to drive user engagement with our platform and the ads that we display.

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 as the COVID-19 pandemic. 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. While we believe these challenges have been addressed, we expect similar challenges to arise in the future as we continue to operate with a distributed workforce 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 adversely affect our business.
To execute on our growth strategy, we will need to continue to increase the productivity of our current employees, many of whom have been with us for fewer than two years, and hire, train and manage new employees, which may be particularly difficult in a fully remote environment and as a result of our plans to increase our international hiring efforts. In particular, we intend to continue making substantial investments in our engineering, sales and marketing organizations. As a result, Google’s promotionwe will have to effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number of its own competing products, or similar actions by Googlenew employees in a remote environment while maintaining the future that have the effectbeneficial aspects of reducing our prominence or ranking on its search results, could have a substantial negative effect oncompany culture.
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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.

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 and market entrants. We face competition for users, content, and advertising and other customers, including from: online search engines and directories; traditional, offline business guides and directories; online and offline providers of consumer ratings, reviews and referrals; 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.
Our competitors may enjoy 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 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. In particular, major Internet companies, such as Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, may be more successful 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 gain additional share of advertising budgets.
Certain competitors could also use strong or dominant positions in one or more markets to gain competitive advantage against us in areas in which we operate, including by:
integrating review platforms or features into products they control, such as search engines, web browsers or mobile device operating systems;
making acquisitions;
changing their unpaid search result rankings to 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.

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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 Grubhub 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. For example, the ongoing maintenance of the Grubhub integration may require significant time, resources and expense, andThis may divert the attention of our management and employees from other aspects of our business operations. In addition,operations, and there can be no assurance that we will be able to continue to realize the intended benefits of the Grubhubany 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 rely on the integration of our content into Apple Maps to drive 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 may be difficult to maintain as a result; if our partnership with Apple ended, we would be required to increase our marketing spend to drive traffic and downloads from alternate sources, which would adversely affect our financial results. Similarly, our entry into the online reservations space with our acquisition of SeatMe, Inc. in 2013 put us in competition with OpenTable, which led to the end of our partnership with OpenTable in 2015. Our focus on establishing additional partnerships to help accelerate our growth initiatives may exacerbate this risk. If our relationships with our partners and providers deteriorate, we could suffer increased costs and delays in our ability to provide consumers and advertisers with content or similar services. As in the case of the expiration or termination of any of our agreements with third-party providers, transitioning from one partner or provider to another could subject us to operational delays and inefficiencies and we may not be able to replace the services provided to us in a timely manner or on terms that are favorable to us, if at all.
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 a single supplier to process payments of all transactions made through Yelp. Any disruption or problems with this supplier or its services could have an adverse effect on our reputation, results of operations and financial results. 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.

Our strategyWe rely on Internet search engines and application marketplaces to growdrive 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, such as 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 any increase in marketing expense may in turn harm our operating results.
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 display, including rankings, of unpaid search results can be affected by a number of factors, many of which are not be successfulin our direct control, and may expose uschange frequently. Search engines have made changes in the past to additional risks.
Our strategy to grow our business includes priorities such as winning in our key categoriestheir ranking algorithms, methodologies and design layouts that have reduced the prominence of restaurants and home & local services, providing more valuelinks to our business customersplatform and focusing onnegatively impacted our multi-locationtraffic, and self-serve sales channels. These initiatives involve risks and executing on themwe expect they will continue to make such changes from time to time in the future.
Similarly, Apple, Google or other marketplace operators may provemake changes to their marketplaces, technical requirements or policies that make access to our products more difficult, than we currently anticipate. We may not succeed in realizingreduce the benefits of these efforts, including growing our revenue and improving our margins, within the time frame we expectprominence or at all.
We will face both execution and industry challenges in our efforts to win in our key categories. For example, developing comprehensive restaurant and home & local services solutions may require substantial investments and significant changes to our existing platform, products and content, and our development efforts in one category may not translate to the other. The restaurants and home & local services markets themselves will also present significant hurdles. In addition to being highly competitive, fragmented industries, neither has yet fully embraced online solutions of the type we offer. The majority of restaurants and diners continue to use the traditional offline ordering and booking methods involving the telephone, paper menus that restaurants distribute to diners and pen-and-paper or other offline reservation books. Similarly, manyrank of our 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. Even if we are successful in developing comprehensive solutions and overcoming industry challenges in these categories, we may not realize the benefits that we expected from pursuing this strategy or may not realize themapplications within a reasonable time. For example, the traffic and engagementmarketplaces,
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driven byrequire us to change our offerings in the restaurants category may not result in higher traffic and engagement in our higher-value home & local services category as we expect.
Although our initiativescurrent practices or make it more difficult for us to provide more valueeffective advertising tools to businesses on our customersplatform. For example, Google has implemented product changes to its Chrome browser and emphasize alternative sales channels are more similarannounced future plans to limit the ability of websites to collect and use data signals from user activity to target and measure advertising. While these changes currently impact only a small portion of our historical advertising business, than our restaurants and home & local services initiatives, both involve unfamiliar risks. Our efforts to optimize CPC prices and provide advertisers more value for their money may include lowering prices while making significant investments in product development. We cannot guarantee that any resulting increase in demand for our products or customer retention will offset lower prices or otherwise generate sufficient revenue to justify our investments. Likewise, emphasizing our multi-location and self-serve channels involves changes to our sales organization and sales force hiring priorities. These changes may be disruptive to our sales operations and affect our ability to generate revenue.
Certain of our past strategic decisions may also continue to impact our opportunities and long-term prospects. For example, while our sale of Eat24 has resulted in cost savings, it has also resulted in a substantial reduction in our transactions revenue, which will not be fully offset by revenue from our Grubhub partnership for the foreseeable future. We cannot predict the impact that fully outsourcing food ordering on our platform may have on our brand and reputation. In addition, we wound down our international sales and marketing operations in 2016 and reallocated the associated resources primarily to our U.S. and Canadian markets. While our decision to focus our sales and marketing resources primarily on the United States and Canada has resulted in some cost savings, it also limits the markets from which we generate revenue andthey could limit our ability to expand internationallythe relevant advertising products in the future. Our continued growthSimilarly, if application marketplaces change their policies in a manner that adversely impacts the way in which 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 harmed.
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.
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 integrated its local product offering with certain of its products, including search and maps. The resulting promotion of Google’s own competing products in its web search results has negatively impacted the search ranking of our website. Because Google in particular is the most significant source of traffic to our website, accounting for a substantial portion of the visits to our website, our success depends on our ability to further develop our U.S. and Canadian communities and operationsmaintain a prominent presence in search results for the foreseeable future. However, our communities in manyqueries regarding local businesses on Google. As a result, Google’s promotion of the largest marketsits own competing products, or similar actions by Google in the United States and Canada are infuture that have the effect of reducing our prominence or ranking on its search results, could have a relatively late stage of development, and further development of smaller markets may not yield similar results. If we are not able to develop these markets as we expect, or if we fail to address the needs of those markets,substantial negative effect on our business will be harmed.and results of operations.

Consumers are increasingly accessing 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.
The number of people who access the Internet through devices other than desktop computers, including mobile phones, tablets, handheld computers, voice-assisted speakers, automobiles and television set-top devices, has increased dramatically in the past several years. We generate a substantial majority of our revenue from advertising delivered on mobile devices, and anticipate that growth in use of our mobile platformthis will continue to be the driver of our growthcase 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.
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 qualityhigh-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
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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 reduce 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
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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.

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, information about the operations of many local businesses — such as hours of operation and services offered — has been subject to frequent change during the COVID-19 pandemic, making it difficult to ensure the information on business pages is accurate and up-to-date. 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. For example, if robots, shills or other spam accounts are able to contribute a significant amount of recommended content, or consumers perceive a significant amount of our recommended content to be from such accounts, our traffic and revenue could be negatively affected. Although we do not believe content from these sources has had a material impact to date, if our automated software recommends a substantial amount of such content in the future, our ability to provide high quality content would be harmed and the consumer trust essential to our success could be undermined.
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 without our permission, 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. Though we strive to detect and prevent this third-party conduct, we may not be able to detect it in a timely manner and, even if we could, may not be able to prevent it. In some cases, particularly in the case of third parties operating outside of the United States, our available remedies may be inadequate to protect us against such conduct.

We may acquire or invest in other companies or technologies, which could divert our management’s attention, result in additional dilution to our stockholders and 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 2017, we acquired Nowait to obtain waitlist system and seating tool technology and in April 2017, we acquired Turnstyle to obtain a wifi-based marketing tool for customer retention and loyalty. Similarly, we may pursue investments in privately held companies in furtherance of our strategic objectives, as we did with our investment in Nowait prior to our acquisition of that company.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 cause us to incur expenses in identifying, investigating and pursuing transactions, whether or not they are consummated.
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. In addition, any transactions
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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 may also 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. For example, in 2015, two lawsuits were
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filed against us by former Eat24 employees alleging that Eat24 failed to comply with certain labor laws prior to the acquisition. The effectiveness of our due diligence review and our ability to evaluate the results of such due diligence are dependent upon the 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 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 achieve 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.

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.
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We Although we dedicate significant resources to these goals, including through business owner outreach and education, our automated recommendation software, our consumer alerts program and our efforts to remove content from our platform that violates our terms of service. Despite these efforts, 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 harm our reputation.
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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 scrutiny of our company. In addition to requiring management time and attention, any regulatory inquiry or investigation could itself result in further negative 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 misusing our brand or passing themselves off as being endorsed or affiliated with us, it could harm our reputation and our business could suffer. For example, we have encountered instances of reputation management companies falsely representing themselves as being affiliated with us when soliciting customers; this practice could be contributing to the perception that business owners can pay to manipulate reviews, rankings and ratings.

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. Most of our employees have been with us for fewer than two years; to execute on our growth strategy, we will need to continue to increase the productivity of our current employees and hire, train and manage new employees. In particular, we intend to continue to make substantial investments in our engineering, sales and marketing organizations. As a result, we must effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number of new employees while maintaining the beneficial aspects of our company culture.

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 these organizations are unable to adapt quickly and effectively to changes or adjustments to our organization, our business will be harmed. Similarly, we are increasingly focused on achieving greater cost-effectiveness in our advertising business; while we plan to continue investing in our direct sales force, we also plan to emphasize other, more efficient sales channels, such as multi-location and self-serve, and may otherwise pursue new strategies for high-margin revenue growth, such as investing in our direct sales force in different, lower-cost markets than where we historically had large sales presences. These and other changes in our sales organization, sales force hiring priorities or in the way we structure compensation of our sales organization may be disruptive and may affect our ability to generate revenue.

Our employee operations may also be negatively affected by a range of external factors that are not within our control. For example, if catastrophic events, such as earthquakes or fires, or public health issues, such as the recent COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, have a substantial impact on employee attendance or productivity, our results of operations may be harmed. The extent and duration of impacts from such events are typically uncertain; the duration and extent of the impact from the coronavirus outbreak, for example, depends on future developments that cannot be accurately predicted at this time, such as the severity and transmission rate of the virus, the extent and effectiveness of containment actions and the impact of these and other
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factors on our employees. If we are not able to respond to and manage the impact of such events effectively, our business will be harmed.

To execute on our growth strategy, we may need to improve our operational, financial and management systems and processes, 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. For example, we were the subject of a lawsuit alleging that our sales force does not properly disclose that calls may be monitored or recorded for quality assurance. 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.

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 phased out our brand advertising products in part because demand in the brand advertising market shifted toward products disruptive to the consumer experience. 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 negative reviews and ratings.ratings that are critical of them. This practice could result in a loss of advertisers, which in turn could harm our results of operations. However, we believe that this approach has been essential to our success 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.

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, software engineers, marketing professionals and advertising sales staff. All of our officers and other U.S. employees 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. For example, our former Chief Financial Officer left the Company in the third quarter of 2019, and we recently hired a new Chief Financial Officer. 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 future also depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand and we expect to continue to face significant competition from other companies in hiring such personnel, particularly in the San Francisco Bay Area, where our headquarters is located and where the cost of living is high. 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. As we continue to mature, the incentives to attract, retain and motivate employees provided by our equity awards may not be as effective as in the past, and if we issue significant equity to attract additional employees or to retain our existing employees, we would incur substantial additional stock-based compensation expense and the ownership of our existing stockholders would be further diluted. Volatility in the price of our common stock may also make it more difficult or costly in the future to use equity compensation to motivate, incentivize and retain our employees. 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.


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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 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 the availability of our platform, especially during peak usage times, as our products become more complex and our traffic increases.
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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 Amazon Web Services. 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. Our U.S. corporate offices and one of the facilities we lease to house our computer and telecommunications equipment are located in the San Francisco Bay Area, a region known for seismic activity. 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 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 natural disasters affecting the San Francisco Bay Area, 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 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 potential liability and litigation. We may be a particularly compelling target for such attacks as a result of our brand recognition.
Computer viruses, break-ins, malware, social engineering (particularly spear phishing attacks), attempts to overload servers with denial-of-service or other attacks and similar disruptions from unauthorized use of computer systems have become more prevalent in our industry, have occurred on our systems in the past and are expected to occur periodically on our systems in the future. UserThe changes in our work environment as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and business owner accountsour decision to continue operating with a distributed workforce could impact the security of our systems, as well as our ability to protect against attacks and listing pages coulddetect and respond to them quickly. We may also be hacked, hijacked, altered or otherwise claimed or controlledsubject to increased cyber-attacks, such as phishing attacks by unauthorized persons. For example, we enable businesses to create free online accounts and claimthreat actors using the business
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listing pagesattention placed on the pandemic as a method for each of their business locations. Although we take steps to confirm that the person setting up the account is affiliated with the business,targeting our verification systems could fail to confirm that such person is an authorized representative of the business, or mistakenly allow an unauthorized person to claim the business’s listing page.personnel. In addition, we face risks associated with security breaches affecting our third-party partners and service providers. A security breach at any such third party could be perceived by consumers as a security breach of our systems and result in negative publicity, damage to our reputation and expose us to other losses.
Cyber-attacks continue to evolve in sophistication and volume, and may be inherently difficult to detect for long periods of time. Although we have developed systems and processes that are designed 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 less regulated and more remote areas around the world. As a result, these preventative measures may not be adequate and we cannot assure you that they will provide absolute security. Although none of the disruptions we have experienced to date have had a material effect 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 personally identifiable or other confidential information. Even if we experience no significant shutdown or no critical data is lost, obtained or misused in connection with an attack, the occurrence of such attack or the perception that we are vulnerable to such attacks may harm our reputation, degrade the user experience, cause loss of confidence in our products or result in financial harm to us.
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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 a third-party vendor 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 losses, as well as the vendor under our agreement with it, and be subject to fines and higher transaction fees. In addition, government 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.

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 diminish 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, including copyrights, trademarks and domain names, is an expensive process and may not be successful, and we may not do so in every location in which we operate. Similarly, the process of obtaining patent protection is expensive and time consuming, and we may not be able to prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. Even if issued, there can be no assurance that these patents will adequately protect our intellectual property, as the legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of patent and other intellectual property rights may lead to uncertain results. Litigation may become necessary to enforce our patent or other 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. 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, 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 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.

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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, trademarks and service marks in the United States and in certain jurisdictions abroad. While we are pursuing 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 diminish the value of our brand and other intangible assets and allow competitors to more effectively mimic our products and services.
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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, including trademarks and domain names, is an expensive process and may not be successful, and we may not do so in every location in which we operate. Similarly, the process of obtaining patent protection is expensive and time consuming, and we may not be able to prosecute all necessary or desirable patent applications at a reasonable cost or in a timely manner. Even if issued, there can be no assurance that these patents will adequately protect our intellectual property, as the legal standards relating to the validity, enforceability and scope of protection of patent and other intellectual property rights are uncertain. Litigation may become necessary to enforce our patent or other 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. 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.

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 have incurred significant operating losses in the past, and we may not be able to generate sufficient revenue to maintain profitability. Our recent growth rate will likely not be sustainable, and a failure to maintain 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 from time to time, as an indication of our future performance. Although our revenues have grown rapidly in the last several years, increasing from $12.1 million in 2008 to $1.0 billion in 2019, our revenue growth rate has declined in recent periods as a result of a variety of factors, including the maturation of our business and the gradual decline in the number of major geographic markets within the United States and Canada to which we have not already expanded. Moreover, our strategy to grow our business involves significant risks and executing on it may prove more difficult than we currently anticipate.
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 costs may also increase as we hire additional employees, particularly as a result of the significant competition that we face to attract and retain technical talent.
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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.

We have a limited operating history 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 have a limited operating history at the current scale of our business in an evolving industry that may not develop as expected, if at all. As a result, our historical operating results may not be indicative 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, such as our ability to, among other things:
attract and retain new advertising clients, many of which may have limited or no online advertising experience, which may become more difficult as an increasing portion of our advertisers have the ability to cancel their advertising plans at any time;
increase the number of users of our website and mobile app and the number of reviews and other content on our platform;
forecast revenue and adjusted EBITDA accurately, which is made more difficult by the large percentage of our revenue derived from performance-based CPC advertising and the increasing portion of our advertiser base with non-term contracts, as well as appropriately estimate and plan our expenses;
continue to earn and preserve a reputation for providing meaningful and reliable reviews of local businesses;
effectively adapt our products and services to mobile and other alternative devices as usage of such devices continues to increase;
successfully compete with existing and future providers of other forms of offline and online advertising;
successfully compete with other companies that are currently in, or may in the future enter, the business of providing information regarding local businesses;
successfully manage our growth;
successfully develop and deploy new features and products;
manage and integrate successfully any acquisitions of businesses, solutions or technologies;
avoid interruptions or disruptions in our service or slower than expected load times;
develop a scalable, high-performance technology infrastructure that can efficiently and reliably handle increased usage, as well as the deployment of new features and products;
hire, integrate and retain talented personnel;
effectively manage our complex employee operations and organization; and
effectively identify, engage and manage third-party partners and service providers.
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. We may not be able to address successfully these risks and difficulties or others, including those described elsewhere in these risk factors. Failure to address these risks and difficulties adequately could harm our business and cause our operating results to suffer.

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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, including the economic downturn caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, 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 COVID-19;
changes in consumer behavior with respect to local businesses, including as a result of COVID-19;
changes in the products we offer such as our transition to selling our localand the market acceptance of those products and online advertising products pursuant to non-term contracts;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 has become more pronounced since we transitioned to non-term contracts and may become further pronounced as our growth rate slows;
the effects of changes in search engine placement and prominence;
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 advertiser budgets or the market acceptance of online advertising solutions;
changes in consumer behavior with respect to local businesses;
changes in our tax rates or exposure to additional tax liabilities, including as a result of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act;
the impact of macroeconomic conditions, including the resulting effect on consumer spending at local businesses and the level of advertising spending by local businesses;liabilities;
new accounting pronouncements or changes in existing accounting standards and practices; and
the effects of natural or man-made catastrophic events.
The impact of these and other factors on our local advertising results may occur earlier and be more concentrated going forward than prior to our transition to non-term contracts, due to the increasingsubstantial proportion of advertisers with the ability to terminate their ad campaigns at any time without penalty.
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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 from time to time, as an indication of our future performance. Although our revenues have grown rapidly in recent years, increasing from $12.1 million in 2008 to $1.0 billion in 2021, our revenue growth rate has declined in recent periods as a result of a variety of factors, including the maturation of our business and the gradual decline in the number of major geographic markets within the United States and Canada to which we have not already expanded. 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 have reduced their advertising spending as a result of COVID-19 closures or restrictions, resulting in a 14% year-over-year decrease in revenue in 2020. While our business showed significant improvement in 2021 from 2020, consumer traffic remained below pre-pandemic 2019 levels during due to ongoing concerns related to COVID-19 and its variants. Our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories have been particularly sensitive to changes in consumer confidence; traffic and revenue in these categories did not fully recover to their 2019 levels in 2021. We cannot predict the remaining duration of the pandemic, the severity of future COVID-19 variants and resulting restrictions, or the duration or magnitude of the adverse impact on our revenue. We also expect that our business would continue to be significantly adversely affected for the duration of any recessionary period or protracted economic downturn even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, which would harm our ability to maintain profitability.
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 costs may also increase as we hire additional employees, particularly as a result of the significant competition that we face to attract and retain technical talent. 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 regain profitability.

We have a limited operating history 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 have a limited operating history at the current scale of our business 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. As a result, our historical operating results may not be indicative 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.

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We rely on data from both internal tools and third parties to calculate certain of our performance metrics. Real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.
We track certain performance metrics — including the number of unique devices accessing our mobile app in a given period, paying advertising locations, active claimed local business locations, ad clicks and CPCs — 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
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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 have 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 successfully account for all such activity.

In addition, certain of our other key metrics — the number of our desktop unique visitors and mobile website unique visitors — are calculated based on data from third parties. While these numbers are based on what we believe to be reasonable calculations for the applicable periods of measurement, our third-party providers periodically encounter difficulties in providing accurate data for such metrics as a result of a variety of factors, including human and software errors. We expect these challenges to continue to occur, and potentially to increase as our traffic grows. For example, we have discovered in the past, and expect to discover in the future, that portions of our desktop traffic, as measured by Google Analytics, have been attributable to robots. Because the traffic from robots does not represent valid consumer traffic, our reported desktop unique visitor metric for impacted periods reflects an adjustment to the Google Analytics measurement of our traffic to remove traffic identified as originating from robots to provide greater accuracy and transparency. We expect to continue to make similar adjustments in the future if we determine that our traffic metrics are materially impacted by robot or other invalid traffic.
There are also inherent challenges in measuring usage across our large user base. For example, because these metrics are based on users with unique cookies, an individual who accesses our website from multiple devices with different cookies may be counted as multiple unique visitors, and multiple individuals who access our website from a shared device with a single cookie may be counted as a single unique visitor. 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 visitors and mobile website unique visitors may not accurately reflect the number of people actually using our platform.
Our measures of traffic and other key metrics may differ from estimates published by third parties (other than those whose data we use to calculate our key metrics) or from similar metrics of our competitors. 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. However, the improvement of our tools and methodologies could cause inconsistency between current data and previously reported data, which could confuse investors or raise questions about the integrity of our data. Similarly, 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 or appropriate 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 harmed.

BecauseIf we recognizedefault on our credit obligations, our business, revenue fromand financial results could be harmed.
Our revolving credit facility contains financial covenants and other restrictions on our actions that may limit our operational flexibility or otherwise adversely affect our results of operations. It contains a portionnumber of covenants that limit our ability and our subsidiaries’ ability to, among other things, incur additional indebtedness, pay dividends, make redemptions and repurchases of stock, make investments, loans and acquisitions, incur liens, engage in transactions with affiliates, merge or consolidate with other companies, sell material businesses or assets, or license or transfer certain of our advertising products overintellectual property. We are also
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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 against companies who are not subject to such restrictions.
If we fail to comply with the termcovenants under the revolving credit facility, Wells Fargo would have a right to, among other things, terminate the commitments to provide additional loans 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 an agreement, a significant downturn inany 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 immediately reflected in our results of operations.
We recognize revenue from sales of our advertising products over theon commercially reasonable terms of the applicable agreements. Although an increasing portion of our advertising contractsor on terms that are non-term contracts, a portion of our customers continueacceptable to be subject to contracts with terms. As a result, a significant portion of the revenue we report in each quarter is generated from agreements entered into during previous quarters. Consequently, a decline in new or renewed agreements in any one quarter may not significantly impact our revenue in that quarter but will negatively affect our revenue in future quarters. In addition, we may be unable to adjust our fixed costs in response to reduced revenue. Accordingly, the effect of significant declines in advertising sales may not be reflected in our short-term results of operations.us.

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 GAAP,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
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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. Any such change
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 anadditional impairment chargecharges to our goodwill and 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. In addition, our board of directors has authorized us to repurchase up to $950 million of our common stock since we instituted our stock repurchase program in July 2017 and we currently settle employee tax liabilities associated with the vesting of RSUs through net share withholding, which requires us to cover such taxes with cash from our balance sheet. 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 COVID-19 pandemic 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.
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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 jurisdictions with income tax rates 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.
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.
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In particular,For example, the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act or the Tax 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. Although we have concluded thatAs currently enacted, beginning in 2022, the Tax Act had an immaterial netwill require us to capitalize research and development expenses with amortization periods over five and fifteen years, which would have a material and adverse impact on our financial statements, weeffective tax rate and cash flows. Although there is pending legislation in Congress to repeal this requirement or defer it to 2026, the outcome of that legislation is uncertain. We also expect additional regulatory or accountingfurther guidance may be forthcoming from the Financial Accounting Standards Board and the SEC, as well as regulations, interpretations and rulings from federal and state agencies, which could impact our consolidated financial statements.

SomeFurthermore, taxing authorities in various jurisdictions worldwide have enacted or proposed new tax laws, rules and regulations directed at taxing the digital economy and multinational entities. As part of its Base Erosion and Profit Sharing Project, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has published proposals and blueprints covering issues including country-by-country reporting, transfer pricing rules and taxation of digital services. Various jurisdictions have also unilaterally enacted or are considering a digital services tax on technology companies that generate revenues from the provision of digital services,services. These ongoing efforts to modernize the international tax framework and a number of other jurisdictions are considering enacting similar digital tax regimes. These efforts are alongsideaddress the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s ongoing work, as part of its Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action Plan, to issue a final report in 2020 that provides a long-term, multilateral proposal on taxationdigitalization of the digitalglobal economy could increase our future tax obligations. The Company will continue to monitor the developments and could impactassess 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 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.
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Our business and results of operations may be harmed if we are deemed responsible for the collection and remittance of state sales taxes for orders placed through our platform.
If we are deemed an agent for the order-enabled businesses on our platform under state tax law, we may be deemed responsible for collecting and remitting sales taxes directly to certain states. It is possible that one or more states could seek to impose sales, use or other tax collection obligations on us with regard to such sales. These taxes may be applicable to past sales. A successful assertion that we should be collecting additional sales, use or other taxes or remitting such taxes directly to states could result in substantial tax liabilities for past sales and additional administrative expenses, which would harm our business and results of operations.

Risks Related to Regulatory Compliance and Legal Matters

We are, and may be in the future, subject to disputes and assertions by third parties that we violate their rights.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 thirdother parties, including patent, trademark, copyright and other intellectual property rights, and the rights of current and former employees, users and business owners. For example, various businesses have sued us alleging that we manipulate Yelp reviews in order to coerce them and other businesses to pay for Yelp advertising.
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 defamatorycontent 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, recently enacted legislationlaws in Germany may impose significant fines for failure 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 decline, which would have a negative impact on our business. This risk may increase if Congressional efforts to restrict the protections afforded us by SectionCDA 230 of the Communications Decency Act are successful. This risk may also be greater 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 their rightsclaims 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 are pursuinghave 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
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limited safeguards against infringement.appropriation. This may make it more difficult to defend 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 as we face increasing competition and gain an increasingly high profile, we expect the number of claims against us to accelerate. 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 may 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 litigation or are resolved in our favor without significant cash settlements, such matters, and the time and resources necessary to resolve them, could harm our business, results of operations and reputation.

Our business is subject to complex and evolving U.S.domestic and foreign laws, regulations and other legal obligations related to privacy, data protection, data security and other matters. Our actual or perceived failure to comply with such laws, regulations and obligations could harm our business.
We are subject to a variety ofnumerous domestic and foreign laws in the United States and abroadregulations that involve matters central to our business, including laws regarding privacy, data retention, distribution ofprotection, data security, user-generated content and consumer protection, among others.others, as described in more detail under "Business—Government Regulation" under Item 1 of this Annual Report. For example, because we receive, store and process personal information and other user data, including credit card information, we are subject to numerous federal, state and local laws around the world regarding privacythat restrict the collection, use, storing, processing and the storing, sharing, use, processing, disclosure and protection 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.
The application We operate in a rapidly evolving industry, and interpretation of thesemany laws and regulations that impact our business are often uncertain, particularlybeing proposed, are still evolving or are being tested in courts, which adds to the complexity of operating our business.
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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 and rapidly evolving industry in which we operate.laws, regulations or judicial interpretations. For example, we rely on laws limiting the liability of providers of online services for activities of their users and other third parties. These laws are currently being tested by a number of claims, including actions based on invasion of privacy and other torts, unfair competition, copyright and trademark infringement and other theories based on the nature and content of the materials searched, the ads posted or the content provided by users. Therethere have also been variousongoing Congressional efforts to restrict the scope of the critical liability protections availableafforded to online platforms like ours under SectionCDA 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. Changes to CDA 230 could also cause us to remove more third-party 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, regulatory frameworks for privacy issues and behavioral advertising are currently in flux worldwide and are trending toward more restrictive obligations, reflecting increased public scrutiny of the Communications Decency Act,practices of companies offering online services with respect to the personal information and behavior of their users. Changes to privacy and data security laws in particular could make it more difficult for consumers to use our current protections from liabilityplatform, 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. For example, in addition to giving residents expansive rights related to their personal information, California law restricts the “sale” of personal information and the use of cookies and similar technologies for certain advertising purposes. 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 contentdata partners, our ability to maintain and expand our base of advertisers will be harmed.
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 United States could decrease or change asevent of a result.
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). Similarly, our business could be adversely affected if new
Uncertainty regarding the application and interpretation of existing laws and regulations due to court challenges or evolving legislation or regulations are adopted that require us to change our current practices or the design of our platform, products or features.may also result in a significantly greater compliance burden for us. For example, regulatory frameworks for privacy issues are currently in flux worldwide, and are likely to remain so fora decision by the foreseeable future due to increased public scrutinyEuropean Court of Justice of the practicesEuropean Union called into question one of companies offering online services with respect tothe primary safeguards allowing transfers of personal information of their users. The U.S. government, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Commerce, and many state governments are reviewing the need for greater regulation of the collection, processing, storage and use of information about consumer behavior on the Internet, including regulation aimed at restricting certain targeted advertising practices. In April 2016, the European Commission approved a new safe harbor program, the E.U.-U.S. Privacy Shield, covering the transfer of personal data from the European UnionEurope to the United States and most other countries under the U.S.-E.U. Privacy Shield Framework. The E.U. and the United States continue to negotiate a new generalset of safeguards that may impose additional obligations and requirements with respect to the transfer of E.U. personal data protection regulation tookto other jurisdictions, which in turn may increase the legal risks and liabilities under the GDPR and local E.U. laws associated with cross-border data transfers, as well as result in material increases in our compliance and operational costs. If we are unable to implement a valid solution for personal information transfers from Europe, we will face increased exposure to regulatory actions, substantial fines, and injunctions against processing or transferring personal information from Europe and may be required to increase our data processing capabilities in Europe at significant expense. Similarly, in November 2020 California voters approved a ballot measure to enact the CPRA, which will come into effect in 2023 and significantly modifies the European Union in May 2018, eachprivacy obligations under the CCPA, creating uncertainty and requiring us to incur additional costs and expenses. Other states and countries have passed their own privacy legislation (for example, Virginia and Canada) or have such legislation pending. Aspects of whichthe CCPA, CPRA and other laws remain unclear and we may be subjectrequired to varying interpretationsmodify our practices further in an effort to comply with them.
In addition to various laws and evolving practices that would create uncertainty for us. Similarly,regulations, we must comply with the California Consumer Privacy Act, or CCPA,technical requirements and policies of the search engines, application marketplace operators, mobile operating systems and other third-party products and services on which became effective in January 2020, created new data privacy rights for users and it remains unclear how this legislation will be interpreted. Changes like these could increase our administrative costs and make it more difficult for consumers to use our platform, resulting in less traffic and revenue. Such changes could also make it more difficult for us to provide effective advertising tools to businesses on our platform, resulting in fewer advertisers and less revenue.we rely. For example, if privacy legislation negatively impactsApple recently 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 the effectiveness ofadvertising. If we do not comply with these requirements, we could lose access to such products and services, which would harm our 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 harmed.

business.
We believe thatOur actual or perceived failure to comply with laws, regulations and other obligations could lead to costly legal action, adverse publicity, significant liability and decreased demand for our policiesservices, which could adversely affect our business, results of operations and practicesfinancial condition. For example, our failure or perceived failure to comply with applicable laws and regulations. However, if our belief proves incorrect, if these guidelines, laws orregulations may result, and in some cases has resulted, in inquiries and other proceedings and actions against us by governments, regulations or their interpretations changeothers. Responding to and resolving any future litigation, investigations, settlements or new legislation or regulations are enacted, or ifother regulatory actions may require significant time and resources, and could diminish confidence in, and the third parties with whom we share user information fail to comply with such guidelines, laws, regulations or their
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contractual obligations to us, weour products. We may also be forced to implement new measures to reduce our legal exposure. Thisexposure, 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
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security that results in the unauthorized release or transfer of personally identifiablepersonal 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. We may also face litigation, governmental enforcement actions orAny resulting negative publicity which could causeadversely affect our usersreputation and advertisers to lose trust in us and have an adverse effect on our business. For example, from time to time we receive inquiries from government agencies regarding our business practices. Althoughbrand, regardless of whether the internal resources expended and expenses incurred in connection with such inquiries and their resolutions have not been material to date, any resulting negative publicity could adversely affect our reputation and brand. Responding to and resolving any 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.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 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 harmed. 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 difficult for us to attract and retain qualified members of our board of directors 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 this “Risk Factors” sectionthese Risk Factors and elsewhere in this Annual Report, factors that may cause volatility in our share price include:
the short- and long-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the timing and pace of the 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;
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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;
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;
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changes in the way we measure our key metrics;
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, the stock markets have recently experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have affected and continue to affect the market prices of equity securities of many companies. TheseIn some cases, these fluctuations often 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 divert our management’s time and attention from other business concerns, which could harm 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 of directors has authorized the repurchase of up to an aggregate of $950 million$1.2 billion of our common stock, of which $269$194.7 million remainsremained available as of February 18, 2022 and which does not have an expiration date. Although our board of directors 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 ongoing pandemic. In addition, the terms of our Credit Agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association 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 of directors. 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.

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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 of directors to issue, without further action by the stockholders, up to 10,000,000 shares of undesignated preferred stock;
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 of directors, the Chair of our board of directors 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 of directors;
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establish that our board of directors is divided into three classes, with directors in each class serving three-year staggered terms;terms, until our 2023 annual meeting of stockholders when the classes will be fully phased out;
prohibit cumulative voting in the election of directors;
provide that vacancies on our board of directors 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 of directors 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 of directors, 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 providesand bylaws provide that the Court of Chancery of the State of Delaware and the U.S. federal district courts will be the exclusive forumforums 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: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 Exchange Actthreat of inconsistent or any claim for whichcontrary 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 jurisdictionforum 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 providesprovide 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 thesuch provisions of such provision. This exclusive-forum provisionand may limit a stockholder's ability to bring a claim in a judicial
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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 thiseither 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.

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
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of our common stock and could impair our ability to raise capital through the sale of additional equity securities. As of December 31, 2019,2021, we had 71,185,46872,170,920 shares of common stock outstanding.

Item 1B. Unresolved Staff Comments.
None.

Item 2. Properties.
Our principal executive offices in North America are currently located at 140 New Montgomery350 Mission Street, San Francisco, California, where we lease office space pursuant to a lease agreement that expires in 2021.2030. We also lease additional office space in San Francisco, California; Scottsdale, Arizona; Chicago, Illinois; New York, New York; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Washington, D.C.;multiple cities across North America and internationally in Toronto, Canada; London, England; and Hamburg, Germany.Europe. We believe that our properties are generally suitable to meet our needs for the foreseeable future. In addition,future and, to the extent we require additional space in the future, we believe that it would be available on commercially reasonable terms.

Item 3. Legal Proceedings.
In January 2018, a putative class action lawsuit alleging violationsFor information regarding material legal proceedings in which we are involved, see "Legal Proceedings" in Note 13, "Commitments and Contingencies," of the federal securities laws was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, naming as defendants us and certain of our officers. The complaint, which the plaintiff amended on June 25, 2018, alleges violations of the Exchange Act by us and our officers for allegedly making materially false and misleading statements regarding our business and operations on February 9, 2017. The plaintiff seeks unspecified monetary damages and other relief. On August 2, 2018, we and the other defendants filed a motionNotes to dismiss the amended complaint, which the court granted in part and denied in part on November 27, 2018. On October 22, 2019, the Court approved a stipulation to certify a classConsolidated Financial Statements included in this action. The case remains pending.
In addition, weAnnual Report, which is incorporated herein by reference. We are also subject to other legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, we currently do not believe that the final outcome of any of these other matters will have a material effect on our business, financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Item 4. Mine Safety Disclosures.
Not applicable.
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PART II

Item 5. Market for Registrant’s Common Equity, Related Stockholder Matters and Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities.
Market Information
Our common stock, par value $0.000001 per share, is listed on the New York Stock Exchange LLC or NYSE,("NYSE") under the symbol “YELP.”
Stockholders
As of the close of business on February 21, 2020,18, 2022, there were 4238 stockholders of record of our common stock. The actual number of holders of our common stock is greater than this number of record holders, and includes stockholders who are beneficial owners, but whose shares are held in street name by brokers or other nominees. This number of holders of record also does not include stockholders whose shares may be held in trust by other entities.
Dividend Policy
We have never declared or paid, and do not anticipate declaring or paying, any cash dividends on our capital stock. Any future determination as to the declaration and payment of dividends, if any, will be at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend on then-existing conditions, including our financial condition, operating results, contractual restrictions, capital requirements, business prospects and other factors that our board of directors may deem relevant.
Performance Graph
We have presented below the cumulative total return to our stockholders during the period from December 31, 20142016 through December 31, 20192021 in comparison to the NYSE Composite Index and NYSE Arca Tech 100 Index. All values assume a $100 initial investment and data for the NYSE Composite Index and NYSE Arca Tech 100 Index assume reinvestment of dividends. The comparisons are based on historical data and are not indicative of, nor intended to forecast, the future performance of our common stock.
yelp-20191231_g2.jpgyelp-20211231_g6.jpg
The information under “Performance Graph” is not deemed to be “soliciting material” or “filed” with the SEC or subject to Regulation 14A or 14C, or to the liabilities of Section 18 of the Exchange Act, and is not to be incorporated by reference in any
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filing of Yelp under the Securities Act or the Exchange Act, whether made before or after the date of this Annual Report and irrespective of any general incorporation language in those filings.
Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities
The following table summarizes our stock repurchase activity for the three months ended December 31, 20192021 (in thousands except for price per share):
Period
Total Number
of Shares Purchased(1)
Average Price Paid per Share(2)
Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or ProgramsApproximate Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Program
October 1 - October 31, 2019—  $—  —  $25,007  
November 1 - November 30, 2019196  $30.78  196  $18,989  
December 1 - December 31, 2019—  $—  —  $18,989  
Period
Total Number
of Shares Purchased(1)
Average Price Paid per Share(2)
Total Number of Shares Purchased as Part of Publicly Announced Plans or ProgramsApproximate Dollar Value of Shares that May Yet Be Purchased Under the Plans or Program
October 1 - October 31, 2021547 $38.97 547 $295,422 
November 1 - November 30, 2021601 $38.06 601 $272,557 
December 1 - December 31, 20211,160 $35.26 1,160 $231,664 
(1) On November 27, 2018,Since its initial authorization in July 2017, our board of directors authorized us to repurchase up to an additional $250 millionaggregate of $1.2 billion of our outstanding common stock, under our ongoing stock repurchase program,of which the board initially authorized in July 2017. Following our completion of repurchases under this authorization, our board of directors approved a further $250$194.7 million increase to our stock repurchase program on February 11, 2019, $19 million of which remained available as of December 31, 2019.
On January 15, 2020, our board of directors authorized another $250 million increase to our stock repurchase program, bringing the totalFebruary 18, 2022. The actual timing and amount of repurchases authorized under our stock repurchase program to $950 million, of which approximately $269 million remains available. The timing of repurchases and number of shares repurchased depend on a variety of factors, including liquidity, cash flow and market conditions. See "Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations—Liquidity and Capital Resources—Stock Repurchase Program" included under Part II, Item 7 in this Annual Report.
(2)    Average price paid per share includes costs associated with the repurchases.

Item 6. Selected Consolidated Financial Data.[Reserved].
The following selected consolidated financial data should be read in conjunction with, and are qualified by reference to, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” and our audited consolidated financial statements and the accompanying notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report. The consolidated statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017 and the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2019 and 2018 are derived from the audited consolidated financial statements that are included elsewhere in this Annual Report. The consolidated statements of operations data for the years ended December 31, 2016 and 2015, as well as the consolidated balance sheet data as of December 31, 2017, 2016 and 2015 are derived from audited consolidated financial statements that are not included in this Annual Report. We have included, in our opinion, all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, that we consider necessary for a fair presentation of the financial information set forth in those statements. Our historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in any period in the future.  
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Consolidated Statements of Operations Data:
Year Ended December 31,
2019201820172016
2015(1)
(in thousands, except per share amounts)
Net revenue$1,014,194  $942,773  $850,847  $716,063  $549,711  
Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)(
62,410  57,872  70,518  60,363  51,015  
Sales and marketing500,386  483,309  437,424  379,895  301,764  
Product development230,440  212,319  175,787  138,549  107,786  
General and administrative136,091  120,569  109,707  100,475  80,866  
Depreciation and amortization49,356  42,807  41,198  35,346  29,604  
Restructuring and integration—  —  288  3,455  —  
Gain on disposal of a business unit—  —  (163,697) —  —  
Total costs and expenses978,683  916,876  671,225  718,083  571,035  
Income (loss) from operations35,511  25,897  179,622  (2,020) (21,324) 
Other income, net14,256  14,109  4,864  1,694  386  
Income (loss) before income taxes49,767  40,006  184,486  (326) (20,938) 
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes8,886  (15,344) 31,491  1,385  11,962  
Net income (loss) attributable to common stockholders$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  (1,711) (32,900) 
Net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
Basic$0.55  $0.66  $1.87  $(0.02) $(0.44) 
Diluted$0.52  $0.62  $1.76  $(0.02) $(0.44) 
Weighted-average shares used to compute net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
Basic74,627  83,573  81,602  77,186  74,683  
Diluted77,969  88,709  87,170  77,186  74,683  
(1)Amounts for 2015 have not been recast to reflect the adoption of Accounting Standards Update 2014-09, "Revenue from Contracts with Customers (ASC 606)," or ASC 606. Refer to Note 2,"Summary of Significant Accounting Policies," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2018 for additional information regarding adoption.
Consolidated Balance Sheet Data:
As of December 31,
2019201820172016
2015(1)
(in thousands)
Cash and cash equivalents$170,281  $332,764  $547,850  $272,201  $171,613  
Property, equipment and software, net$110,949  114,800  $103,651  $92,440  $80,467  
Working capital(2)
$399,154  795,364  $826,922  $500,780  $393,505  
Total assets(3)
$1,070,700  1,175,563  $1,225,601  $894,145  $755,427  
Total long-term liabilities(3)
$181,554  35,140  $30,737  $17,621  $12,030  
Total stockholders’ equity$754,991  1,075,518  $1,108,697  $816,138  $693,620  
(1) Amounts for 2015 have not been recast to reflect the adoption of ASC 606.
(2) Working capital comprises total current assets less total current liabilities.
(3)  Amounts for 2019 reflect the adoption of Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-02, "Leases (Topic 842)." Refer to Note 2,"Summary of Significant Accounting Policies," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for additional information regarding adoption.

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Item 7. Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations.
The following discussion and analysis of our financial condition and results of operations should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements and related notes appearing elsewhere in this Annual Report. This discussion contains forward-looking statements that reflect our plans, estimates and beliefs, and involve risks and uncertainties. Our actual results and the timing of certain events could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements as a result of several factors, including those discussed in the section titled “Risk Factors” included under Part I, Item 1A and elsewhere in this Annual Report. See “Special Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” in this Annual Report.

Overview
As one of the best known internet brands in the United States, Yelp is a trusted local resource we deliver significantfor consumers and a partner in success for businesses of all sizes. Consumers trust us for our more than 220 million ratings and reviews of businesses across a broad range of categories, while businesses advertise with us to reach our large audience of purchase-oriented and generally affluent consumers. We believe our ability to provide value to both consumers and businesses by helping each discover and interactnot only fulfills our mission to connect consumers with the other. Our unrivaled content helps consumers save time and money. Our advertising and other products help business owners increase their visibility and connect with our large audience of purchase-oriented consumers.
Our comprehensive, mobile-first platform offers reservation and waitlist, food ordering and quote request capabilities, among many other opportunities for consumers to engage withgreat local businesses, in addition to the 189.9 million reviews available as of December 31, 2019. In the fourth quarter of 2019, these features attracted a monthly average audience of nearly 35.6 million app unique devices, allowed over 8.8 million diners to make reservations or join a restaurant waitlist, and facilitated consumer submissions of 2.1 million projects to service providers through Request-A-Quote. In the same period, business owners, in turn, promoted their businesses to our large audience by spending 10% more on our advertising products thanbut also positions us well in the fourth quarter of 2018, seated more than doublelocal, digital advertising market in the number of diners via Yelp compared to the fourth quarter of 2018, and received millions of leads through Request-A-Quote.United States.
We derivegenerate substantially all of our revenue fromthrough the sale of performance-based advertising products.products, which our advertising platform matches to individual consumers through auctions priced on a CPC basis. In the year ended December 31, 2019,2021, our net revenue was $1.0 billion, which represented an increase of 8%up 18% from the year ended December 31, 2018,2020 and 2% from the year ended December 31, 2019, and we recorded net income of $40.9$39.7 million and adjusted EBITDA of $213.5$246.3 million. In the year ended December 31, 2018,2020, our net revenue was $942.8$872.9 million, which represented an increasea decrease of 11%14% from the year ended December 31, 2017,2019, and we recorded a net incomeloss of $55.4$19.4 million and adjusted EBITDA of $183.1$140.3 million. For information on how we define and calculate adjusted EBITDA and a reconciliation of this non-GAAP financial measure to net income (loss), see “Non-GAAP Financial Measures” below.
In 2021, we delivered record annual revenue and profitable growth despite a difficult operating environment through consistent execution of our strategic initiatives and an elevated pace of product innovation:

we built increasingly differentiated product experiences for both consumers and businesses in our Services categories through the launch of new products and features that help better match consumers with the right Services businesses, resulting in an increase in the percentage of monetized leads and record average revenue per paying advertising location in our Services categories;
Followingimprovements to the claim and ad purchase flows as well as marketing improvements drove record customer acquisition and strong retention in our transitionSelf-serve channel; revenue from this channel grew 45% year over year to reach a multi-channel, on-demand business model,new record in 2021 and also increased as a percentage of our total advertising revenue;
our Multi-location sales team’s efforts to strengthen customer relationships as well as our introduction of new Multi-location ad products, expansion of our attribution solution and full launch of our off-platform solution drove record revenue from our Multi-location channel, which increased by approximately 30% year over year and also increased as a percentage of our total advertising revenue;
we completeddelivered more value to advertisers through many new ad formats as well as improvements to our advertising system, resulting in 2018 withad clicks increasing by 24% and average CPC decreasing by 5% year over year, even as our moveconsumer traffic remained impacted by ongoing concerns about COVID-19 and its variants; and
the savings from our smaller local sales force, efficiencies resulting from our growth initiatives and our decision to non-term advertising contracts, we embarkedremain working on an ambitious, multi-year business transformation plan designed to drivea distributed basis permanently helped us achieve positive net income and sustain profitable long-term growth. As we continue executing on our plana record annual adjusted EBITDA margin in 2020, we will look to further advance2021.
Our performance in 2021 demonstrates that the strategic initiatives we began in 2019:2019 successfully transformed Yelp into a stronger, more efficient and product-led business. In 2022, we plan to build on the structural improvements to our business by continuing to invest in our key strategic initiatives as set forth below, as well as expanding our focus to include the consumer experience:
Winning in Key Categories. We made significant accomplishments in 2019 in our key categories of restaurantsGrow quality leads and home & local services. In restaurants, we more than doubled the number of diners seated via Yelp and increased the combined revenue attributable to Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist by a double-digit percentage compared to 2018, while in home & local services we significantly increased paid leads to advertisers and increased revenue attributable to Request-A-Quote by nearly 60% compared to 2018. We believe these categories continue to present substantial opportunities for revenue growth, and plan to pursue those opportunities in 2020 by increasing monetization of our restaurants offerings through price optimizationServices categories. We continue to believe that differentiating the Services experience will allow us to both monetize more of our consumer traffic and cross selling, and increasingconvert more Services businesses into
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advertisers. In addition to differentiating the numberproduct experience, we plan to explore opportunities to improve lead quality as well as the distribution of paid leads delivered to home & local services advertisers.match more consumers with the right Services businesses for their projects.
Expanding Our Product Offerings.Drive sales through our most efficient channels Our introduction of. In 2022, we are continuing to explore ways to drive businesses through our fully digital Self-serve channel by marketing and a range of paid products at affordable price pointsmore streamlined ads purchase flow, offering new tools to drive business owner engagement and providing businesses with more control over the course of 2019, includingtheir ad campaigns. We also plan to further expand our Business Highlights, PortfoliosMulti-location product offerings and Yelp Connect products, attracted thousands ofattribution solutions as well as leverage our strengthened customer relationships to both acquire new Multi-location customers and helped accelerate revenue growth inexpand our self-serve channel to 30% in 2019. Matching advertisers to the right products at the right prices will be a top priority for us in 2020, and we plan to introduce additional profile products in 2020 that will help business owners tell their stories and build trust with existing customers.
Providing More Value to Business Owners. In 2019, we delivered significantlyDeliver more value to advertisers. In 2022, we plan to continue improving the relevance and value of our customers — we generated 34% more ad clicks for Yelp advertisers at an average CPC 18% lower than in 2018 — and saw improved retention among non-term advertisers as a result. We accomplished this through improvements to our advertising auction system and ad targeting,ads by introducing new formats as well as by expanding advertising inventorydriving efficiency through ad system optimizations and improved matching.
Enhance the consumer experience. We plan to invest in certaina broad set of consumer product and marketing initiatives designed to drive consumer engagement and content contributions. We are also investing in product initiatives to further differentiate the experience between categories suchand increase engagement, as home & local services.well as bring the consumer experience on our Android app in line with our iOS app.
We expect that our expenses will remain relatively flat throughout the year following an increase from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022 as we invest in our strategic initiatives. We also expect that revenue will grow relatively consistently on an absolute basis throughout the year as the benefits of our initiatives build following a slight decrease from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, reflecting seasonal trends.

Factors Affecting Our Performance
COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic has had, and may to continue to have, a significant adverse impact on our business and results of operations. Although vaccines are currently available and some public health restrictions have eased, the number of COVID-19 cases has continued to fluctuate, negatively impacting consumer confidence and user activity on our platform in turn. User activity in our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories has been particularly sensitive to changes in consumer confidence and, as a result, traffic and revenue in these categories remained below their pre-pandemic 2019 levels in 2021. While the positive trends we have seen in user activity during periods of higher consumer confidence and looser public health restrictions give us confidence that traffic will return organically as the pandemic recedes, it is not possible for us to predict the remaining duration of the pandemic, the severity of future COVID-19 variants and resulting restrictions, or the duration or magnitude of the adverse impact on our business. Even after the COVID-19 pandemic has subsided, health measures taken by governments and private industry in response to the pandemic may have a long-term adverse effect on the economy. Adverse macroeconomic conditions have historically been particularly challenging for the SMBs on which we rely and any protracted economic downturn would have significant negative effects on our business.
Investment in Growth. In 2020,2022, we plan to continue generatinginvest heavily in our strategic initiatives to grow quality leads and monetization of our Services categories, expand our Self-serve and Multi-location channels, deliver more value to advertisers and enhance the consumer experience. These initiatives will require substantial investments that may not prioritize short-term financial results, depend on our ability to develop innovative, relevant and useful products in a timely manner, and 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, which is a particular risk for new products that are unproven or that are outside of our historical core business. While we believe these initiatives will ultimately drive revenue growth, our investments in them will increase our operating expenses, and any increase in revenue resulting from these product innovations will likely trail the increase in expenses.
Our Ability to Attract, Retain and Engage Consumers. We generate substantially all of our revenue based on our users' engagement with the ads that we display. Because traffic to our platform and user engagement on our platform together determine the number of ads we are able to show, 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 customers throughand financial success. While we believe our largest growth opportunity will be to monetize a greater portion of our existing traffic, rather than to grow traffic generally, we are also investing in a broad set of consumer initiatives including further enhancements to support the long-term growth of our auction system, improvements to our Request-A-Quote lead matchingtraffic and introducing new types of advertising inventory.business.
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Capturing the Multi-location Opportunity. Our multi-location advertising business grew 22% in 2019 from the prior year, and our initiatives to increase our business with the top 250 restaurants and retailers by revenue successfully resulted in a substantial number of such businesses becoming paying customers by the end of the year. We plan to drive continued momentum in our multi-location advertising business in 2020 by growing our multi-location sales team to expand our coverage to the services category, as well as by continuing to integrate product development with sales efforts through the introduction of new ad formats tailored to the needs of multi-location businesses.
Enhancing the Consumer Experience. In addition to successfully increasing the number of paid leads we delivered to advertisers while maintaining an engaging experience for consumers, we enhanced the consumer experience through more personalized recommendations, new Yelp Waitlist features and expanded restaurant health inspection scores. An engaged consumer base is at the heart of our value proposition to businesses, and we plan to drive engagement in 2020 through an updated user interface for our mobile app (where we find our most engaged users) that offers improved convenience and ease of use.
Improved Profitability. In the first year of our multi-year business transformation plan, we improved the structural economics of our business. Our focus on growth and retention in our highest-margin sales channels allowed us to increase revenue growth without expanding our local sales force; in fact, we reduced local sales headcount by 10% in 2019. We expect these structural improvements to help drive profitable growth again in 2020 as we continue to emphasize our most efficient sales channels as well as work to improve retention, optimize our cost structure and control expenses.
We expect to continue to invest in product development, personnel and the facilities to support them in 2020 as we work to grow our business, including investments to increase our office space, upgrade our technology and infrastructure to improve the ability of our platform to handle the projected increase in usage, and enable the release of new products and features. As a result of this investment philosophy, we expect that our operating expenses will continue to increase for the foreseeable future.

Factors Affecting Our Performance
Our Ability to Attract and Retain Advertisers.Advertisers. Our revenue growth is driven by our ability to attract and retain advertising customers. To do so, we must deliver compelling adtailored advertising products at a competitive price in an effective manner, at prices that compare favorably to thosea highly competitive market. A substantial portion of our competitors. Our advertisers typically do not have long-term obligations to purchase our products. A substantial and increasing portion also have the ability to cancel their adadvertising campaigns at any time. Their decisions to renew depend on the degree of satisfaction with our products as well as a number of factors that are outside of our control, including their ability to continue their operations and spending levels. Although we have shifted our focus to the opportunity presented by multi-location businesses recently,our Multi-location channel is a strategic priority, we continue to rely heavily on SMBs that often have limited advertising budgets, and that may view online advertising products like ours as experimental and unproven.unproven, and are disproportionately impacted by macroeconomic conditions.
Our Ability to Attract and Retain Talent. Our ability to maintain and expandexecute on our advertiser base alsostrategic initiatives depends on our continuing ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain highly qualified and skilled employees. Qualified individuals are in high demand and we expect to continue to face significant competition from other companies in hiring such personnel, particularly for technical roles. In 2021, we made substantial investments in our engineering, sales and marketing organizations, which has required us to effectively integrate, develop and motivate a large number of new employees in a remote environment while maintaining the size and productivitybeneficial aspects of our sales forcecompany culture. Our employee operations are complex and customer success team. Asplace substantial demands on management and our operational infrastructure, particularly in the primarily remote work environment that we continueplan to invest in expandingmaintain. For example, our multi-location sales organization while maintaining a large local sales force, we must efficiently scale our operations while at the same time recruiting, training and integrating new hires and developing, motivating and retaining existing employees. Similarly, in order to retain, and take advantage of opportunities to deepen our relationships with, our existing customers, we must continue ourongoing efforts to build out our customer success team. Developing our account retention processes will be particularly important as an increasing portionhire technical employees outside of the United States has resulted in the expansion of our advertisers have the ability to cancel their contracts at any time. In addition, as we make periodic adjustments to our sales organization to respond to market opportunitiesinternational operations, which adds complexity and to pursue initiatives to increase productivity, such changes may result in a temporary lack of focus or disruption to our operations. For example, it took time for our sales and customer success organizations to adapt to selling and supporting advertising contracts with flexible cancellation terms. Our increased emphasis on our multi-location and self-serve channels involves changes to our sales organization and sales force hiring priorities, which may be disruptive to our sales operations.
Traffic and User Engagement.product development efforts. We derive substantially all ofbelieve our revenue from advertising, and trafficdecision to remain working on a distributed basis permanently will provide even greater flexibility to our platform determinesemployees, who now have the number of adsopportunity to relocate within the countries where we are ableoperate so they can live where they want to show, affects the value of those ads to businesseslive and influences the content creation that drives further traffic. As a result, our ability to grow our business depends on our ability to increase traffic on our platform, which in turn depends on, among other things, the quality of our content and the prominence of links to our platform in Internet search engine results and application marketplaces. The number of users we attract from search engines in particular can be affected by a number of factors not in our direct control; changes in a search engine’s ranking algorithms, methodologies or design layouts maywork where they will feel most effective, will result in linksimproved employee retention as well as allow us to our website not being prominent enough to drive traffic to our websiteaccess and mobile app. In addition, certain providersattract great talent from a more diverse pool of Internet search engines and application marketplaces offer products and services that compete
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directly with our products and, in some instances, such providers may change their displays or rankings in order to promote their own competing products or services.
We anticipate that our traffic growth will continue to slow over time, and potentially decrease in certain periods, as our business matures and we achieve higher penetration rates in our core markets ofcandidates across the United States, Canada and Canada. As our traffic growth rate slows, our success will become increasingly dependent on our ability to increase levels of user engagement on our platform, which itself depends on the quality of our content and our ability to introduce new and improved products that effectively address consumer needs, among other things.
Product Innovation. We must deliver innovative, relevant and useful products to consumers and businesses — including products for mobile and other alternative devices — to expand the size and engagement of our user base, attract advertisers and increase our revenue. We plan to continue investing in new product development as we introduce new advertising and e-commerce products, explore new platforms and distribution channels, and develop partner arrangements that provide incremental value to our users and advertisers to encourage them to increase their usage of, and the portion of their advertising budgets allocated to, our platform. As our industry evolves and competition intensifies, our investments may increasingly include products and services outside of our historical core business, such as our continued development of Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist. These investments involve significant risks and uncertainties, such as distracting management, and may ultimately fail to generate sufficient revenue or other value to justify our investments in them.
Investment in Growth. We have invested, and intend to continue to invest, aggressively to support the growth of our platform. We dedicate significant resources to areas such as: marketing; consumer protection; maintaining and enhancing the Yelp brand; and upgrading our systems, technology and network infrastructure to accommodate growth. Our investment plans for 2020 include developing new advertising products, further developing our analytics tools for advertisers, improving our Request-A-Quote matching capabilities and refining our advertising auction system. While we believe these initiatives will ultimately drive revenue growth, our investments in them will increase our operating expenses, and any increase in revenue resulting from these product innovations will likely trail the increase in expenses.Europe.
Stock Repurchases.Repurchases. InSince July 2017, our board of directors authorized a stock repurchase program for the repurchase up to $200 million of our outstanding common stock. During the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, we repurchased on the open market and subsequently retired 4,896,003 shares and 302,206 shares, respectively, for aggregate purchase prices of $187.4 million and $12.6 million, respectively. On each of November 27, 2018 and February 11, 2019, our board of directorshas authorized us to repurchase up to an additional $250 millionaggregate of $1.2 billion of our outstanding common stock, pursuant to$194.7 million of which remained available as of February 18, 2022 and which does not have an expiration date. During the stock repurchase program, of whichyear ended December 31, 2021, we repurchased on the open market and subsequently retired6,995,170 shares for an aggregate purchase price of $262.9 million. During the year ended December 31, 2020, we repurchased on the open market 803,691 shares for an aggregate purchase price of $24.4 million. During the year ended December 31, 2019, we repurchased on the open market 14,190,409 shares for an aggregate purchase price of $481.0 million during the year ended December 31, 2019. On January 15, 2020, our board approved a further increase of $250 million to our stock repurchase program, bringing the totalmillion. The actual timing and amount of repurchases authorized underremain subject to a variety of factors, including liquidity, cash flow and market conditions. In addition, the terms of our stockCredit Agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association, which we entered into in May 2020 (the "Credit Agreement"), impose limitations on our ability to repurchase program to $950 million,shares during the term of which approximately $269 million remains available.our revolving credit facility. We have funded the repurchases, and expect to fund future repurchases under the stock repurchase program, with cash available on our balance sheet. As a result, this program could diminish our cash reserves and reduce our ability to invest in our business, in addition to affecting the trading price and volatility of our stock.
Corporate Development Activities.Activities. As part of our business strategy, we may decide to expand our product offerings and grow our business through the acquisition of complementary businesses or technologies, as well as through partnerships. In addition to diverting our management's attention and otherwise disrupting our operations, our corporate development activities will affect our future financial results due to factors such as expenses incurred in identifying, investigating and pursuing transactions, whether or not they are consummated, possible dilutive issuances of equity securities or the incurrence of debt, unidentified liabilities and the amortization of acquired intangible assets. Maintaining relationships with partners also requires significant time and resources, as does integrating their data, services and technologies onto our platform. We may not realize the full benefits of synergies, innovation and operational efficiencies that may be possible from a corporate transaction; similarly, if our relationships with partners deteriorate, we could suffer increased costs and delays in our ability to provide consumers and advertisers with our content or services.
Seasonality and Cyclicality.Cyclicality. Our business is affected by seasonal fluctuations in Internet usage and advertising spending, as well as cyclicality in economic activity.spending. Based on historical trends, we expectour revenue is typically lowest in the first quarter and increases through the year to its highest level in the fourth quarter. Multi-location ad budgets are generally lowest at the beginning of the year and peak in the fourth quarter, though our SMB customers tend to decrease their spending at that time. Our traffic numbers to beis also typically weakest in the fourth quarter of the year in connection with end of the yearyear-end holidays. In addition, although our multi-location customers tend to increase spending on advertising in the fourth quarter, the SMBs on which we rely heavily typically decrease their advertising spending during this quarter. SMBs may be disproportionately affected by negative fluctuations in the business cycle, and a worsening economic outlook would likely cause such businesses to decrease investments in advertising, which would adversely affect our revenue. As our business matures and the proportion of our customers who can cancel their ad campaigns at any time
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increases, we expect that the seasonality and cyclicality in our business may become more pronounced, causing our operating results to fluctuate.

Key Metrics
We regularly review a number of metrics, including the key metrics set forth below, to evaluate our business, measure our performance, identify trends in our business, prepare financial projections and make strategic decisions. Unless otherwise stated, these metrics
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Ad Clicks
Ad clicks represent user interactions with our pay-for-performance advertising products, including clicks on advertisements on our website and mobile app, clicks on syndicated advertisements on third-party platforms and Request-A-Quote submissions. Ad clicks include only user interactions that we are able to track directly, and therefore do not include user interactions with ads sold through our advertising partnership. We do not expect the exclusion of such user interactions to materially affect this metric.
Because we generate revenue primarily from the sale of performance-based ads, our ability to increase our revenue depends largely on our ability to increase ad clicks. We report the year-over-year percentage change in ad clicks on a quarterly basis as a measure of our success in monetizing more of our consumer traffic and delivering more value to advertisers.
The following table presents year-over-year changes in our ad clicks for the periods indicated (expressed as a percentage):
Three Months Ended December 31,
 202120202019
Ad Clicks14%(22)%33%
Average CPC
We define average CPC as revenue from our performance-based ad products — excluding certain revenue adjustments that do not impact the outcome of an auction for an individual ad click, such as refunds, as well as revenue from our advertising partnerships — divided by the total number of ad clicks for a given three-month period.

Average CPC, when viewed together with ad clicks, provides important insight into the value we deliver to advertisers, which we believe is a significant factor in our ability to retain both revenue and customers. For example, a positive change in ad clicks for a given three-month period combined with lower growth or a negative change in average CPC over the same period would indicate that we delivered more ad clicks at lower prices, thereby delivering more value to our advertisers; we would expect this to have a positive impact on retention. This was the case in the fourth quarter of 2021, when growth in ad clicks outpaced growth in average CPC, helping drive increases in our NTC retention rate and advertising revenue in turn. We believe that average CPC and ad clicks together reflect one of the largest dynamics affecting our advertising revenue performance.

The following table presents year-over-year changes in our average CPC for the periods indicated (expressed as a percentage):
Three Months Ended December 31,
 202120202019
Average CPC7%4%(16)%

Ad Revenue by Category
Our advertising revenue comprises revenue from the sale of our advertising products, including the resale of our advertising products by partners and syndicated ads appearing on third-party platforms.
To reflect our strategic focus on creating two differentiated experiences on Yelp, we provide a breakdown of our advertising revenue attributable to businesses in two high-level category groupings: Services and Restaurants, Retail and Other. Our Services categories consist of home, local, auto, professional, pets, events, real estate and financial services. Our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories consist of restaurants, shopping, beauty & fitness, health and other.
In 2021, we refined our methodology for determining the business category with which advertising revenue is associated to be based on the business category of each advertising location rather than the business category of the business account that paid for the advertising. While business locations associated with a single payment account are generally part of the same business, they may offer a variety or a combination of services that differ by location; accordingly, we believe our new methodology provides a more precise breakdown of our advertising revenue between our Services and Restaurants, Retail and Other categories.
The categorization of business locations can change over time and historical business categories for individual business locations are not available; as a result, it is impracticable to apply our new methodology to prior-year amounts based on the
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business categorizations in effect during the prior-year periods. However, applying our new methodology to 2019 and 2020 advertising revenue based on the current business categories of the associated advertising locations does not result in a materially different breakdown than previously reported for such periods. Due to the differences between the types of business categories comprising our Services and Restaurants, Retail and Other categories, we do not believe a significant number of businesses are re-categorized such that they move from one high-level category grouping to the other, and so do not believe the result would be materially different based on the then-current categorizations.
The following table presents our advertising revenue by category for the periods presented (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
202120202019202120202019
Services$157,242 $138,887 $137,501 $607,770 $515,019 $512,729 
Restaurants, Retail & Other104,205 83,735 121,451 377,455 321,096 464,196 
Total Advertising Revenue$261,447 $222,622 $258,952 $985,225 $836,115 $976,925 
Paying Advertising Locations
Paying advertising locations comprise all business locations associated with a business account from which we recognized advertising revenue in a given month, excluding business accounts that purchased advertising through partner programs other than Yelp Ads Certified Partners, averaged over a given three-month period. We also provide a breakdown of paying advertising locations between our Services categories and Restaurants, Retail and Other categories.
We provide our paying advertising locations on a quarterly basis as a measure of the reach and scale of our business; however, this metric may exhibit short-term volatility as a result of factors such as seasonality and macroeconomic conditions. For example, macroeconomic factors, such as ongoing concerns about COVID-19 and its variants as well as labor and supply chain challenges, have had a predominant negative impact on Restaurants, Retail and Other paying advertising locations in recent quarters. Short-term fluctuations in paying advertising locations may also reflect the acquisition or loss of single advertising accounts associated with large numbers of locations, or the pausing/restarting of advertising campaigns by such multi-location advertisers.
The following table presents the number of paying advertising locations for the periods presented (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,
202120202019
Services219224235
Restaurant, Retail & Other309296330
Total Paying Advertising Locations528520565
Reviews, Traffic and Active Claimed Local Business Locations
We report our reviews, traffic and active claimed local business locations metrics for Yelp Reservations, Yelp Waitlist, Yelp WiFi Marketing,on an annual basis as measures of the volume of our content, the size of our audience and the scope of our business, owner products or Yelp Eat24, which we sold on October 10, 2017.respectively.
Reviews
Number of reviews represents the cumulative number of reviews submitted to Yelp since inception, as of the period end, including reviews that were not recommended or had been removed from our platform. In addition to the text of the review, each review includes a rating of one to five stars. We include reviews that are not recommended and that have been removed because all of them are either currently accessible on our platform or were accessible at some point in time, providing information that may be useful to users to evaluate businesses and individual reviewers. Because our automated recommendation software continually reassesses which reviews to recommend based on new information that becomes available, the “recommended” or “not recommended” status of reviews may change over time. Reviews that are not recommended or that have been removed do not factor into a business’s overall star rating. By clicking on a link on a reviewed business’s page on our website, users can access the reviews that are not currently recommended for the business, as well as the star rating and other information about reviews that were removed for violation of our terms of service.
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As of December 31, 2019, approximately 189.92021, 244.4 million reviews had been submitted to our platform, of which 224.4 million reviews were available on business listing pages, including approximately 44.451.4 million reviews that were not recommended, after 15.5and 20.0 million reviews had been removed from our platform, either by us for violation of our terms of service or by the users who contributed them. The following table presents the number of cumulative reviews as of the dates indicated (in thousands):
As of December 31,
 201920182017
Reviews205,381  177,385  148,298  
As of December 31,
 202120202019
Reviews244,435224,162205,382
Traffic
Traffic to our website and mobile app has three components: mobile devices accessing our mobile app, visitors to our non-mobile optimized website, which we refer to as our desktop website, and visitors to our mobile-optimized website, which we refer to as our mobile website. App users generate a substantial majority of activity on Yelp, including the page views and ad clicks that we monetize. We anticipate that our mobile traffic will be the driver of our growth for the foreseeable futuremonetize, and we expect that traffic to our website will fluctuate and generally decline over time. While we believe our largest growth opportunity will be to monetize a greater portion of our existing traffic, rather than to grow traffic generally, we are also investing in a broad set of consumer initiatives to support the long-term growth of our traffic and business.
Traffic levels fluctuated in 2021 as consumer confidence levels changed in response to the emergence of COVID-19 variants and the severity of local public health restrictions, particularly in our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories. As a result, although our traffic recovered in 2021 compared to the prior year, it remained below our pre-pandemic 2019 traffic. While we focusbelieve that traffic will rebound organically as the pandemic recedes, we cannot predict the remaining duration of the pandemic or the magnitude of its impact on drivingour traffic, and we expect that our traffic levels will continue to our mobile app, where we have our most engaged users and which reduces our reliance on Google and other search engines.fluctuate with consumers’ level of confidence.
We use the metrics set forth below to measure each of our traffic streams. An individual user who accesses our platform through multiple traffic streams will be counted in each applicable traffic metric; as a result, the sum of our traffic metrics will not accurately represent the number of people who visit our platform on an average monthly basis.
App Unique Devices.Devices. We calculate app unique devices as the number of unique mobile devices using our mobile app in a given month, averaged over a given three-monthtwelve-month period. Under this method of calculation, an individual who accesses our mobile app from multiple mobile devices will be counted as multiple app unique devices. Multiple individuals who access our mobile app from a shared device will be counted as a single app unique device.
The following table presents app unique devices for the periods indicated (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,
201920182017
App Unique Devices35,599  32,891  28,845  
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Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
App Unique Devices33,08531,13236,250
Desktop and Mobile Website Unique Visitors.Visitors. We calculate desktop unique visitors as the number of “users,” as measured by Google Analytics, who have visited our desktop website at least once in a given month, averaged over a given three-monthtwelve-month period. Similarly, we calculate mobile website unique visitors as the number of “users” who have visited our mobile website at least once in a given month, averaged over a given three-monthtwelve-month period.
Google Analytics, a product from Google Inc. that provides digital marketing intelligence, measures “users” based on unique cookie identifiers. Because the numbers of desktop unique visitors and mobile website unique visitors are therefore based on unique cookies, an individual who accesses our desktop website or mobile website from multiple devices with different cookies may be counted as multiple desktop unique visitors or mobile website unique visitors, as applicable, and multiple individuals who access our desktop website or mobile website from a shared device with a single cookie may be counted as a single desktop unique visitor or mobile website unique visitor.
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The following table presents our web traffic for the periods indicated (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Desktop Unique VisitorsDesktop Unique Visitors54,006  62,140  76,748  Desktop Unique Visitors45,99043,68560,252
Mobile Web Unique VisitorsMobile Web Unique Visitors68,756  69,148  64,221  Mobile Web Unique Visitors56,66852,79473,722
We have discovered in the past, and expect to discover in the future, that portions of our desktop traffic, as measured by Google Analytics, have been attributable to robots and other invalid sources. Because traffic from such sources does not represent valid consumer traffic, our reported desktop unique visitor metric for impacted periods reflects an adjustment to the Google Analytics measurement of our traffic to remove traffic that we have identified as originating from invalid sources to provide greater accuracy and transparency. However, we cannot assure you that we will be able to identify all such traffic for any particular period. For additional information, please see the risk factor included under Part I, Item 1A under the heading “We rely on data from both internal tools and third parties to calculate certain of our performance metrics. Real or perceived inaccuracies in such metrics may harm our reputation and negatively affect our business.”
Active Claimed Local Business Locations
The number of active claimed local business locations represents the number of claimed local business locations — business addresses for which a business representative has visited our platform and claimed the free business listing page for the business located at that address — that are both (a) active on Yelp and (b) associated with an active business owner account as of a given date. We consider a claimed local business location to be active if it has not closed, been removed from our platform or merged with another claimed local business.
The following table set forth below presents the number of active claimed local business locations as of the dates presented (in thousands). The December 31, 2018 and 2017 numbers have been updated to reflect our current methodology for calculating active claimed local business locations.
As of December 31,
201920182017
Active Claimed Local Business Locations4,913  4,310  3,681  
As of December 31,
202120202019
Active Claimed Local Business Locations5,7945,3574,889
Paying Advertising Locations
Paying advertising locations comprise all business locations associated with a business account from which we recognized advertising revenue in a given month, excluding business accounts that purchased advertising through partner programs other than Yelp Ads Certified Partners, averaged over a given three-month period. The following table presents the number of paying advertising locations for the periods presented (in thousands):
Three Months Ended December 31,
201920182017
Paying Advertising Locations565  541  478  

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Critical Accounting Policies and Estimates
Our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with GAAP. The preparation of these consolidated financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, expenses and related disclosures. We evaluate our estimates and assumptions on an ongoing basis. Our estimates and assumptions are based on historical experience and various other assumptions that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. Our actual results could differ from those estimates.
We consider the estimates discussed below to be critical as we believe that the assumptions and estimates associated with revenue recognition, website and internal-use software development costs, the incremental borrowing rate used in adopting the new leasing standard, business combinations, allowance for doubtful accounts, income taxes and stock-based compensation expensethese policies have the greatest potential impact on our consolidated financial statements. Therefore, we consider these to be our critical accounting policies and estimates. For further information on these and our other significant accounting policies,estimates, see Note 2,,"Summary of Significant Accounting Policies," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report.  
Revenue Recognition—We generate revenue from the sale of advertising products, transactions with consumers and other revenue sources, which correspond to our major product lines. We recognize revenue by applying the following steps: the contract with the customer is identified; the performance obligations in the contract are identified; the transaction price is determined; the transaction price is allocated to the performance obligations in the contract; and revenue is recognized when (or as) we satisfy these performance obligations in an amount that reflects the consideration we expect to be entitled to in exchange for those services. We apply the portfolio practical expedient to account for contracts with customers in each category of revenue. We do not disclose the value of unsatisfied performance obligations for (i) contracts with an original expected length of one year or less and (ii) contracts for which the amount of revenue we recognize is equal to the amount we have a right to invoice.
We perform estimates and apply judgment when determining the amount of revenue to be recognized and may accept lower consideration than what is agreed to in the relevant contract. We refer to the difference between the agreed upon consideration amount and the actual consideration estimated to be received as variable consideration; types of variable consideration include cash based incentives, credits and refunds that are estimated based on historical information as well as considering economic
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conditions, which constrain the revenue. For all contracts with customers, estimates and assumptions include determining variable consideration and identifying the nature and timing of satisfaction of performance obligations. We believe that there will not be significant changes to our estimates of variable consideration. To date, actual amounts of consideration received have been materially consistent with the provisions we have made based on our historical estimates. For contracts satisfied over time, we apply the invoice practical expedient to depict the value transferred to the customer and measure of progress towards completion of its obligations. We consider the right to receive consideration from a customer to correspond directly with the value to the customer of our performance completed to date. We do not consider the effects of the time value of money as substantially all of our contracts are invoiced on a monthly basis, one month in arrears.
For revenue generated from arrangements that involve third parties, considerable judgment may be required in evaluating whether we are the principal, and report revenue on a gross basis, or the agent, and report revenue on a net basis. In this assessment, we consider whether we obtain control of the specified goods or services before they are transferred to the customer as well as other indicators, such as whether we are the party primarily responsible for the fulfillment, inventory risk and discretion in establishing price. The assessment of whether we are considered the principal or agent in a transaction could impact our revenue and cost of revenue recognized on our consolidated statements of operations. Changes in judgments with respect to assumptions and estimates could impact the amount of revenue recognized.
Website and Internal-Use Software Development Costs—Costs related to website and internal-use software are primarily related to our website and mobile app, including support systems. We capitalize our costs to develop software when: preliminary development efforts are successfully completed; management has authorized and committed project funding; and it is probable that the project will be completed and the software will be used as intended. We use judgment to determine which projects will be capitalized and the estimated useful life over which the related asset will be amortized. Costs incurred for enhancements that are expected to result in additional material functionality are capitalized and amortized over the estimated useful life of the upgrades. Such costs are amortized on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful life of the related asset, which is generally three years. This estimated useful life of three years has not historically changed and actual useful lives have been materially consistent with our estimates. While we do not believe that there is a reasonable likelihood of material change in our estimates, factors including obsolescence, the pace of changes in technology, changes in the expected use of the software, competition and other economic factors could require us to change the estimated useful life, which would result in a change to the amount of amortization that we record on our consolidated statements of operations.
Income Taxes—Significant judgment is required to determine our provision (benefit) for income taxes and income tax assets and liabilities, including evaluating uncertainties in the application of accounting principles, complex tax laws, or variances between our actual and anticipated operating results. Therefore, actual income taxes could materially vary from these estimates.
We record income taxes using the asset and liability method, which requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of events that have been recognized in our financial statements or tax returns. In estimating future tax consequences, we generally consider all expected future events other than enactments or changes in the tax law or rates. In assessing the realization of deferred tax assets, we consider whether it is more likely than not that all or some portion of deferred tax assets will not be realized. The ultimate realization of the deferred tax assets is dependent upon the generation of future taxable income during the periods in which those temporary differences become deductible. Valuation allowances are provided to reduce deferred tax assets to the amount that is more likely than not to be realized. In determining the need for a valuation allowance, the weight given to positive and negative evidence is commensurate with the extent to which the evidence may be objectively verified. The determination of future taxable income requires significant judgment and relies on various estimates and assumptions using forecasted amounts. Changes in various factors, including economic and political conditions, could drive actual results in future years to differ from our current assumptions, judgments and estimates. We evaluate the ability to realize net deferred tax assets and the related valuation allowance on a quarterly basis.
We operate in various tax jurisdictions and are subject to audit by various tax authorities. We provide for tax contingencies whenever it is deemed probable that a tax asset has been impaired or a tax liability has been incurred for events such as tax claims or changes in tax laws. Tax contingencies are based upon their technical merits, relative tax law and the specific facts and circumstances as of each reporting period. Changes in facts and circumstances could result in material changes to the amounts recorded for such tax contingencies.
We recognize a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on examination by the taxing authorities based on the technical merits of the position. The tax benefits recognized in the financial statements from such a position are then measured based on the largest benefit that has a greater than 50% likelihood of being realized upon ultimate settlement. However, the outcome of tax audits cannot be predicted with certainty. If
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any issues addressed in our tax audits are resolved in a manner not consistent with our expectations, we could be required to adjust our provision for income taxes in the period such resolution occurs.

Results of Operations
The following tables set forth our results of operations for 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 20172019 (in thousands, except percentages). The period-to-period comparison of financial results is not necessarily indicative of future results.
Year Ended December 31,$ Change
% Change(1)
Year Ended December 31,$ Change
% Change(1)
2019201820172019
vs.
2018
2018
vs.
2017
2019
vs.
2018
2018
vs.
2017
2021202020192021
vs.
2020
2020
vs.
2019
2021
vs.
2020
2020
vs.
2019
2021202020192021
vs.
2020
2020
vs.
2019
2021
vs.
2020
2020
vs.
2019
Consolidated Statements of Operations Data:Consolidated Statements of Operations Data:Consolidated Statements of Operations Data:
Net revenue by product:Net revenue by product:Net revenue by product:
Advertising revenue by category(2):
Advertising revenue by category(2):
ServicesServices$607,770 $515,019 $512,729 $92,751 $2,290 18 %
NM(3)
Restaurants, Retail & OtherRestaurants, Retail & Other377,455 321,096 464,196 56,359 (143,100)18 %(31)%
AdvertisingAdvertising$976,925  $907,487  $775,678  $69,438  $131,809  %17 %Advertising985,225 836,115 976,925 149,110 (140,810)18 %(14)%
TransactionsTransactions12,436  13,694  60,251  (1,258) (46,557) (9)%(77)%Transactions13,196 15,017 12,436 (1,821)2,581 (12)%21 %
Other services24,833  21,592  14,918  3,241  6,674  15 %45 %
OtherOther33,418 21,801 24,833 11,617 (3,032)53 %(12)%
Total net revenueTotal net revenue$1,014,194  $942,773  $850,847  $71,421  $91,926  %11 %Total net revenue$1,031,839 $872,933 $1,014,194 $158,906 $(141,261)18 %(14)%
Costs and expenses:Costs and expenses:Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)$62,410  $57,872  $70,518  $4,538  $(12,646) %(18)%Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)$78,097 $57,186 $62,410 $20,911 $(5,224)37 %(8)%
Sales and marketingSales and marketing500,386  483,309  437,424  17,077  45,885  %10 %Sales and marketing454,224 437,060 500,386 17,164 (63,326)%(13)%
Product developmentProduct development230,440  212,319  175,787  18,121  36,532  %21 %Product development276,473 232,561 230,440 43,912 2,121 19 %%
General and administrativeGeneral and administrative136,091  120,569  109,707  15,522  10,862  13 %10 %General and administrative135,816 130,450 136,091 5,366 (5,641)%(4)%
Depreciation and amortizationDepreciation and amortization49,356  42,807  41,198  6,549  1,609  15 %%Depreciation and amortization55,683 50,609 49,356 5,074 1,253 10 %%
Restructuring and integration cost—  —  288  —  (288) 
NM(2)
(100)%
Gain on disposal of a business unit—  —  (163,697) —  163,697  
NM(2)
(100)%
RestructuringRestructuring32 3,862 — (3,830)3,862 (99)%
NM(3)
Total costs and expensesTotal costs and expenses978,683  916,876  671,225  61,807  245,651  %37 %Total costs and expenses1,000,325 911,728 978,683 88,597 (66,955)10 %(7)%
Income from operations35,511  25,897  179,622  9,614  (153,725) 37 %(86)%
Income (loss) from operationsIncome (loss) from operations31,514 (38,795)35,511 70,309 (74,306)(181)%(209)%
Other income, netOther income, net14,256  14,109  4,864  147  9,245  %190 %Other income, net2,204 3,670 14,256 (1,466)(10,586)(40)%(74)%
Income before income taxes49,767  40,006  184,486  9,761  (144,480) 24 %(78)%
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes8,886  (15,344) 31,491  24,230  (46,835) (158)%(149)%
Net income$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  $(14,469) $(97,645) (26)%(64)%
Income (loss) before income taxesIncome (loss) before income taxes33,718 (35,125)49,767 68,843 (84,892)(196)%(171)%
(Benefit from) provision for income taxes(Benefit from) provision for income taxes(5,953)(15,701)8,886 9,748 (24,587)(62)%(277)%
Net income (loss)Net income (loss)$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 $59,095 $(60,305)(304)%(148)%
(1) Percentage changes are calculated based on rounded numbers and may not recalculate exactly due to rounding.
(2) Please refer to “Key Metrics—Ad Revenue by Category” for information on a methodology change adopted in 2021.
(3) Percentage change is not meaningful.
Years Ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 20172019
Net Revenue
Advertising. We generate advertising revenue from the sale of our advertising products — including enhanced listingbusiness pages and performance and impression-based advertising in search results and elsewhere on our platform — to businesses of all sizes, from single-location local businesses to multi-location national businesses. Advertising revenue also includes revenue generated from the resale of our advertising products by certain partners and monetization of remnant advertising inventory through third-party ad networks. We present advertising revenue on a disaggregated basis for our high-level category groupings, Services and Restaurants, Retail and Other.
Advertising revenue increased in 2021 compared to 2020 due to higher customer spend, an increase in paying advertising locations and an improved retention rate of non-term advertiser budgets. The increase in revenue from Restaurants, Retail and Other businesses was also attributable to our reduction of COVID-19 relief incentives as pandemic-related operating restrictions eased and businesses were able to operate at a greater capacity.
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The increaseAdvertising revenue decreased in advertising revenue in 20192020 compared to 2018 was2019, primarily reflecting lower revenue from businesses in our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories due to growththe pandemic and related shelter-in-place orders, which forced many of them to either close or reduce their advertising budgets. The decrease was also the result of the relief that we provided in 2020, primarily consisting of $13.5 million of waived advertising fees, which reduced the numberamount of paying advertiser locations, improved local customer retentionrevenue that we recognized. We also paused certain advertising campaigns that were scheduled to run from April to May 2020 and increasedoffered free advertising products during those months with a total value of $14.5 million. All paused advertising campaigns that were not cancelled by the customers resumed by the end of May 2020. Advertising revenue from existing multi-location customers. The growthour Services categories in paying advertiser locations on the local business side resulted from stronger sales force productivity. The improvements in retention were driven by delivering more value to local customers through the efficiency of our advertising auction system and our ad targeting. Our new multi-location advertising products and larger multi-location sales force drove the increase in revenue from multi-location customers, particularly from more tenured national customers.
The increase in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily due to a significant increase in the number of paying advertising accounts, which was driven by the sale of non-term contracts and the expansion of our local sales force.
The growth in both periods primarily consisted of sales of CPC advertising and a majority of ad clicks were delivered on mobile in both years.
We expect our advertising revenue to continue to increase as we pursue initiatives to expand our multi-location business, increase sales force productivity and improve customer retention.2020 remained relatively consistent with 2019.
Transactions. We generate revenue from various transactions with consumers, primarily through transactions placed through our partnership integrations. Our partnership integrations, which are primarilymainly revenue-sharing arrangements that provide consumers with the ability to complete food ordering and delivery transactions through third parties directly on Yelp. We earn a fee for acting as an agent for transactions placed through these integrations, which we record on a net basis and include in revenue upon completion of a transaction.
The decreaseTransactions revenue decreased in transactions revenue in 20192021 compared to 2018 was2020, primarily due to a decrease in fees earnedcombination of fewer orders and a lower per-order transaction fee from Grubhub, for processing credit card transactions related to Grubhub orders that originated on Yelp. Over the transition period following its acquisition of Eat24 from uswhich took effect in October 2017, Grubhub increasingly processed2020. Order volume decreased as public health restrictions eased and restaurants increased their dine-in capacity compared to the credit card transactions relatedprior year.
Transactions revenue increased in 2020 compared to such2019, primarily due to an increase in food takeout and delivery orders, directly, thereby reducing the fees it paid us to process them on its behalf. Excluding the processing fees earnedparticularly from Grubhub, orders duringas the transition, transactions revenue from our revenue-sharing arrangements increased in 2019 comparedpandemic forced many restaurants to 2018.
The decrease in transactions revenue in 2018 compared to 2017 was due to the sale of Eat24. Prior to the sale, we generated revenue from our Yelp Eat24 business through arrangements with restaurants in which restaurants paid a commission percentage fee on orders placed through the Yelp Eat24 platform, which we recorded on a net basis. Following the sale, we no longer recognize revenue from Yelp Eat24 as a standalone product and instead earn fees on food orders placed through the Grubhub restaurant network that originate on Yelp.
We expect the amount of transactions revenue in 2020 to remain consistent with 2019.eliminate or reduce dine-in services.
Other Services.Revenue. We generate revenue through our subscription services, which include our Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist and other subscriptionGuest Manager products. We also generate revenue through our Yelp Knowledge program,and Yelp Fusion programs, which providesprovide access to Yelp data for a licensing fee, as well as other non-advertising partnerships.
The increasesOther revenue increased in other services revenue in 2019 and 20182021 compared to 2018 and 2017, respectively, were2020, primarily due to increasesreflecting substantially lower COVID-19 relief incentives — mainly in the numberform of customers purchasingwaived fees — for our subscription products driven by our expanded Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist sales force, as well as increasesproduct customers in 2021. The increase also reflects higher revenue from our Yelp Fusion program, which we introduced in May 2020, as well as the continued growth of our Yelp Knowledge program mainly dueprogram.
Other revenue decreased in 2020 compared to an increase2019, primarily as a result of the COVID-19 relief incentives that we began providing customers in early 2020.
Trends and Uncertainties of Net Revenue. Net revenue in the numberyear ended December 31, 2021 increased by 18% year over year and by 2% from 2019, driven by continued momentum in our Services categories and further recovery in our Restaurants, Retail and Other categories, despite the spread of partnerships.COVID-19 variants as well as ongoing labor and supply chain headwinds. Although we anticipate that net revenue will decrease sequentially from the fourth quarter of 2021 to the first quarter of 2022, reflecting historical seasonal trends, we also expect that net revenue will grow relatively consistently on an absolute basis over the remainder of the year as the benefits of our strategic initiatives build.
Costs and Expenses
Cost of Revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization)
. Our cost of revenue consists primarily of credit card processing fees and website infrastructure expense, which includes website hosting costs and employee costs (including stock-based compensation expense) for the infrastructure teams responsible for operating our website and mobile app, and excludes depreciation and amortization expense. Cost of revenue also includes third-party advertising fulfillment costs, confirmation services costs associated with Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist, confirmation and delivery services associated with the fulfillment of orders placed through Yelp Eat24 prior to its sale, as well as video production costs for our advertising customers prior to mid-2018.costs.
The increase in cost
Cost of revenue increased in 2019 was2021 compared to 2020, primarily attributable to:as a result of:

an increase of $3.7 million in advertising fulfillment costs of $10.3 million driven by the expansion of Yelp Audiences;

an increase in website infrastructure expenses of $7.9 million as a result of higher traffic; and

an increase in merchant credit card processing fees of $2.6 million associated with increased advertising revenue.

Cost of revenue decreased in 2020 compared to 2019, primarily through third-party advertising networks;due to:

a decrease in website infrastructure expense of $6.0 million as a result of reduced traffic and cost-cutting measures; and
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an increasea decrease in website infrastructure expensemerchant credit card processing fees of $3.0$2.1 million due to increases in the use of our website and in the number of employees supporting the website infrastructure.
These increases were partially offset by a decrease of $0.7 million in merchant fees related to credit card transactions as a result of the decline in transactions revenue following the sale of Eat24 in October 2017.
The decrease in 2018 was primarily attributable to:
a decrease of $6.8 million in merchant fees related to credit card transactions as a result of the decline in transactions revenue following the sale of Eat24 in October 2017, partially offset by an increase in merchant fees related to credit card transactions as a result of processing more payments from advertisers in connection with an increase inlower advertising revenue;
a decrease of $4.7 million in confirmation services and third-party food delivery costs primarily due to the decline in food ordering fulfillment costs following the sale of Eat24, partially offset by an increase in confirmation services associated with Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist; and
a decrease of $3.8 million in set up and creative design costs, primarily associated with video production costs as a result of our transition to selling non-term advertising contracts, when we discontinued video production services for our customers.revenue.
These decreases were partially offset by an increase of $2.7$3.4 million in website infrastructure expense dueadvertising fulfillment costs driven by expanded efforts to increases in the use of our website and in employees supporting the website infrastructure.syndicate advertising budgets on third-party sites.
Sales and Marketing
Marketing. Our sales and marketing expenses primarily consist of employee costs (including sales commission and stock-based compensation expenses) for our sales and marketing employees. Sales and marketing expenses also include business and consumer acquisition marketing, community management, as well as allocated facilitiesworkplace and other supporting overhead costs.
The increase in salesSales and marketing expenses increased in 2019 was2021 compared to 2020, primarily attributable todriven by an increase in marketing and advertising costs of $31.8$35.8 million, reflecting our investment in targeted business owner acquisition and regional consumer campaigns. This increase was partially offset by:
a decrease in employee costs resulting from an increaseof $10.5 million, primarily reflecting our lower average sales headcount compared to the prior year, which we maintained following the terminations and furloughs that took place in sales commission expenses2020 under the restructuring plan we announced on April 9, 2020 ("Restructuring Plan"); and
a decrease in workplace operating costs of $8.2 million due to improved sales team productivityreductions in our amount leased office space, which began in the first quarter of 2021 and, to a lesser extent, from increased salary costs driven by higher multi-location sales teams headcount and a larger shareour office closures, which began at the end of tenured sales representatives throughout our sales organization. The increase in 2019 was partially offset by a decrease of $15.8 million in marketing and advertising costs primarily due to our continued efforts to optimize our marketing spend, particularly as our Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist products drove consumer usage, which allowed us to reduce our reliance on consumer marketing.
The increase in sales and marketing expenses in 2018 was primarily attributable to an increase of $48.7 million in employee costs resulting from higher sales headcount and an increase of $10.6 million in facilities and other overhead allocations as we leased additional office space and incurred additional overhead costs for our expanding headcount. The increase in 2018 was partially offset by a decrease of $13.4 million in marketing and advertising costs due to the cessation of Yelp Eat24 marketing activities following our sale of Eat24 in October 2017 and, to a lesser extent, decreases in Yelp-related marketing and advertising costs.first quarter 2020.
Sales and marketing expenses decreased in 2020 compared to 2019, primarily driven by:
a decrease in employee costs of $49.0 million, primarily due to lower sales headcount following the terminations and furloughs associated with the Restructuring Plan; and
a decrease in allocated workplace costs of $12.5 million due to lower office operating costs as a percentageresult of net revenue was 49% in 2019 and 51% in 2018. our office closures.
We expect sales and marketing expenses to increase again in 20202022 as the tenure and channel mix ofwe hire across our sales force changes and we continue tomarketing teams and invest in marketing thoughinitiatives. However, we also expect thesesales and marketing expenses to decrease as a percentage of net revenue. We expect overall sales headcount to be flat in 2020revenue compared to 2019, with growth in2021 as the composition of our sales force shifts toward more tenured and multi-location sales team offsetting lower local sales headcount as we emphasize the higher-margin sales channel.reps.
Product Development
Development. Our product development expenses primarily consist of employee costs (including stock-based compensation expense, net of capitalized employee costs associated with capitalized website and internal-use software development) for our engineers, product management and corporate infrastructure employees. In addition, product development expenses include allocated facilitiesworkplace and other supporting overhead costs.
Product development expenses increased in 2021 compared to 2020 primarily driven by an increase in employee costs of $41.6 million, which reflects higher headcount and stock-based compensation expenses in 2021 and lower employee costs in the prior-year period. The lower employee costs in 2020 resulted from the reduced-hour work weeks implemented in the second quarter of 2020 under the Restructuring Plan, which remained in place for a portion of the third quarter, and lower headcount in the fourth quarter.
Product development expenses increased slightly in 2020 compared to 2019 primarily due to an increase in employee costs of $3.7 million associated with higher headcount in the three months ended March 31, 2020, partially offset by the impact of the reduced-hour work weeks as part of the Restructuring Plan in the second and third quarters and lower headcount in the fourth quarter.
We expect product development expenses to increase in 2022 as we expand our product and engineering teams and invest to support our product initiatives, but decrease as a percentage of revenue compared to 2021 as our distributed operations provide leverage.
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The increases in product development expenses in 2019 and 2018 were primarily attributable to:
increases of $15.6 million and $32.1 million, respectively, in employee costs associated with increased headcount to support more research and development activities, primarily for new and enhanced business-owner products as well as, to a lesser extent, enhancements to the consumer experience; and
increases of $2.6 million and $3.8 million, respectively, in facilities and other overhead allocations as we leased additional office space and incurred additional overhead costs for our expanding headcount.
General and Administrative
Administrative. Our general and administrative expenses primarily consist of employee costs (including stock-based compensation expense) for our executive, finance, user operations, legal, people operations and other administrative employees. Our general and administrative expenses also include our provision for doubtful accounts, consulting costs, as well as facilitiesworkplace and other supporting overhead costs.
The increase in generalGeneral and administrative expenses increased in 2019 was2021 compared to 2020, primarily attributable to $10.3 milliondue to:
an increase in additional employee costs consulting costs, and facilities and other overhead costs required to support the growth of the business, as well as $7.1$15.5 million, primarily reflecting an increase in feesstock-based compensation expense related to shareholder activism. Thisperformance-based restricted stock units granted during 2021 for which we expect the performance conditions to be met and, to a lesser extent, an increase wasin headcount; and
an impairment charge of $11.2 million related to the right-of-use assets and leasehold improvements associated with certain of our office space that we subleased in 2021.
These increases were partially offset by a decrease of $17.7 million in theour provision for doubtful accounts of $2.0 million due to an improvement in collection rates and a release of a portion of our COVID-19-related bad debt reserves following a decline in the rate of customer delinquencies. We also recorded a net gain on lease termination of $3.7 million resulting from advertising customers.the termination of an office lease. See Note 9, "Leases," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for further detail.
TheGeneral and administrative expenses decreased in 2020 compared to 2019 primarily due to:
fees related to shareholder activism of $7.1 million incurred during 2019 that were not repeated in 2020; and
a decrease in employee and consulting costs of $6.5 million, driven by lower headcount following the terminations and furloughs associated with the Restructuring Plan and other workforce reductions.
These decreases were partially offset by an increase of $9.7 million in our provision for doubtful accounts primarily associated with an increase in the rate of customer delinquencies related to the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the first half of the year.
We expect general and administrative expenses to increase year over year in 2018 was primarily attributable2022 due to $7.3 million in additional employee costsincreased headcount to support business growth and an increase in provision for doubtful accounts of $3.6 million. The increase in provision for doubtful accounts was due to continued growth in advertising revenue and the shift in our advertiser base toward newer advertisers, who are typically associated with higher provision for doubtful accounts.
Adjusting for the fees related to shareholder activism, we expect general and administrative expensesbad debt as a percentageresult of net revenue in 2020continued macroeconomic challenges, partially offset by savings from our office space reductions as we continue to remain consistent with general and administrative expenses asoperate on a percentage of net revenue in 2019, which was 13%.distributed basis.
Depreciation and Amortization
Amortization. Depreciation and amortization expense primarily consists of depreciation on computer equipment, software, leasehold improvements, capitalized website and software development costs, and amortization of purchased intangible assets.
TheDepreciation and amortization expense increased in 2021 and 2020 compared to the prior-year periods due to increases in depreciation and amortization expense in 2019 and 2018 were primarily attributable to increases in depreciation associated with capitalized website and internal use software development costs as we invested in new and enhanced products for business owners and consumers, as well as leasehold improvementsaccelerated depreciation in 2021 for assets related to the termination of an office lease.
Restructuring.On April 9, 2020, we announced the Restructuring Plan to help manage the near-term financial impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. On July 13, 2020, we announced an additional leased facilities.workforce reduction. We incurred $3.9 million in restructuring costs during the year ended December 31, 2020, which consisted of severance, payroll taxes and related benefits costs for terminated employees. The increaseadditional costs we incurred during the year ended December 31, 2020 to support furloughed employees are excluded from restructuring expenses and are recorded in 2018 was partially offset by a decreaseoperating expenses in amortizationthe consolidated statements of operations. No further material expense related to our intangible assets of $3.1 million in connection with the sale of Eat24.
Restructuring and Integration
On November 2, 2016, we announced plans to significantly reduce sales and marketing activities in markets outside of the United States and Canada. The restructuring plan was completed by December 31, 2017.
We did not incur any costs related to this plan in the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018. We incurred $0.3 million in restructuring and integration costs associated with this plan in the years ended December 31, 2017 related to severance costs for affected employees. We do not expect to incur any additional expenses related to this plan in the future.terminations is expected. No goodwill, intangibles or other long livedlong-lived assets were impaired as a result of the restructuring plan.
Gain on Disposal of a Business Unit
Our sale of Eat24 to Grubhub on October 10, 2017 resulted in a $163.7 million pre-tax gain. The gain recorded was calculated as proceeds from the disposal, offset by the net assets of Eat24 asRestructuring Plan. See Note 19, "Restructuring," of the disposal date, and costs specifically incurred as a result of the sale.
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Other Income, Net
Other income, net consists primarily of the interest income earned on our cash, cash equivalents and marketable securities, research and development tax credits, the portion of our sublease income in excess of our lease cost, amortization of debt issuance costs, credit facility fees and foreign exchange gains and losses.
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Other income, net remained relatively consistentdecreased in 2019both 2021 and 2020 compared to 2018,the prior-year periods, primarily due to higher rates ofdriven by lower interest earned on marketable investments offset by a decrease in cash held in interest bearing accountsincome as a result of the stock repurchase program.change in our investment strategy in the first quarter of 2020 to reduce our holdings of marketable securities in favor of holdings that are more liquid, mainly money market funds, which offer lower interest rates. We changed our strategy to preserve liquidity as a result of the uncertainties surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on our business. For more information on this change, see Note 5, "Marketable Securities," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements. We do not expect any further impacts to other income, net as a result of this change in investment strategy.
The increase in 2018 compared to 2017 was primarily driven by increases in interest income earned on marketable investments and cash held in interest-bearing accounts, particularly due to proceeds received on the sale of Eat24 in October 2017. The increase in 2018 was also due to investing a greater portion of our excess cash in marketable securities.
(Benefit from) Provision for (Benefit from) Income Taxes
Provision(Benefit from) provision for (benefit from) income taxes consists ofof: federal and state income taxes in the United States and income taxes in certain foreign jurisdictions,jurisdictions; deferred income taxes reflecting the net tax effects of temporary differences between the carrying amounts of assets and liabilities for financial reporting purposes and the amounts used for income tax purposes,purposes; and the realization of net operating loss carryforwards.
TheBenefit from income taxes decreased in 2021 primarily due to an increase in the provision forprofit before tax, partially offset by an increase in benefits from stock-based compensation. The benefit from income taxes in 2019 (from a recorded benefit in 2018 to a recorded provision in 2019) was primarily due to the release of our valuation allowance in 2018,which was previously recorded against certain deferred tax assets. The decrease inprior-year period also reflected net operating loss carryback benefits allowed under the provision forCoronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”).
Benefit from income taxes increased in 20182020 (from a recorded provision in 20172019 to a recorded benefit in 2018) was2020) primarily due to pre-tax losses, income tax credits and benefits from net operating loss carrybacks to 35.0% tax years as permitted under the gainCARES Act. The CARES Act was enacted on March 27, 2020 in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. See Note 16, "Income Taxes," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for further details.
As of December 31, 2021, we had approximately $40.5 million in net deferred tax assets ("DTAs"). At this time, we consider it more likely than not that we will have sufficient taxable income in the future to allow us to realize these DTAs. However, it is possible that some or all of these DTAs will not be realized. Therefore, unless we are able to generate sufficient taxable income from our operations, a substantial valuation allowance to reduce our U.S. DTAs may be required, which would materially increase our expenses in the period in which we recognize the allowance and have a materially adverse impact on our consolidated financial statements. The exact timing and amount of the valuation allowance recognition are subject to change on the disposalbasis of Eat24 in 2017, partially offset by the releasenet income that we are able to actually achieve. We will continue to evaluate the possible recognition of oura valuation allowance on a quarterly basis.
We expect our GAAP tax rate for 2022 to increase to approximately 38%. While a number of factors are expected to contribute to this increase, all of which are subject to variability, a significant driver of this increase is the new requirement under the Tax Act to capitalize and amortize research and development expenses. Although there is pending legislation in 2018.Congress to repeal this requirement or defer it to 2026, the outcome of that legislation is uncertain. If this requirement remains effective, it would have a material and adverse impact on our effective tax rate and cash flows in 2022 as well as future years. We will continue to evaluate the impacts and monitor the issuance of additional regulatory or accounting guidance in addition to any executive or legislative updates.

Non-GAAP Financial Measures
Our consolidated financial statements are prepared in accordance with GAAP. However, we have also disclosed below adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin, each of which areis a non-GAAP financial measures.measure. We have included adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin because they are key measures used by our management and board of directors to understand and evaluate our operating performance and trends, to prepare and approve our annual budget and to develop short- and long-term operational plans. In particular, the exclusion of certain expenses in calculating EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA can provide a useful measure for period-to-period comparisons of our primary business operations. Accordingly, we believe that adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin provide useful information to investors and others in understanding and evaluating our operating results in the same manner as our management and board of directors.
Adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA havehas limitations as an analytical tools,tool, and you should not consider themit in isolation or as substitutesa substitute for analysis of our results as reported under GAAP. In particular, EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA should not be viewed as substitutesa substitute for, or superior to, net income (loss) prepared in accordance with GAAP as a measure of profitability or liquidity. Some of these limitations are:
although depreciation and amortization are non-cash charges, the assets being depreciated and amortized may have to be replaced in the future, and EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA dodoes not reflect all cash capital expenditure requirements for such replacements or for new capital expenditure requirements;
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EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA dodoes not reflect changes in, or cash requirements for, our working capital needs;
adjusted EBITDA does not consider the potentially dilutive impact of equity-based compensation;
EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA do not reflect the impact of the recording or release of valuation allowances or tax payments that may represent a reduction in cash available to us;
adjusted EBITDA does not consider the potentially dilutive impact of equity-based compensation;
adjusted EBITDA does not take into account any income or costs that management determines are not indicative of ongoing operating performance, such as restructuring and integration costs, in 2016 and 2017,impairment charges, net gain on disposal of a business unit in 2017,lease termination and fees related to shareholder activism in 2019;activism; and
other companies, including companiesthose in our industry, may calculate EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA differently, which reduces theirits usefulness as a comparative measures.measure.
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Because of these limitations, you should consider adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin alongside other financial performance measures, including net income (loss), and our other GAAP results. The tables below present reconciliations of net income (loss) to EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA, the most directly comparable GAAP financial measure in each case, for each of the periods indicated.

EBITDA. EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure that we calculate as net income (loss), adjusted to exclude: (benefit from) provision for income taxes; other income (expense), net; and depreciation and amortization.
Adjusted EBITDA. Adjusted EBITDA is a non-GAAP financial measure that we calculate as net income (loss), adjusted to exclude: provision for (benefit from) income taxes; other income (expense), net; depreciation and amortization; stock-based compensation expense; and, in certain periods, certain other income and expense items. For 2019, 2017items, such as restructuring costs, impairment charges, net gain on lease termination and 2016, these other income and expense items consisted of (i) certain fees related to shareholder activism, (ii) gain on disposal ofactivism.
Adjusted EBITDA margin. Adjusted EBITDA margin is a business unit and restructuring and integration costs, and (iii) restructuring and integration costs, respectively.non-GAAP financial measure that we calculate as Adjusted EBITDA divided by net revenue.
The following is a reconciliation of net income (loss) to adjusted EBITDA, as well as the calculation of net income (loss) margin and adjusted EBITDA margin, for each of the periods indicated (in thousands)thousands, except percentages):
Year Ended December 31,
2019201820172016
2015(1)
Reconciliation of Net Income (Loss) to EBITDA and Adjusted EBITDA: 
Net income (loss)$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  $(1,711) $(32,900) 
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes8,886  (15,344) 31,491  1,385  11,962  
Other income, net(14,256) (14,109) (4,864) (1,694) (386) 
Depreciation and amortization49,356  42,807  41,198  35,346  29,604  
EBITDA84,867  68,704  220,820  33,326  8,280  
Stock-based compensation121,512  114,386  100,415  86,261  60,842  
Gain on disposal of a business unit—  — ��(163,697) —  —  
Restructuring and integration costs—  —  288  3,455  —  
Fees related to shareholder activism(2)
7,116  —  —  —  —  
Adjusted EBITDA$213,495  $183,090  $157,826  $123,042  $69,122  
(1)Amounts for 2015 have not been recast to reflect the adoption of ASC 606.
(2)
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Reconciliation of Net Income (Loss) to Adjusted EBITDA:
Net income (loss)$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 
(Benefit from) provision for income taxes(5,953)(15,701)8,886 
Other income, net(2,204)(3,670)(14,256)
Depreciation and amortization55,683 50,609 49,356 
Stock-based compensation151,679 124,574 121,512 
Restructuring32 3,862 — 
Asset impairment(1)
11,164 — — 
Gain on lease termination, net(1)
(3,748)— — 
Fees related to shareholder activism(1)
— — 7,116 
Adjusted EBITDA$246,324 $140,250 $213,495 
Net revenue$1,031,839 $872,933 $1,014,194 
Net income (loss) margin%(2)%%
Adjusted EBITDA margin24 %16 %21 %
(1)Recorded within general and administrative expenses on our consolidated statements of operations.

Liquidity and Capital Resources
Sources of Cash
As of December 31, 2019,2021, we had cash and cash equivalents of $170.3 million. Cash and cash equivalents consist$479.8 million, which consisted of cash and money market funds and investments with original maturities of less than three months.funds. Our cash held internationally as of December 31, 20192021 was $11.2$25.9 million. We did not have any outstanding bank loans or credit facilities in place asAs of December 31, 2019.2021, we also had $10.0 million of investments in certificates of deposit with minority-owned financial institutions.
Our investment portfolio comprises highly rated marketable securities, and our investment policy limits the amount
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To date, we have been able to finance our operations and our acquisitions through proceeds from private and public financings, including our initial public offering in March 2012 and our follow-on offering in October 2013, cash generated from operations, and, to a lesser extent, cash provided by the exercise of employee stock options and purchases under the 2012 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, as amended, or ESPP. In addition, in the fourth quarter of 2017, we completedas well as proceeds from our sale of Eat24 to Grubhub and received $252.7 million in cash, with an additional $28.8 millionOctober 2017.
We continue to hold the majority of our investments in highly liquid money market funds following the liquidation of our portfolio of marketable securities in the first half of 2020, which we undertook as a result of our change in investment strategy to preserve liquidity in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Our remaining investments that waswere not held in escrowmoney market funds as of December 31, 2021 were held in certificates of deposit. See Note 5, "Marketable Securities," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for an initial 18-month period after closingfurther details about the liquidation of our portfolio of marketable securities.
We have the ability to secureaccess backup liquidity to fund working capital and other capital requirements, as needed, through a three-year, $75.0 million senior unsecured revolving credit facility (including a $25.0 million letter of credit sub-limit) as part of our indemnification obligationsCredit Agreement with Wells Fargo. As of December 31, 2021, we had $21.5 million of letters of credit under the sub-limit related to lease agreements for certain office locations, which are required to be maintained and issued to the landlords of each facility, and $53.5 million remained available under the revolving credit facility as of that date. The cost of capital associated with this credit facility was not significantly more than the cost of capital that we would have expected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Credit Agreement requires us to comply with a maximum consolidated total leverage ratio and minimum consolidated interest coverage ratio. The Credit Agreement also contains customary limitations on our ability to: create, incur, assume or be liable for indebtedness; dispose of assets outside the ordinary course; acquire, merge or consolidate with or into another person or entity; create, incur or allow any lien on any of our property; make investments; or pay dividends, make distributions or repurchase shares. Such limitations are subject to certain exceptions. In addition, the Credit Agreement provides for certain events of default such as nonpayment of principal and interest when due, breaches of representations and warranties, noncompliance with covenants, acts of insolvency and default on indebtedness held by third parties (subject to certain limitations and cure periods). As of December 31, 2021, we were in connectioncompliance with all covenants and there were no loans outstanding under the sale. The full escrow amount was released to us in April 2019.Credit Agreement.
Material Cash Requirements
Our future capital requirements and the adequacy of available funds will depend on many factors, including those set forth under the heading “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report. We believe that our existing cash and cash equivalents, together with any cash generated from operations, will be sufficient to meet our material cash requirements in the next 12 months and beyond, including: working capital requirements,requirements; our anticipated repurchases of common stock pursuant to our stock repurchase program,program; payment of taxes related to the net share settlement of equity awards as well asawards; payment of lease costs related to our operating leases; the potential payment of a higher amount of income taxes beginning in 2022, primarily due to the new requirement to amortize certain research and development expenses under the Tax Act; and purchases of property, equipment and software for at least the next 12 months.and website hosting services. However, this estimate is based on a number of assumptions that may prove to be wrongmaterially different and we could exhaust our available cash and cash equivalents earlier than presently anticipated. We may requirebe required to draw down funds from our revolving credit facility or otherwise seek additional funds in the next 12 monthsthrough equity or debt financings to respond to business
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the COVID-19 pandemic or other challenges, including the need to develop new features and products or enhance existing services, improve our operating infrastructure or acquire complementary businesses and technologies,technologies.
We lease office facilities under operating lease agreements that expire from 2022 to 2031. Our cash requirements related to these lease agreements are $190.0 million, of which $48.6 million is expected to be paid within the next 12 months. The total lease obligations are partially offset by our future minimum rental receipts to be received under non-cancelable subleases of $43.9 million. See Note 9, "Leases," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for further detail on our operating lease obligations.
Our cash requirements related to purchase obligations consisting of non-cancelable agreements to purchase goods and accordingly, we may needservices required in the ordinary course of business — primarily website hosting services — are approximately $70.0 million, of which approximately $46.6 million is expected to engagebe paid within the next 12 months.
The cost of capital associated with any additional funds sought in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds.
Amountsthe future might be adversely impacted by the effects of macroeconomic conditions on our business. Additionally, amounts deposited with third-party financial institutions exceed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Securities Investor Protection Corporation insurance limits, as applicable. These cash and cash equivalents could be impacted if the underlying financial institutions fail or are subjected to other adverse
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conditions in the financial markets. To date, we have experienced no loss or lack of access to our cash and cash equivalents; however, we can provide no assurances that access to our invested cash and cash equivalents will not be impacted by adverse conditions in the financial markets.
Cash Flows
The following table summarizes our cash flows for the periods indicated (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows Data:Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows Data:Consolidated Statements of Cash Flows Data:
Net cash provided by operating activitiesNet cash provided by operating activities$204,782  $160,187  $167,647  Net cash provided by operating activities$212,655 $176,701 $204,782 
Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities$124,335  $(164,369) $81,136  
Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities$(491,519) $(207,747) $27,162  
Net cash (used in) provided by investing activitiesNet cash (used in) provided by investing activities$(27,650)$248,359 $124,335 
Net cash used in financing activitiesNet cash used in financing activities$(300,489)$(21,052)$(491,519)
Operating Activities. CashNet cash provided by operating activities during 2019 wasthe year ended December 31, 2021 increased compared to 2020 primarily attributableas a result of an increase in cash inflows from customers due to net income of $40.9 million and noncash adjustments to net income of $229.0 million,higher revenue, partially offset by a decrease in the net change in operating assets and liabilities of $65.1 million, which included the following:
an increase in accounts receivable of $42.1 millioncash outflows due to an increase in billings for advertising plans, particularly for customers paying in arrears,higher payments to employees and key vendors as well as the timing of payments from these customers;payment of payroll taxes.
an increase in prepaid expenses and other assets of $1.3 million;
Net cash provided by operating activities during the year ended December 31, 2020 decreased compared to 2019 primarily due to a decrease in operating lease liabilitiescash inflows from customers as a result of $41.8 million due to operating lease payments madelower net revenue recognized during the year; and
an increase in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities of $20.1 million, primarily driven by an increase in accrued employee compensation and related costs due to a change in the frequency of pay cycles.period. This increasedecrease was partially offset by a decrease in accrued expenses related to various operating expenses.
Cash provided by operating activities during 2018 was primarily attributable to net income of $55.4 million and noncash adjustments to net income of $165.5 million, partially offset by a decrease in the net change in operating assets and liabilities of $60.7 million, which included the following:
an increase in accounts receivable of $35.7 million due to an increase in billingscash outflows for advertising plans, particularly for customers billed in-arrears, as well as the timing of payments from these customers;
an increase in prepaid expenses and other assets of $5.2 million, primarily driven by increases in deferred contract costs and tax-related receivables, partially offset by a decrease in non-trade receivables; and
a decrease in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities of $19.8 million, primarily driven by a decrease in accrued income taxes as a result of income tax payments made in 2018 on taxable income from 2017, which was primarily a result of the gain on disposal of Eat24. This decrease was partially offset by higher accrued compensationemployee-related costs as a result of increased headcount.
Cash provided by operating activities during 2017 was primarily attributable to net income of $153.0 million, which includedlower headcount following the pre-tax gain on disposal of Eat24 of $163.7 million,terminations and noncash adjustments to net income of $0.3 million, which included the following:
an increase in accounts receivable of $36.1 million due to an increase in billings for advertising plans, particularly for customers billed in-arrears, as well as the timing of payments from these customers;
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an increase in prepaid expenses and other assets of $2.6 million, primarily due to an increase in tenant improvement allowance receivable and prepaid licenses; and
an increase in accounts payable, accrued expenses and other liabilities of $53.0 million, primarily driven by an increase in income taxes payablefurloughs associated with the gain on disposal of Eat24, accrued bonus and commissions, and various other accrued operating costs and expenses as a result of the growth in our business, offset by a decrease in restaurant revenue share liability as a result of the disposal of Eat24.Restructuring Plan.
Investing Activities. Our primaryNet cash used in investing activities during the year ended December 31, 2019 consisted of maturities of marketable securities,2021 primarily reflects purchases of property and equipment to support the ongoing build out of leasehold improvements for our new facility in Washington, D.C., the upgrading of technology hardware for our employees and internally developed software to support website and mobile app development, and our corporate infrastructure. Purchases of property, equipment and software may vary from period to period due to the timing of the expansion of our offices, and website and internal-use software and development.
Cashsoftware. Net cash provided by investing activities during the prior-year period primarily reflects the sale of our marketable securities portfolio following the change in our investment strategy to preserve liquidity, which was partially offset by purchases of intangible assets and other investments.
Net cash provided by investing activities during the year ended December 31, 2020 increased compared to 2019 primarily relateddue to the maturitysale of $674.1 millionmarketable securities discussed above. This increase was partially offset by the purchases of investment securities held-to-maturitycertificates of deposit and intangible assets during 2020 as well as the release of an escrow deposit of $28.8 millionduring 2019 in connection with our sale of Eat24. Cash provided by investing activities was partially offset by purchases of $541.5 million of marketable securities and expenditures of $37.5 million of property, equipment and software, primarily related to investmentsEat24, which did not recur in website and mobile app development, as well as internal-use software.
Cash used in investing activities during 2018 was primarily attributable to purchases of $751.2 million of marketable securities and expenditures of $45.0 million of property, equipment and software, primarily related to investments in website and mobile app development, as well as internal-use software. Cash used in investing activities was partially offset by the maturity of $613.7 million of investment securities held-to-maturity and the sale of $17.9 million of investment securities prior to maturity (refer to Note 4,"Fair Value of Financial Instruments," of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for details regarding the sale of held-to-maturity investment).
Cash provided by investing activities during 2017 primarily related to $252.7 million net cash received for the sale of Eat24 to Grubhub on October 10, 2017 and $264.0 million of maturities of investment securities held-to-maturity. Cash provided by investing was offset by purchases of marketable securities of $354.9 million, expenditures of $30.2 million of property, equipment and software, primarily related to investments in website and mobile app development, as well as internal-use software, our acquisition of Nowait for net cash consideration of $30.8 million, which included intangible assets of $12.7 million, and our acquisition of Turnstyle for net cash consideration of $19.7 million, which included intangible assets of $4.3 million.2020.
Financing Activities. CashNet cash used forin financing activities during 2019 comprised $481.0 millionthe year ended December 31, 2021 increased compared to repurchase shares of common2020 primarily due to an increase in stock repurchases pursuant to our stock repurchase program, which we suspended for a portion of 2020, and, $42.8 million to paya lesser extent, an increase in the amount of taxes related topaid in connection with the settlement of employee tax liabilities upon the vesting of restricted stock units ("RSUs"). The increase in taxes paid primarily resulted from our use of the net share settlementwithholding method of equity awardssettling employee tax liabilities for our employees. These were partially offset by $32.3 millionRSUs in cash generated from2021 compared to the issuancesell-to-cover method, which we used during a portion of common stockthe year-ago period. Increases in both the number of shares released upon exercisethe vesting of stock optionsRSUs and the sale of commonaverage stock under the ESPP.price upon release in 2021 also contributed to this increase in taxes paid.
CashNet cash used in financing activities during 2018 comprised $187.4 millionthe year ended December 31, 2020 decreased compared to repurchase shares2019 primarily due to the suspension of common stock pursuant toshare repurchases under our stock repurchase program and $50.1 million to pay taxes related tofor most of 2020 as well as our use of the net share settlementsell-to-cover method of equity awardssettling employee tax liabilities for our employees, partially offset by $29.8 million in cash generated fromRSUs during a portion of the issuance of common stock upon exercise of stock options andyear, which reduced the sale of common stock under the ESPP.
Cash provided by financing activities during 2017 was primarily due to net proceeds of $40.9 million generated from the issuance of common stock upon exercise of stock options and the sale of common stock under the ESPP. Cash provided by financing activities was partially offset by $12.6 million in repurchases of common stock and $1.2 millionamount of taxes paid related to the net share settlement of equity awards for our international employees.during 2020.
Stock Repurchase Program
InSince its initial authorization in July 2017, our board of directors authorized the repurchase of up to $200 million of our outstanding common stock. During the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, we repurchased on the open market and subsequently retired 4,896,003 shares and 302,206 shares, respectively, for aggregate purchase prices of $187.4 million and $12.6 million, respectively. We completed the repurchase of the full $200 million authorization in November 2018.
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On each of November 27, 2018 and February 11. 2019, our board of directorshas authorized us to repurchase up to an additional $250 millionaggregate of $1.2 billion of our outstanding common stock, bringing the amount of repurchases authorized under our stock repurchase program to $700 million. During the year ended December 31, 2019, we repurchased on the open market and subsequently retired 14,190,409 shares for an aggregate purchase price of $481.0 million. On January 15, 2020, our board of directors authorized us to repurchase up to an additional $250 million of our outstanding common stock, bringing the total amount of repurchases authorized under our stock repurchase program to $950$194.7 million of which approximately $269.0 million remains available.remained available as of February 18, 2022.
We may purchase shares at our discretion in the open market, privately negotiated transactions, in transactions structured through investment banking institutions, or a combination of the foregoing. The program is not subject to any time limit and may be modified, suspended or discontinued at any time. The amount and timing of repurchases are subject to a variety of factors, including liquidity, cash flow and market conditions.
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During the year ended December 31, 2021, we repurchased 6,995,170 shares on the open market for an aggregate purchase price of $262.9 million. During the year ended December 31, 2020, we repurchased 803,691 shares on the open market for an aggregate purchase price of $24.4 million, which reflects our suspension of share repurchases under our stock repurchase program between April 2020 and November 2020 to maintain liquidity as a result of the uncertain impact of COVID-19 on our business. During the year ended December 31, 2019, we repurchased 14,190,409 shares on the open market for an aggregate purchase price of $481.0 million.
We have funded all repurchases to date and expect to fund future repurchases with cash available on our balance sheet. As a result, we expect that cash used in financing activities will continue to increase as we make repurchases pursuant to this program.
Net Share Settlement of Equity Awards
In 2017, we began settling the employee tax liabilities associated with the vesting of RSUs through net share withholding for our internationally based employees, rather than selling a portion of the vested shares to cover taxes, as we had previously. In 2018, we expanded this practice of net share settlement for the vesting of RSUs to all employees. As a result, we paid $42.8 million, $50.1 million and $1.2 million of employee taxes in the years ended December 31, 2019, 2018, and 2017, respectively, out of cash held on our consolidated balance sheet.

Off-Balance Sheet Arrangements
We did not have any off-balance sheet arrangements, as defined in Regulation S-K, Item 303(a)(4)(ii) promulgated by the SEC under the Securities Act, in 2019, 2018 or 2017.

Contractual Obligations
We lease various office facilities, including our corporate headquarters in San Francisco, California, under operating lease agreements that expire from 2019 to 2029. The terms of the lease agreements provide for rental payments on a graduated basis. We recognize rent expense on a straight-line basis over the lease periods. We do not have any debt or material capital lease obligations, and all of our property, equipment and software have been purchased with cash. As of December 31, 2019, we had no material long-term purchase obligations outstanding with vendors or third parties other than purchases of website hosting services. The following table summarizes our future minimum payments under non-cancelable operating leases and purchase obligations for equipment and office facilities as of December 31, 2019 (in thousands):
Payments Due by Period
TotalLess Than 1 Year1 – 3 Years3 – 5 YearsMore Than 5 Years
Operating lease obligations(1)
$274,478  $59,522  $96,772  $81,072  $37,112  
Purchase obligations$104,538  $40,572  $61,466  $2,500  $—  
(1) In October 2019, the Company entered into a lease agreement for an office facility in London, U.K. for which the lease term has not yet commenced, with lease obligations of approximately $15.0 million. The lease is expected to commence in 2020 and will expire 2030. The Company expects to classify it as an operating lease. Because the lease had not yet commenced as of December 31, 2019, payments related to this lease are not included in the above table.
The contractual commitment amounts in the table above are associated with binding agreements and do not include obligations under contracts that we can cancel without a significant penalty. In addition, as of December 31, 2019, our total liability for uncertain tax positions was $5.6 million. We are not reasonably able to estimate the timing of future cash flow related to this liability. As a result, this amount is not included in the contractual obligations table above.
We have subleased certain office facilities under operating lease agreements that expire in 2025. The terms of these lease agreements provide for rental receipts on a graduated basis. We recognize sublease rentals on a straight-line basis over the lease
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periods reflected as a reduction in rental expense. As of December 31, 2019, our future minimum rental receipts to be received under non-cancelable subleases were $37.5 million.

Item 7A. Quantitative and Qualitative Disclosures About Market Risk.
We have operations both within the United States and internationally, and we are exposed to market risks in the ordinary course of business. These risks include primarily interest rate, foreign exchange risks and inflation, and have not changed materially from the market risks we were exposed to in the year ended December 31, 2018.2020.

Interest Rate Fluctuation
The primary objective of our investment activities is to preserve principal while maximizing income without significantly increasing risk.
Our cash and cash equivalents consist of cash and money market funds and commercial paper.funds. We do not have any long-term borrowings. Because our cash and cash equivalents have a relatively short maturity,maturities, their fair value isvalues are relatively insensitive to interest rate changes. We believe a hypothetical 10% increase in the interest rates as of December 31, 20192021 would not have a material impact on our cash and cash equivalents portfolio.
Our marketable securities comprise fixed-rate debt securities issued by U.S. corporations, U.S. government agencies and the U.S. Treasury; as such, their fair value may be affected by fluctuations in interest rates in the broader economy. As we have both the ability and intent to hold these securities to maturity, such fluctuations would have no impact on our results of operations.
Foreign Currency Exchange Risk
We have foreign currency risks related to our revenue and operating expenses denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, principally in the British pound sterling, Canadian dollar and the Euro. The volatility of exchange rates depends on many factors that we cannot forecast with reliable accuracy. Although we have experienced and will continue to experience fluctuations in net income (loss) as a result of transaction gains (losses), net, related to revaluing certain cash balances, trade accounts receivable balances and intercompany balances that are denominated in currencies other than the U.S. dollar, we believe a hypothetical 10% strengthening (weakening) of the U.S. dollar against the British pound sterling, Canadian dollar or Euro, either alone or in combination with each other, would not have a material impact on our results of operations. In the event our foreign sales and expenses increase as a proportion of our overall sales and expenses, our operating results may be more greatly affected by fluctuations in the exchange rates of the currencies in which we do business. At this time, we do not enter into derivatives or other financial instruments in an attempt to hedge our foreign currency exchange risk, though we may in the future. It is difficult to predict the impact hedging activities would have on our results of operations.

Inflation Risk
We do not believe that inflation has had a material effect on our business, financial condition or results of operations. If our costs were to become subject to significant inflationary pressures, we may not be able to fully offset such higher costs through price increases. Our inability or failure to do so could harm our business, financial condition or results of operations.

Item 8. Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.
Our financial statements and the report of our independent registered public accounting firm are included in this Annual Report beginning on page F-1. The index to our financial statements is included in Part IV, Item 15 below.

Item 9. Changes in and Disagreements with Accountants on Accounting and Financial Disclosure.
None.

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Item 9A. Controls and Procedures.
Evaluation of Disclosure Controls and Procedures
We maintain “disclosure controls and procedures,” as defined in Rules 13a-15(e) and 15d-15(e) under the Exchange Act, that are designed to provide reasonable assurance that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is recorded, processed, summarized and reported within the time periods specified in the SEC’s rules and forms and is accumulated and communicated to our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure. Disclosure controls and procedures include, without limitation, controls and procedures designed to ensure that information required to be disclosed by a company in the reports that it files or submits under the Exchange Act is accumulated and communicated to the company’s management, including its principal executive and principal financial officers, as appropriate to allow timely decisions regarding required disclosure.
Our management, with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, evaluated the effectiveness of our disclosure controls and procedures as of December 31, 2019.2021. Based on this evaluation, our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer concluded that, as of December 31, 2019,2021, our disclosure controls and procedures were effective at the reasonable assurance level.
Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
Our management is responsible for establishing and maintaining adequate internal control over financial reporting, as such term is defined in Exchange Act Rules 13a-15(f) and 15d-15(f). Under the supervision and with the participation of our Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer, our management evaluated the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting based on the framework set forth in “Internal Control—Integrated Framework (2013)” issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission. Based on this evaluation, our management concluded that our internal control over financial reporting was effective as of December 31, 2019.2021. Our management reviewed the results of this evaluation with the audit committee of our board of directors.
Deloitte & Touche LLP, an independent registered public accounting firm, has audited the consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report and, as part of the audit, has issued aan attestation report on the effectiveness of our internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2019,2021, which is included below.
Changes in Internal Control Over Financial Reporting
There was no change in our internal control over financial reporting identified in connection with the evaluation required by Rule 13a-15(d) and 15d-15(d) of the Exchange Act that occurred during the three months ended December 31, 20192021 that has materially affected, or is reasonably likely to materially affect, our internal control over financial reporting.
Inherent Limitations on Effectiveness of Controls
Our management, including our Chief Executive Officer and our Chief Financial Officer, believes that our disclosure controls and procedures and internal control over financial reporting are designed to provide reasonable assurance of achieving their objectives and are effective at the reasonable assurance level. However, our management does not expect that our disclosure controls and procedures or our internal control over financial reporting will prevent all errors and all fraud. A control system, no matter how well conceived and operated, can provide only reasonable, not absolute, assurance that the objectives of the control system are met. Further, the design of a control system must reflect the fact that there are resource constraints, and the benefits of controls must be considered relative to their costs. Because of the inherent limitations in all control systems, no evaluation of controls can provide absolute assurance that all control issues and instances of fraud, if any, have been detected. These inherent limitations include the realities that judgments in decision making can be faulty, and that breakdowns can occur because of a simple error or mistake. Additionally, controls can be circumvented by the individual acts of some persons, by the collusion of two or more people or by management override of controls. The design of any system of controls is also based in part upon certain assumptions about the likelihood of future events, and there can be no assurance that any design will succeed in achieving its stated goals under all potential future conditions; over time, controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or the degree of compliance with policies or procedures may deteriorate. Because of the inherent limitations in a cost-effective control system, misstatements due to error or fraud may occur and not be detected.
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REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Yelp Inc.

Opinion on Internal Control over Financial Reporting

We have audited the internal control over financial reporting of Yelp Inc. and subsidiaries (the “Company”) as of December 31, 2019,2021, based on criteria established in Internal Control-Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission (COSO). In our opinion, the Company maintained, in all material respects, effective internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2019,2021, based on criteria established inInternal Control-Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by COSO.

We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the consolidated financial statements as of and for the year ended December 31, 20192021 of the Company, and our report dated February 28, 2020,2022 expressed an unqualified opinion on those financial statements and included an explanatory paragraph regarding the Company’s adoption of a new accounting standard.statements.

Basis for Opinion

The Company’s management is responsible for maintaining effective internal control over financial reporting and for its assessment of the effectiveness of internal control over financial reporting, included in the accompanying Management’s Annual Report on Internal Control overOver Financial Reporting. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company’s internal control over financial reporting based on our audit. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audit in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether effective internal control over financial reporting was maintained in all material respects. Our audit included obtaining an understanding of internal control over financial reporting, assessing the risk that a material weakness exists, testing and evaluating the design and operating effectiveness of internal control based on the assessed risk, and performing such other procedures as we considered necessary in the circumstances. We believe that our audit provides a reasonable basis for our opinion.

Definition and Limitations of Internal Control over Financial Reporting

A company’s internal control over financial reporting is a process designed to provide reasonable assurance regarding the reliability of financial reporting and the preparation of financial statements for external purposes in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. A company’s internal control over financial reporting includes those policies and procedures that (1) pertain to the maintenance of records that, in reasonable detail, accurately and fairly reflect the transactions and dispositions of the assets of the company; (2) provide reasonable assurance that transactions are recorded as necessary to permit preparation of financial statements in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles, and that receipts and expenditures of the company are being made only in accordance with authorizations of management and directors of the company; and (3) provide reasonable assurance regarding prevention or timely detection of unauthorized acquisition, use, or disposition of the company’s assets that could have a material effect on the financial statements.

Because of its inherent limitations, internal control over financial reporting may not prevent or detect misstatements. Also, projections of any evaluation of effectiveness to future periods are subject to the risk that controls may become inadequate because of changes in conditions, or that the degree of compliance with the policies or procedures may deteriorate.


/s/ DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP
San Francisco, California
February 28, 2020
2022
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Item 9B. Other Information.
None.

Item 9C. Disclosure Regarding Foreign Jurisdictions that Prevent Inspections.
Not applicable.
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PART III

Item 10. Directors, Executive Officers and Corporate Governance.
Information required by this item regarding directors and director nominees, executive officers, the board of directors and its committees, and certain corporate governance matters is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the captions “Proposal No. 1—Election of Directors,” “Information Regarding the Board of Directors and Corporate Governance” and “Executive Officers” in the definitive proxy statement for our 20202022 Annual Meeting of Stockholders or the 2020(the "2022 Proxy Statement.Statement"). Information required by this item regarding compliance with Section 16(a) of the Exchange Act is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the caption “Delinquent Section 16(a) Reports” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement.
We have adopted a written code of business conduct and ethics that applies to all of our employees, officers and directors, including our principal executive officer, principal financial officer and principal accounting officer. The code of business conduct and ethics is available on our corporate website at www.yelp-ir.com under the section entitled “Corporate Governance.”“Governance Documents” in the "Governance" menu. If we make any substantive amendments to our code of business conduct and ethics or grant any of our directors or executive officers any waiver, including any implicit waiver, from a provision of our code of business conduct and ethics, we will disclose the nature of the amendment or waiver on our website or in a Current Report on Form 8-K.

Item 11. Executive Compensation.
Information required by this item regarding executive compensation is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the captions “Executive Compensation,” “Director Compensation” and “Information Regarding the Board of Directors and Corporate Governance” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement.

Item 12. Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management and Related Stockholder Matters.
Information required by this item regarding security ownership of certain beneficial owners and management is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the caption “Security Ownership of Certain Beneficial Owners and Management” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement. Information required by this item regarding securities authorized for issuance under our equity compensation plans is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the caption “Equity Compensation Plan Information” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement.

Item 13. Certain Relationships and Related Transactions, and Director Independence.
Information required by this item regarding certain relationships and related transactions is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the caption “Transactions with Related Persons” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement. Information required by this item regarding director independence is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the caption “Information Regarding the Board of Directors and Corporate Governance” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement.

Item 14. Principal AccountingAccountant Fees and Services.
Information required by this item regarding principal accounting fees and services is incorporated by reference to the information set forth under the caption “Proposal No. 2—Ratification of Selection of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm” in our 20202022 Proxy Statement.
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PART IV

Item 15. Exhibits and Financial Statement Schedules.
(a)The following documents are filed as part of this Annual Report:
1.
Financial Statements. Our consolidated financial statements and the Report of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm are included herein on the pages indicated:
2.
Financial Statement Schedules. None. All financial statement schedules are omitted because they are not applicable, not required under the instructions, or the requested information is included in the consolidated financial statements or notes thereto.
3.
Exhibits. The following is a list of exhibits filed with this report or incorporated herein by reference:

Incorporated by Reference
ExhibitFilingFiled
NumberExhibit DescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitDateHerewith
Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated February 9, 2015, by and among Yelp Inc., Eat24Hours.com, Inc., Kale Acquisition Corp., Quinoa Acquisition LLC, the Stockholders of Eat24Hours.com, Inc. and Nadav Sharon, as Stockholders’ Agent.8-K001-3544499.1  2/10/2015
Agreement and Plan of Merger, dated February 28, 2017, by and among Yelp Inc., Nowait, Inc., Beagle Acquisition Corp. and Shareholder Representative Services LLC, as Stockholders’ Agent.8-K001-354442.1  3/6/2017
Share Purchase Agreement, dated April 3, 2017, by and among Yelp Inc., 10036773 Canada Inc., Turnstyle Analytics Inc., the shareholders of Turnstyle Analytics Inc., the vested option holders of Turnstyle Analytics Inc., 500 Startups IV, L.P. and Fortis Advisors LLC, as Securityholders’ Agent.8-K001-354442.1  4/7/2017
Unit Purchase Agreement, dated as of August 3, 2017, by and among Yelp Inc., Eat24, LLC, Grubhub Inc. and Grubhub Holdings Inc.10-Q001-354442.3  8/9/2017
Amended and Restated Certificate of Incorporation of Yelp Inc.8-A/A001-354443.2  9/23/2016
Amended and Restated Bylaws of Yelp Inc., as amended.8-K001-354443.1  2/13/2019
4.1  Reference is made to Exhibits 3.1 and 3.2.
Form of Common Stock Certificate.8-A/A001-354444.1  9/23/2016
Amended and Restated 2005 Equity Incentive Plan.S-1333-17803010.2  11/17/2011
Forms of Option Agreement and Option Grant Notice under Amended and Restated 2005 Equity Incentive Plan.S-1333-17803010.3  11/17/2011
2011 Equity Incentive Plan.S-1333-17803010.4  2/3/2012
Forms of Option Agreement and Option Grant Notice under 2011 Equity Incentive Plan.S-1333-17803010.5  2/3/2012
Incorporated by Reference
ExhibitFilingFiled
NumberExhibit DescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitDateHerewith
8-K001-354443.17/8/2020
8-K001-354443.11/31/2022
4.1
Reference is made to Exhibits 3.1 and 3.2.
8-A/A001-354444.19/23/2016
X
S-1333-17803010.42/3/2012
S-1333-17803010.52/3/2012
8-K001-3544410.22/13/2019
S-1/A333-17803010.172/3/2012
8-K001-3544410.22/16/2022
8-K001-3544410.29/23/2016
10-K001-3544410.92/28/2020
X
8-K001-3544410.12/16/2022
S-1333-17803010.62/3/2012
S-1/A333-17803010.152/3/2012
10-Q001-3544410.18/7/2020
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Incorporated by Reference
ExhibitFilingFiled
NumberExhibit DescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitDateHerewith
2012 Equity Incentive Plan, as amended.8-K001-3544410.2  2/13/2019
Forms of Option Agreement and Grant Notice and RSU Agreement and Grant Notice under 2012 Equity Incentive Plan.S-1/A333-17803010.17  2/3/2012
Forms of Performance Restricted Stock Unit Award Grant Notice and Agreement under 2012 Equity Incentive Plan.10-Q001-3544410.1  5/10/2019
2012 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, as amended.8-K001-3544410.2  9/23/2016
Executive Severance Benefit Plan, as amended.X
Form of Indemnification Agreement made by and between Yelp Inc. and each of its directors and executive officers.S-1333-17803010.6  2/3/2012
Offer Letter, by and between Yelp Inc. and Jeremy Stoppelman, dated February 3, 2012.S-1/A333-17803010.15  2/3/2012
Offer Letter, dated December 27, 2019, by and between Yelp Inc. and David Schwarzbach.X
Amended and Restated Offer Letter, by and between Yelp Inc. and Joseph Nachman, dated February 3, 2012.S-1/A333-17803010.9  2/3/2012
Letter Agreement, dated May 22, 2014, by and between Joseph Nachman and Yelp Inc.8-K001-3544499.1  5/28/2014
Offer Letter, dated April 1, 2009, by and between Yelp Inc. and Vivek Patel.10-Q001-3544410.2  5/10/2019
Amended and Restated Offer Letter, by and between Yelp Inc. and Laurence Wilson, dated February 3, 2012.S-1/A333-17803010.10  2/3/2012
Offer Letter, dated January 17, 2019, by and between Yelp Inc. and James Miln.X
Compensation Information for Registrant’s Executive Officers.8-K001-354442/24/2020
Compensation Information for Registrant's Non-Employee Directors.8-K001-354442/13/2020
Amended and Restated Lease, dated April 1, 2015, by and between Stockdale Galleria Project Owner, LLC and Yelp Inc.; First Amendment to Lease, dated July 30, 2015; Second Amendment to Lease, dated April 22, 2016; Third Amendment to Lease, dated July 22, 2016.10-K001-3544410.23  3/1/2017
License Agreement between Harrison 160, LLC, as Licensor, and MRL Ventures Inc., as Licensee, dated as of April 6, 2004; Addendums through November 10, 2011.S-1/A333-17803010.14  2/3/2012
Office Lease, dated May 9, 2012, by and between Yelp Inc. and Stockbridge 138 New Montgomery LLC, as amended.10-K001-3544410.25  3/1/2017
Lease, dated July 31, 2014, by and between Yelp Inc. and 11 Madison Avenue LLC.8-K001-3544410.1  8/6/2014
Subsidiaries of Yelp Inc.X
Consent of Independent Registered Public Accounting Firm.X
Power of Attorney (included on signature page).X
Certification pursuant to Rule 13a-14(a)/15d-14(a).X
Certification pursuant to Rule 13a-14(a)/15d-14(a).X
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Incorporated by Reference
ExhibitFilingFiled
NumberExhibit DescriptionFormFile No.ExhibitDateHerewith
10-K001-3544410.122/28/2020
S-1/A333-17803010.92/3/2012
8-K001-3544499.15/28/2014
10-Q001-3544410.25/10/2019
8-K001-3544410.32/16/2022
S-1/A333-17803010.12/3/2012
8-K001-3544410.11/10/2022
X
8-K001-354442/16/2022
10-K/A001-3544410.194/29/2020
10-Q001-3544410.28/7/2020
X
X
Power of Attorney (included on signature page).
X
X
X
X
101.INSXBRL Instance Document.X
101.SCHXBRL Taxonomy Extension Schema Document.X
101.CALXBRL Taxonomy Extension Calculation Linkbase Document.X
101.DEFXBRL Taxonomy Extension Definition Linkbase Document.X
101.LABXBRL Taxonomy Extension Labels Linkbase Document.X
101.PREXBRL Taxonomy Extension Presentation Linkbase Document.X
104Cover Page Interactive Data File (formatted as inline XBRL and contained in Exhibit 101).X
*    Indicates management contract or compensatory plan or arrangement.
†    The certifications attached as Exhibit 32.1 accompany this Annual Report on Form 10-K are not deemed filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission and are not to be incorporated by reference into any filing of Yelp Inc. under the
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Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, whether made before or after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K, irrespective of any general incorporation language contained in such filing.

Item 16. Form 10-K Summary.
None.
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SIGNATURES
Pursuant to the requirements of Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.
Date: February 28, 20202022
Yelp Inc.
 
/s/ David Schwarzbach
David Schwarzbach
Chief Financial Officer
(Principal Financial and Accounting Officer)
POWER OF ATTORNEY
KNOW ALL PERSONS BY THESE PRESENTS, that each person whose signature appears below constitutes and appoints David Schwarzbach and Laurence Wilson,Aaron Schur, and each of them, as his or her true and lawful attorneys-in-fact and agents, with full power of substitution for him or her, and in his or her name in any and all capacities, to sign any and all amendments to this Annual Report on Form 10-K, and to file the same, with exhibits thereto and other documents in connection therewith, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, granting unto said attorneys-in-fact and agents, and each of them, full power and authority to do and perform each and every act and thing requisite and necessary to be done therewith, as fully to all intents and purposes as he or she might or could do in person, hereby ratifying and confirming all that said attorneys-in-fact and agents, and either of them, his or her substitute or substitutes, may lawfully do or cause to be done by virtue hereof.
Pursuant to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, this report has been signed below by the following persons on behalf of the registrant and in the capacities and on the dates indicated.
SignatureTitleDate
/s/ Jeremy StoppelmanChief Executive Officer and DirectorFebruary 28, 20202022
Jeremy Stoppelman
(Principal Executive Officer)
/s/ David SchwarzbachChief Financial OfficerFebruary 28, 20202022
David Schwarzbach
(Principal Financial Officer and Principal Accounting Officer)
/s/ Diane IrvineChairpersonFebruary 28, 20202022
Diane Irvine
/s/ Fred D. Anderson, Jr.DirectorFebruary 28, 20202022
Fred D. Anderson, Jr.
/s/ Christine BaroneDirectorFebruary 28, 2022
Christine Barone
/s/ Robert GibbsDirectorFebruary 28, 20202022
Robert Gibbs
/s/ George HuDirectorFebruary 28, 20202022
George Hu
/s/ Sharon RothsteinDirectorFebruary 28, 20202022
Sharon Rothstein
/s/ Brian SharplesDirectorFebruary 28, 20202022
Brian Sharples
/s/ Tony WellsDirectorFebruary 28, 2022
Tony Wells


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REPORT OF INDEPENDENT REGISTERED PUBLIC ACCOUNTING FIRM
To the Stockholders and the Board of Directors of Yelp Inc.

Opinion on the Financial Statements

We have audited the accompanying consolidated balance sheets of Yelp Inc. and subsidiaries (the "Company") as of December 31, 20192021 and 2018,2020, the related consolidated statements of operations, comprehensive income, stockholders'stockholders’ equity, and cash flows, for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2019,2021, and the related notes (collectively referred to as the "financial statements"). In our opinion, the financial statements present fairly, in all material respects, the financial position of the Company as of December 31, 20192021 and 2018,2020, and the results of its operations and its cash flows for each of the three years in the period ended December 31, 2019,2021, in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America.

We have also audited, in accordance with the standards of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (United States) (PCAOB), the Company's internal control over financial reporting as of December 31, 2019,2021, based on criteria established in Internal Control — Integrated Framework (2013) issued by the Committee of Sponsoring Organizations of the Treadway Commission and our report dated February 28, 2020,2022, expressed an unqualified opinion on the Company's internal control over financial reporting.

Change in Accounting Principle

As discussed in Note 2 to the financial statements, effective January 1, 2019, the Company adopted Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) Accounting Standards Codification (ASC) Topic 842, Leases (ASC 842) using the modified retrospective approach. The incremental borrowing rate (IBR) used upon adoption of ASC 842 to calculate the present value of future lease payments is also communicated as a critical audit matter below.

Basis for Opinion

These financial statements are the responsibility of the Company's management. Our responsibility is to express an opinion on the Company's financial statements based on our audits. We are a public accounting firm registered with the PCAOB and are required to be independent with respect to the Company in accordance with the U.S. federal securities laws and the applicable rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the PCAOB.

We conducted our audits in accordance with the standards of the PCAOB. Those standards require that we plan and perform the audit to obtain reasonable assurance about whether the financial statements are free of material misstatement, whether due to error or fraud. Our audits included performing procedures to assess the risks of material misstatement of the financial statements, whether due to error or fraud, and performing procedures that respond to those risks. Such procedures included examining, on a test basis, evidence regarding the amounts and disclosures in the financial statements. Our audits also included evaluating the accounting principles used and significant estimates made by management, as well as evaluating the overall presentation of the financial statements. We believe that our audits provide a reasonable basis for our opinion.opinion.

Critical Audit MattersMatter

The critical audit mattersmatter communicated below are mattersis a matter arising from the current-period audit of the financial statements that werewas communicated or required to be communicated to the audit committee and that (1) relaterelates to accounts or disclosures that are material to the financial statements and (2) involved our especially challenging, subjective, or complex judgments. The communication of critical audit matters does not alter in any way our opinion on the financial statements, taken as a whole, and we are not, by communicating the critical audit mattersmatter below, providing a separate opinionsopinion on the critical audit mattersmatter or on the accounts or disclosures to which they relate.it relates.

Advertising Revenue Refer to Note 2 to the financial statements

Critical Audit Matter Description

The Company’s revenue consists of advertising placements, primarily performance-based cost-per-click advertising (CPC), which is comprised of a significant volume of low-dollar transactions, initiated and maintained within internally developed systems. The processing and recording of those transactions is highly automated and is based on contractual terms with customers. The Company relies on information from these internally developed systems and automations to record its CPC revenue.

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We identified CPC revenue as a critical audit matter because the Company’s processes to record CPC revenue are highly dependent on internally developed systems and automations. This required an increased extent of effort, including the need for us to involve professionals with expertise in information technology (IT), to identify, test, and evaluate the Company’s systems, databases, tools, software applications, and automated controls.

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How the Critical Audit Matter Was Addressed in the Audit

Our audit procedures related to the Company’s processes and systems used to record CPC revenue included the following, among others:

We tested internal controls within the relevant CPC revenue business processes, including those in place to reconcile the various systems to the Company’s general ledger and address the accuracy and completeness of contract data.transaction data from those systems.

With the assistance of our IT specialists, we:

Identified the significant systems, automated controls, and tools used to maintain databases and process CPC revenue transactions and tested the general IT controls over each of these systems, including testing of user access controls, change management controls, and IT operations controls.

Performed testing of system interface controls and automated controls within CPC revenue transactions, as well as the controls designed to address the accuracy and completeness of CPC revenue.

With the assistance of our data specialists, we created data visualizations to evaluate recorded CPC revenue and evaluate trends in the transactional CPC revenue data.

We generated synthetic click transactions on the Company’s website and traced the recording of these transactions into the Company’s systems to understand how CPC revenue transactions are initiated, processed, and aggregated.

For a sample of CPC revenue transactions, we performed detail transaction testing by agreeing the amounts recognized to source documentation and system reports.

Leases — Refer to Notes 2 and 10 to the financial statements

Critical Audit Matter Description

The Company adopted and began applying ASC 842 on January 1, 2019, which generally requires lessees to recognize a right-of-use asset and lease liability for all leases. The adoption of this new accounting standard resulted in the recognition of operating lease right-of-use assets of $233.0 million, current operating lease liabilities of $55.2 million, and long-term operating lease liabilities of $212.5 million on the consolidated balance sheet upon adoption on January 1, 2019.

As part of measuring the lease liability upon adoption, the Company calculated its incremental borrowing rate (IBR), based on hypothetical borrowings to fund each respective lease over the lease terms. The Company’s IBR calculation is derived based on the Company’s implied credit rating and other market rate information of similar companies. The determination of its IBR requires management to use significant estimates and assumptions, including credit ratings, lease tenures, and adjustments for the effects of collateral.

We identified the IBR as a critical audit matter given the significant judgments management is required to make to determine the IBR to apply to the calculation of the lease liability for each lease. This required an increased extent of effort and auditor judgment, including the need to involve a valuation specialist.

How the Critical Audit Matter Was Addressed in the Audit

Our audit procedures related to the determination of the IBR included the following, among others:

We tested the effectiveness of management’s controls over the determination and appropriateness of the IBR.

With the assistance of our fair value specialists, we:

Assessed the reasonableness of the methodology used to estimate the IBR based on the definition and related guidance in ASC 842.

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Assessed the reasonableness of the implied credit rating, collateral, base rate, and spreads applied in determining the IBR by comparing to Company specific benchmarks, comparable companies, and other market information.

Evaluated the reasonableness of the models and the mathematical accuracy of the calculations used to estimate the IBR, including validating the inputs used for each lease tenure.


/s/ DELOITTE & TOUCHE LLP
San Francisco, California
February 28, 20202022

We have served as the Company's auditor since 2008.
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YELP INC.
CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS
(In thousands, except share data)par value)
December 31,
2021
December 31,
2020
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents$479,783 $595,875 
Accounts receivable (net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $7,153 and $11,559
at December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively)
107,358 88,400 
Prepaid expenses and other current assets57,536 28,450 
Total current assets644,677 712,725 
Property, equipment and software, net83,857 101,718 
Operating lease right-of-use assets140,785 168,209 
Goodwill105,128 109,261 
Intangibles, net10,673 13,521 
Restricted cash858 665 
Other non-current assets64,550 48,848 
Total assets$1,050,528 $1,154,947 
Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities$119,620 $87,760 
Operating lease liabilities — current40,237 51,161 
Deferred revenue4,156 4,109 
Total current liabilities164,013 143,030 
Operating lease liabilities — long-term127,979 148,935 
Other long-term liabilities7,218 8,448 
Total liabilities299,210 300,413 
Commitments and contingencies (Note 13)
00
Stockholders’ equity:
Common stock, $0.000001 par value — 200,000 shares authorized, 72,171 shares issued and outstanding at December 31, 2021 and 75,371 shares issued and 75,272 shares outstanding at December 31, 2020— — 
Additional paid-in capital1,522,572 1,398,248 
Treasury stock— (2,964)
Accumulated other comprehensive loss(11,090)(6,807)
Accumulated deficit(760,164)(533,943)
Total stockholders’ equity751,318 854,534 
Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity$1,050,528 $1,154,947 
December 31,
2019
December 31,
2018
Assets
Current assets:
Cash and cash equivalents$170,281  $332,764  
Short-term marketable securities242,000  423,096  
Accounts receivable (net of allowance for doubtful accounts of $7,686 and $8,685
at December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively)
106,832  87,305  
Prepaid expenses and other current assets14,196  17,104  
Total current assets533,309  860,269  
Long-term marketable securities53,499  —  
Property, equipment and software, net110,949  114,800  
Operating lease right-of-use assets197,866  —  
Goodwill104,589  105,620  
Intangibles, net10,082  13,359  
Restricted cash22,037  22,071  
Other non-current assets38,369  59,444  
Total assets$1,070,700  $1,175,563  
Liabilities and Stockholders’ Equity
Current liabilities:
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities$72,333  $61,062  
Operating lease liabilities — current57,507  —  
Deferred revenue4,315  3,843  
Total current liabilities134,155  64,905  
Operating lease liabilities — long-term174,756  —  
Other long-term liabilities6,798  35,140  
Total liabilities315,709  100,045  
Commitments and contingencies (Note 15)
Stockholders’ equity:
Common stock, $0.000001 par value — 200,000,000 shares
   authorized, 71,185,468 and 81,996,839 shares issued and outstanding at
   December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2018, respectively
—  —  
Additional paid-in capital1,259,803  1,139,462  
Accumulated other comprehensive loss(11,759) (11,021) 
Accumulated deficit(493,053) (52,923) 
Total stockholders’ equity754,991  1,075,518  
 Total liabilities and stockholders’ equity$1,070,700  $1,175,563  

See notes to consolidated financial statements.
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YELP INC.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF OPERATIONS
(In thousands, except per share data)
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Net revenue$1,014,194  $942,773  $850,847  
Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)62,410  57,872  70,518  
Sales and marketing500,386  483,309  437,424  
Product development230,440  212,319  175,787  
General and administrative136,091  120,569  109,707  
Depreciation and amortization49,356  42,807  41,198  
Restructuring and integration—  —  288  
Gain on disposal of a business unit—  —  (163,697) 
Total costs and expenses978,683  916,876  671,225  
Income from operations35,511  25,897  179,622  
Other income, net14,256  14,109  4,864  
Income before income taxes49,767  40,006  184,486  
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes8,886  (15,344) 31,491  
Net income attributable to common stockholders$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  
Net income per share attributable to common stockholders
Basic$0.55  $0.66  $1.87  
Diluted$0.52  $0.62  $1.76  
Weighted-average shares used to compute net income per share attributable to common stockholders
Basic74,627  83,573  81,602  
Diluted77,969  88,709  87,170  
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Net revenue$1,031,839 $872,933 $1,014,194 
Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)78,097 57,186 62,410 
Sales and marketing454,224 437,060 500,386 
Product development276,473 232,561 230,440 
General and administrative135,816 130,450 136,091 
Depreciation and amortization55,683 50,609 49,356 
Restructuring32 3,862 — 
Total costs and expenses1,000,325 911,728 978,683 
Income (loss) from operations31,514 (38,795)35,511 
Other income, net2,204 3,670 14,256 
Income (loss) before income taxes33,718 (35,125)49,767 
(Benefit from) provision for income taxes(5,953)(15,701)8,886 
Net income (loss) attributable to common stockholders$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 
Net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders
Basic$0.53 $(0.27)$0.55 
Diluted$0.50 $(0.27)$0.52 
Weighted-average shares used to compute net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders
Basic74,221 73,005 74,627 
Diluted78,616 73,005 77,969 

See notes to consolidated financial statements.

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YELP INC.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF COMPREHENSIVE INCOME (LOSS)
(In thousands)
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Net income$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  
Other comprehensive (loss) income:
Foreign currency translation adjustments(738) (2,760) 7,620  
Foreign currency adjustments to net income upon liquidation of investments in foreign entities—  183  (488) 
Other comprehensive (loss) income(738) (2,577) 7,132  
Comprehensive income$40,143  $52,773  $160,127  
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Net income (loss)$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 
Other comprehensive (loss) income:
Foreign currency translation adjustments, net of tax(4,283)4,952 (738)
Other comprehensive (loss) income(4,283)4,952 (738)
Comprehensive income (loss)$35,388 $(14,472)$40,143 

See notes to consolidated financial statementsstatements.

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YELP INC.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
FOR THE YEARS ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2017, 2018 AND 2019
(In thousands, except share data)
AdditionalAccumulated
Other
Retained
Earnings
Total
Common StockPaid-InTreasuryComprehensive(AccumulatedStockholders'
SharesAmountCapitalStockLossDeficit)Equity
Balance as of December 31, 201679,429,833  $—  $892,983  $—  $(15,576) $(61,269) $816,138  
Issuance of common stock upon exercises of employee
stock options
1,519,771  —  29,997  —  —  —  29,997  
Issuance of common stock upon vesting of restricted stock units ("RSUs")2,702,838  —  —  —  —  —  —  
Issuance of common stock for employee stock purchase plan373,580  —  10,920  —  —  —  10,920  
Stock-based compensation (inclusive of capitalized stock-based compensation)—  —  106,639  —  —  —  106,639  
Shares withheld related to net share settlement of equity awards—  —  (2,522) —  —  —  (2,522) 
Repurchases of common stock—  —  —  (12,602) —  —  (12,602) 
Retirement of common stock(301,106) —  —  12,556  —  (12,556) —  
Foreign currency adjustment—  —  —  —  7,132  —  7,132  
Net income—  —  —  —  —  152,995  152,995  
Balance as of December 31, 201783,724,916  —  1,038,017  (46) (8,444) 79,170  1,108,697  
Issuance of common stock upon exercises of employee
stock options
779,871  —  15,581  —  —  —  15,581  
Issuance of common stock upon vesting of RSUs1,946,476  —  —  —  —  —  —  
Issuance of common stock for employee stock purchase plan442,679  —  14,198  —  —  —  14,198  
Stock-based compensation (inclusive of capitalized stock-based compensation)—  —  121,878  —  —  —  121,878  
Shares withheld related to net share settlement of equity awards—  —  (50,212) —  —  —  (50,212) 
Repurchases of common stock—  —  —  (187,397) —  —  (187,397) 
Retirement of common stock(4,897,103) —  —  187,443  —  (187,443) —  
Foreign currency adjustments—  —  —  —  (2,577) —  (2,577) 
Net income—  —  —  —  —  55,350  55,350  
Balance as of December 31, 201881,996,839  —  1,139,462  —  (11,021) (52,923) 1,075,518  
Issuance of common stock upon exercises of employee
stock options
826,124  —  17,488  —  —  —  17,488  
Issuance of common stock upon vesting of RSUs2,018,794  —  —  —  —  —  —  
Issuance of common stock for employee stock purchase plan534,120  —  14,775  —  —  —  14,775  
Stock-based compensation (inclusive of capitalized stock-based compensation)—  —  131,223  —  —  —  131,223  
Shares withheld related to net share settlement of equity awards—  —  (43,145) —  —  —  (43,145) 
Repurchases of common stock—  —  —  (481,011) —  —  (481,011) 
Retirement of common stock(14,190,409) —  —  481,011  —  (481,011) —  
Foreign currency adjustments—  —  —  —  (738) —  (738) 
Net income—  —  —  —  —  40,881  40,881  
Balance as of December 31, 201971,185,468  $—  $1,259,803  $—  $(11,759) $(493,053) $754,991  

thousands)
Common StockAdditional Paid-In CapitalTreasury StockAccumulated Other Comprehensive LossAccumulated DeficitTotal Stockholders' Equity
SharesAmount
Balance as of December 31, 201881,997 $— $1,139,462 $— $(11,021)$(52,923)$1,075,518 
Issuance of common stock upon exercises of employee
stock options
826 — 17,488 — — — 17,488 
Issuance of common stock upon vesting of restricted stock units ("RSUs")2,018 — — — — — — 
Issuance of common stock for employee stock purchase plan534 — 14,775 — — — 14,775 
Stock-based compensation (inclusive of capitalized stock-based compensation)— — 131,223 — — — 131,223 
Shares withheld related to net share settlement of equity awards— — (43,145)— — — (43,145)
Repurchases of common stock— — — (481,011)— — (481,011)
Retirement of common stock(14,190)— — 481,011 — (481,011)— 
Foreign currency adjustment, net of tax— — — — (738)— (738)
Net income— — — — — 40,881 40,881 
Balance as of December 31, 201971,185 — 1,259,803 — (11,759)(493,053)754,991 
Cumulative effect adjustment upon adoption of ASU 2016-13— — — — — (34)(34)
Issuance of common stock upon exercises of employee
stock options
1,545 — 13,168 — — — 13,168 
Issuance of common stock upon vesting of RSUs2,684 — — — — — — 
Issuance of common stock for employee stock purchase plan662 — 14,214 — — — 14,214 
Stock-based compensation (inclusive of capitalized stock-based compensation)— — 134,003 — — — 134,003 
Shares withheld related to net share settlement of equity awards— — (22,940)— — — (22,940)
Repurchases of common stock— — — (24,396)— — (24,396)
Retirement of common stock(705)— — 21,432 — (21,432)— 
Foreign currency adjustments, net of tax— — — — 4,952 — 4,952 
Net loss— — — — — (19,424)(19,424)
Balance as of December 31, 202075,371 — 1,398,248 (2,964)(6,807)(533,943)854,534 
Issuance of common stock upon exercises of employee
stock options
663 — 8,650 — — — 8,650 
Issuance of common stock upon vesting of RSUs2,714 — — — — — — 
Issuance of common stock for employee stock purchase plan517 — 16,334 — — — 16,334 
Stock-based compensation (inclusive of capitalized stock-based compensation)— — 162,295 — — — 162,295 
Shares withheld related to net share settlement of equity awards— — (62,955)— — — (62,955)
Repurchases of common stock— — — (262,928)— — (262,928)
Retirement of common stock(7,094)— — 265,892 — (265,892)— 
Foreign currency adjustments, net of tax— — — — (4,283)— (4,283)
Net income— — — — — 39,671 39,671 
Balance as of December 31, 202172,171 $— $1,522,572 $— $(11,090)$(760,164)$751,318 

See notes to consolidated financial statements.
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YELP INC.
CONSOLIDATED STATEMENTS OF CASH FLOWS
(In thousands)
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Operating Activities
Net income$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  
Adjustments to reconcile net income to net cash provided by operating activities:
Depreciation and amortization49,356  42,807  41,198  
Provision for doubtful accounts22,543  24,515  20,917  
Stock-based compensation121,512  114,386  100,415  
Noncash lease cost41,365  —  —  
Deferred income taxes(2,799) (15,469) —  
Gain on disposal of a business unit—  —  (163,697) 
Other adjustments, net(2,997) (722) 1,512  
Changes in operating assets and liabilities, net of acquisitions and disposal of a business unit:
Accounts receivable(42,070) (35,664) (36,146) 
Prepaid expenses and other assets(1,349) (5,192) (2,581) 
Operating lease liabilities(41,808) —  —  
Accounts payable, accrued liabilities and other liabilities20,148  (19,824) 53,034  
Net cash provided by operating activities204,782  160,187  167,647  
Investing Activities
Purchases of marketable securities(541,451) (751,237) (354,895) 
Maturities of marketable securities674,097  613,700  264,000  
Sale of investment prior to maturity—  17,895  —  
Disposal of a business unit, net of cash sold—  —  252,663  
Acquisition, net of cash received—  —  (50,544) 
Release of escrow deposit28,750  —  —  
Purchases of property, equipment and software(37,522) (44,972) (30,245) 
Other investing activities461  245  157  
Net cash provided by (used in) investing activities124,335  (164,369) 81,136  
Financing Activities
Proceeds from issuance of common stock for employee stock-based plans32,263  29,779  40,917  
Taxes paid related to the net share settlement of equity awards(42,771) (50,144) (1,199) 
Repurchases of common stock(481,011) (187,382) (12,556) 
Net cash (used in) provided by financing activities(491,519) (207,747) 27,162  
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash(115) 360  941  
Change in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash(162,517) (211,569) 276,886  
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash — Beginning of period354,835  566,404  289,518  
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash — End of period$192,318  $354,835  $566,404  
Supplemental Disclosures of Other Cash Flow Information
Cash paid for income taxes, net of refunds$6,912  $29,159  $530  
Supplemental Disclosures of Noncash Investing and Financing Activities
Purchases of property, equipment and software recorded in accounts payable and accrued liabilities$1,490  $4,440  $11,493  
Goodwill measurement period adjustment$—  $—  $(178) 
Tax liability related to net share settlement of equity awards included in accrued liabilities$912  $971  $1,323  
Operating lease right-of-use assets obtained in exchange for new operating lease liabilities$6,325  $—  $—  
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Operating Activities
Net income (loss)$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 
Adjustments to reconcile net income (loss) to net cash provided by operating activities:
Depreciation and amortization55,683 50,609 49,356 
Provision for doubtful accounts14,574 32,265 22,543 
Stock-based compensation151,679 124,574 121,512 
Noncash lease cost39,339 42,235 41,365 
Deferred income taxes(9,190)(11,181)(2,799)
Asset impairment11,164 — — 
Noncash gain on lease termination(11,485)— — 
Other adjustments, net392 2,193 (2,997)
Changes in operating assets and liabilities:
Accounts receivable(33,535)(13,833)(42,070)
Prepaid expenses and other assets(34,633)164 (1,349)
Operating lease liabilities(41,008)(46,283)(41,808)
Accounts payable, accrued liabilities and other liabilities30,004 15,382 20,148 
Net cash provided by operating activities212,655 176,701 204,782 
Investing Activities
Sales and maturities of marketable securities — available-for-sale— 290,395 — 
Purchases of marketable securities — held-to-maturity— (87,438)(541,451)
Maturities of marketable securities — held-to-maturity— 93,200 674,097 
Purchases of other investments— (10,000)— 
Release of escrow deposit— — 28,750 
Purchases of property, equipment and software(28,282)(32,002)(37,522)
Purchase of intangible asset— (6,129)— 
Other investing activities632 333 461 
Net cash (used in) provided by investing activities(27,650)248,359 124,335 
Financing Activities
Proceeds from issuance of common stock for employee stock-based plans24,984 27,382 32,263 
Taxes paid related to the net share settlement of equity awards(62,545)(23,605)(42,771)
Repurchases of common stock(262,928)(24,396)(481,011)
Other financing activities— (433)— 
Net cash used in financing activities(300,489)(21,052)(491,519)
Effect of exchange rate changes on cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash(415)214 (115)
Change in cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash(115,899)404,222 (162,517)
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash — Beginning of period596,540 192,318 354,835 
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash — End of period$480,641 $596,540 $192,318 
Supplemental Disclosures of Other Cash Flow Information
Cash paid for income taxes, net$2,523 $214 $6,912 
Supplemental Disclosures of Noncash Investing and Financing Activities
Purchases of property, equipment and software recorded in accounts payable and accrued liabilities$1,595 $1,155 $1,490 
Tax liabilities related to equity awards included in accounts payable and accrued liabilities$17 $45 $912 
Operating lease right-of-use assets obtained in exchange for new operating lease liabilities$36,049 $13,549 $6,325 
Repurchases of common stock recorded in accounts payable and accrued liabilities$1,948 $1,689 $— 

See notes to consolidated financial statements.
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YELP INC.
NOTES TO CONSOLIDATED FINANCIAL STATEMENTS
YEARS ENDED DECEMBER 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 AND 20172019

1. ORGANIZATION AND DESCRIPTION OF BUSINESS
Yelp Inc. was incorporated in Delaware on September 3, 2004. Except where specifically noted or the context otherwise requires, the use of terms such as the “Company” and “Yelp” in these Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements refers to Yelp Inc. and its subsidiaries.
Yelp connects consumers with great local businesses. Yelp’sis a trusted local platform delivers significant value to bothresource for consumers and a partner in success for businesses by helping each discoverof all sizes. Consumers trust Yelp for its extensive ratings and interact with the other: its content and transaction capabilities help consumers save time and money,reviews of businesses across a broad range of categories, while its advertising and other products help businesses gain visibility and engage withadvertise on Yelp to reach its large audience of purchase-oriented and generally affluent consumers.
The Company consisted of Yelp Inc. and 5 wholly owned entities as of December 31, 2019:2021: Yelp UK Ltd was incorporated on December 1, 2008; Darwin Social Marketing Inc. (formerly Yelp Canada Inc.) was incorporated on February 24, 2009; Yelp Ireland Limited was incorporated on May 31, 2010; Yelp Ireland Holding Company Limited was incorporated on June 16, 2010; and Yelp GmbH (formerly Qype GmbH) was acquired on October 23, 2012. Turnstyle Analytics Inc., which was acquired on April 3, 2017, was combined with Darwin Social Marketing Inc. on January 1, 2019. The financial results of these subsidiaries are included within the consolidated financial statements of the Company presented herein.
Basis of Presentation—The consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America (“GAAP”). All intercompany balances and transactions have been eliminated upon consolidation. Certain prior period amounts have been reclassified to conform to the current period presentation, including the combining of accounts payable and accrued liabilities into one financial statement line item on the consolidated balance sheets, reclassifying deferred revenue to accounts payable, accrued liabilities and other liabilities on the consolidated statements of cash flows, and reclassifying capitalized website and software development costs to purchases of property, equipment and software on the consolidated statements of cash flows.
Certain Significant Risks and Uncertainties—The Company operates in a dynamic industry and, accordingly, may be affected by a variety of factors. For example, the Company’s management believes that changes in any of the following areas could have a significant negative impact on the Company in terms of its future financial position, results of operations or cash flows: ratesthe duration and magnitude of revenue growth; traffic to the Company’s websites and mobile applicationsimpact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Company and the number of reviewsU.S. economy generally; the Company's ability to maintain and advertisers they attract;expand its advertiser base; the success of the Company's strategy; qualified employees and key personnel; levels of user engagement on the Company's platform; industry competition; reliance on search engines and the placement and prominence in results rankings; the quality and reliability of reviews; scalingreal or perceived security breaches and adaptationthe Company's ability to maintain uninterrupted operation of existing technology andits network infrastructure; management of the Company’s growth; protection of the Company’s brand, reputation and intellectual property; industry competition; qualified employees and key personnel; intellectual property infringement and other claims;disputes; and changes in government regulation affecting the Company’s business, among other things.

2. SUMMARY OF SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES
Use of Estimates—The preparation of the Company’s consolidated financial statements in conformity with GAAP requires management to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets and liabilities, and disclosure of contingent assets and liabilities at the date of the consolidated financial statements and the reported amounts of income and expenses during the reporting period. These estimates are based on information available as of the date of the consolidated financial statements; therefore, actual results could differ from management’s estimates.estimates due to the uncertainty of the extent of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as other factors.
Foreign Currency Translation—The consolidated financial statements of the Company’s foreign subsidiaries are measured using the local currency as the functional currency. Assets and liabilities of foreign subsidiaries are translated at exchange rates in effect as of the balance sheet date. Revenues and expenses are translated at average exchange rates in effect during the year. Translation adjustments are recorded within accumulated other comprehensive loss, a separate component of stockholders’ equity.
Cash and Cash Equivalents—The Company considers all highly liquid investments, such as treasury bills, commercial paper, certificates of deposit and money market instruments with maturities of three months or less at the time of acquisition to be cash equivalents. Cash and cash equivalents primarily consist of amounts held in interest-bearing money market funds that were readily convertible to cash. The fair value of cash and cash equivalents approximates their carrying value.
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Marketable SecuritiesThe Company has a policy that generally requires securities to be investment grade (i.e. rated ‘A+’ or higher by bond rating firms) with the objective of minimizing the potential risk of principal loss. In the event that the rating drops below that investment grade, the Company will sell the security prior to maturity. The Company determines the classification of its marketable securities at the time of purchase and re-evaluates these determinations at each balance sheet date. Debt securities are classified as held-to-maturity when the Company has the positive intent and ability to hold the securities to maturity. Held-to-maturity securities are stated at amortized cost and are periodically assessed for other-than-temporary impairment. Amortized cost of debt securities is adjusted for amortization of premiums and accretion of discounts to maturity, and is included in interest income. The Company considers highly liquid treasury notes, U.S. agency securities, corporate debt securities, money market funds and other funds with maturities of more than three months to be marketable securities. Held-to-maturity securitiesSecurities with less than one year to maturity are included in short-term marketable securities. Allsecurities, and all other held-to-maturity securities are classified as long-term marketable securities. The Company has a policy that generally requires its securities to be investment grade (i.e. rated ‘A+’ or higher by bond rating firms) with the objective of minimizing the potential risk of principal loss. The Company determines the classification of its marketable securities based on its investment strategy.
Marketable securities are classified as held-to-maturity when the Company has both the positive intent and ability to hold the securities to maturity, as well as an established history of holding investments to maturity. Held-to-maturity securities are stated at amortized cost and are periodically assessed for impairment. Amortized costs of debt securities are adjusted for amortization of premiums and accretion of discounts to maturity, and these adjustments are included in interest income.
Marketable securities are classified as available-for-sale when the Company has established a practice of selling investments prior to maturity, or if the Company does not have the intent to hold securities to maturity to allow flexibility in response to liquidity needs. In the event that the Company classifies its investments as available-for-sale, it will only return to classifying investments as held-to-maturity once it has reestablished a practice and intent of holding investments to maturity.
Available-for-sale securities are stated at fair value as of each balance sheet date and are periodically assessed for impairment. For the Company's available-for-sale securities, an investment is impaired if the fair value of the investment is less than its amortized cost basis. In assessing whether a credit loss exists, the Company compares the present value of cash flows expected to be collected from the security with the amortized cost basis of the security. If the present value of expected cash flows is less than the amortized cost basis of the security, an allowance for credit loss is recorded as a component of other income (expense), net. Any remaining unrealized losses are recorded to other comprehensive income (loss). The Company determines any realized gains or losses on the sale of marketable securities on a specific identification method and records such gains and losses as a component of other income (expense), net. Amortization of premiums and accretion of discounts are included in interest income.
If the Company has the intent to sell an available-for-sale security in an unrealized loss position or it is more likely than not that it will be required to sell the security prior to recovery of its amortized cost basis, any previously recorded allowance is reversed and the entire difference between the amortized cost basis of the security and its fair value is recognized in the consolidated statements of operations.
Concentrations of Credit Risk—Financial instruments that potentially subject the Company to concentration of credit risk consist primarily of cash and cash equivalents and accounts receivable. The Company places its cash and cash equivalents with major financial institutions, which management assesses to be of high credit quality, in order to limit the exposure of each investment.
Credit risk with respect to accounts receivable is dispersed due to the Company’s large number of customers. In addition, the Company’s credit risk is mitigated by the relatively short collection period. Collateral is not required for accounts receivable.
Accounts Receivable, Net, and Payment Terms—The timing of revenue recognition may differ from the timing of invoicing to customers. The Company records an accounts receivable balance when revenue is recognized prior to or at the time of invoicing the customer. Payment terms and conditions vary by contract type and the service being provided. For advertising services, the Company typically invoices customers on a monthly basis, one month in arrears, with payment due either at the end of each billing period or up to 30 days after the end of the billing period. For transaction services, the Company collects its commission fee on each transaction either at the time of the transaction or up to 30 days after the end of the billing period. For subscription services, the Company typically invoices customers one month in advance, with payment due at the beginning of each billing period.
Allowance for Doubtful Accounts—The Company maintains an allowance for doubtful accounts receivable. The allowance reflects the Company's best estimate of probable losses associated with the accounts receivable balance. It is based upon historical experience and loss patterns, the number of days that billings are past due, an evaluation of the potential risk of loss associated with delinquent accounts andbased on the credit risk of those accounts, known delinquent accounts.accounts, as well as current conditions and reasonable and supportable economic forecasts. When new information becomes available that allows the Company to more accurately estimate the allowance, it makes an adjustment, which is considered a change in accounting estimate. The carrying value of accounts receivable approximates their fair value.
Deferred Contract Costs—The Company has determined that certain sales incentive compensation costs are incremental costs to obtain the related contract. These costs are capitalized in the period in which they are incurred and amortized on a straight-line basis over the expected customer life of the associated contract. The Company uses a straight-line basis as it expects the benefit of these costs to be realized uniformly over the amortization period. The amortization periods for contract
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costs, which extend up to 4132 months, were determined based on both qualitative and quantitative factors, including product life cycle attributes and customer retention historical data. For contract costs with amortization periods of less than 12 months, the Company applies a practical expedient to expense such costs as incurred. The Company assesses deferred contract costs for impairment on a quarterly basis. Amortized contract costs are recorded within sales and marketing expense in the consolidated statements of operations. Deferred contract costs are included within other non-current assets on the Company's consolidated balance sheets (see Note 11,10, "Other Non-Current Assets").
Deferred Revenue—The Company records deferred revenue when it has received consideration, or has the right to receive consideration, in advance of the transfer of the performance obligations of the contract to the customer.
Property, Equipment and Software—Property, equipment and software are stated at cost less accumulated depreciation and amortization. Depreciation is computed using the straight-line method over the estimated useful lives of the assets, which are approximately three to five years. Leasehold improvements are amortized over the shorter of the lease term or ten years. Following the disposition of an asset, the associated net cost is no longer recognized as an asset, and any gain or loss on the disposition is reflected in operating expenses.
Website and Internal-Use Software Development Costs—Costs related to website and internal-use software are primarily related to the Company’s website and mobile app, including support systems. The Company capitalizes its costs to develop
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software whenwhen: preliminary development efforts are successfully completed,completed; management has authorized and committed project fundingfunding; and it is probable that the project will be completed and the software will be used as intended. Costs incurred for enhancements that are expected to result in additional material functionality are capitalized and amortized over the estimated useful life of the upgrades. Such costs are amortized on a straight-line basis over the estimated useful life of the related asset, which is generally three years.
The Company capitalizes certain implementation costs incurred related to cloud computing arrangements that are service contracts. Such costs are amortized on a straight-line basis over the term of the associated hosting arrangement plus any reasonably certain renewal period. Any capitalized amounts related to such arrangements are recorded within prepaid expense and other current assets and within non-current assets on the consolidated balance sheets.
Leases—The Company leases its office facilities under operating lease agreements that expire from 20202022 to 2029,2031, some of which include options to renew at the Company's sole discretion. If exercised, such options would extend the lease terms by up to ten years. Additionally, certain lease agreements contain options to terminate the leases, which require 6 to 12 months prior written notice to the landlord. The Company does not have any finance lease agreements.
The Company recognizes on its consolidated balance sheetsheets operating lease liabilities representing the present value of future lease payments, and an associated operating lease right-of-use asset for any operating lease with a term greater than one year. The Company recognizes the amortization of the right-of-use asset each month within lease expense. The Company elected to use the practical expedient for short-term leases, and therefore does not record operating lease right-of-use assets or lease liabilities associated with leases with durations of 12 months or less.

When recording the present value of lease liabilities, a discount rate is required. The Company has concluded that the rates implicit in the various operating lease agreements are not readily determinable. As a result, the Company instead uses its incremental borrowing rate, which is calculated based on hypothetical borrowings to fund each respective lease over the lease term, as of the lease commencement date, assuming that borrowings are secured by the various leased properties. The incremental borrowing rates are determined based on an assessment of the Company’s implied credit rating, using ratings scales from reputable rating agencies that consider a number of qualitative and quantitative factors. Market rates are derived as of the lease commencement dates with reference to companies with the same debt rating that operate in a similar industry to the Company.

The Company does not recognize its renewal options as part of its right-of-use assets and lease liabilities until it is reasonably certain that it will exercise such renewal options.

The Company does not combine lease and non-lease components; its lease agreements provide specific allocations of the Company's obligations between lease and non-lease components. As a result, the Company is not required to exercise any judgment in determining such allocations.

Business CombinationsThe Company accounts for acquisitions of entitieshas subleased certain office facilities under operating lease agreements that consist of inputs and processes that have the abilityexpire in 2025. The sublease agreements do not contain any options to contribute to the creation of outputs as business combinations.renew. The Company allocates the purchase pricerecognizes a majority of the acquisition tosublease rental income as a reduction in rent expense on a straight-line basis over the tangible assets, liabilities and identifiable intangible assets acquired based on their estimated fair values. Thelease period, with any sublease income in excess of the purchase price over those fair values is recorded as goodwill. Acquisition-related expenses and integration costs are expensed as incurred. During the measurement period, the Company records adjustments to the assets acquired and liabilities assumed with the corresponding offset to goodwill. After the measurement period, which could be up to one year after the transaction date, subsequent adjustments areoriginal lease cost recorded to the Company’s consolidated statementsother income, net.
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Goodwill—Goodwill represents the excess of the purchase price in a business combination over the fair value of net tangible and intangible assets acquired. The carrying amount of goodwill is reviewed at least annually, or more frequently if events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying value of goodwill may not be recoverable. The Company has the option to first assess qualitative factors to determine whether it is more likely than not that the fair value of a reporting unit is less than its carrying amount as a basis for determining whether it is necessary to perform the two-step goodwill impairment test under the authoritative guidance.amount. If the Company determines that it is more likely than not that its fair value is less than the carrying amount, or opts not to perform a qualitative assessment, then the two-step goodwill impairment testCompany will be performed. The first step, identifying a potential impairment, comparescompare the fair value of thea reporting unit with its carrying amount. Ifamount and recognize an impairment charge for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds its fair value, the second step will be performed; otherwise, no further step is required. The second step, measuring the impairment loss, compares the implied fair value of the goodwill with the carrying amount of the goodwill. Any excess of the goodwill carrying amount over the applied fair value is recognized as an impairment loss, and the carrying value of goodwill is written down toreporting unit’s fair value. 0No impairment charges associated with goodwill have been recorded by the Company to date.
Intangible Assets—Intangible assets include acquired intangible assets identified through business combinations, which are carried at fair value less accumulated amortization, and purchased intangible assets, which are carried at cost less accumulated amortization. Amortization is recorded over the estimated useful lives of the assets, generally two years to 12 years. The Company reviews amortizable intangible assets to be held and used for impairment whenever events or changes in
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circumstances indicate that the carrying value of the assets may not be recoverable. Determination of recoverability is based on the lowest level of identifiable estimated undiscounted cash flows resulting from the use of the asset and its eventual disposition. Measurement of any impairment loss is based on the excess of the carrying value of the asset over its fair value. NaNNo material impairment charges have been recorded to date.
Impairment of Long-Lived Assets and Long-Lived Assets to Be Disposed of—The Company evaluates its long-lived assets for impairment whenever events or changes in circumstances indicate that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. Recoverability of assets to be held and used is measured by a comparison of the carrying amount of an asset to future undiscounted net cash flows expected to be generated by the asset. If such assets are considered to be impaired, the impairment to be recognized is measured as the amount by which the carrying amount of the assets exceeds the fair value of the assets. Assets to be disposed of are reported at the lower of the carrying amount or fair value less costs to sell.
Stock Repurchases—The Company accounts for repurchases of its common stock by recording the cost to repurchase those shares to treasury stock, a separate component of stockholders' equity. Upon retirement, the carrying amount of treasury stock is reduced with a corresponding reduction to par value of common stock, with any excess of the cost incurred to repurchase shares over their par value recorded as an adjustment to retained earnings (accumulated deficit) on the date of retirement.
Assets and Liabilities Held for Sale—The Company considers an asset to be held for sale when: management approves and commits to a formal plan to actively market the asset for sale at a reasonable price in relation to its fair value; the asset is available for immediate sale in its present condition; an active program to locate a buyer and other actions required to complete the sale have been initiated; the sale of the asset is expected to be completed within one year; and it is unlikely that significant changes will be made to the plan. Upon designation as held for sale, the Company records the carrying value of the assets at the lower of its carrying value or its estimated fair value, less costs to sell. The Company ceases to record depreciation and amortization expense associated with assets upon their designation as held for sale.
Revenue Recognition—The Company generates revenue from the sale of advertising products, transactions with consumers and other services,revenue sources, which correspond to the Company's major product lines. The Company recognizes revenue by applying the following steps: the contract with the customer is identified; the performance obligations in the contract are identified; the transaction price is determined; the transaction price is allocated to the performance obligations in the contract; and revenue is recognized when (or as) the Company satisfies these performance obligations in an amount that reflects the consideration it expects to be entitled to in exchange for those services. The Company applies the portfolio practical expedient to account for the vast majority of contracts with customers in each category of revenue. The Company does not disclose the value of unsatisfied performance obligations for (i) contracts with an original expected length of one year or less and (ii) contracts for which revenue is recognized in the amount of revenue it recognizes is equal to the amount which the Company has a right to invoice.
Contracts with customers can include multiple performance obligations, where the transaction price is allocated to each performance obligation based on its relative standalone selling price ("SSP"). The Company determines SSP based on the prices of the promised goods or services charged when sold separately to customers, which are determined using contractually stated prices. The Company allocates revenue to each of the performance obligations included in a contract with multiple performance obligations at the inception of the contract. The various products and services comprising contracts with multiple performance obligations are typically capable of being distinguished and accounted for as separate performance obligations.
For all contracts with customers, estimates and assumptions include determining variable consideration and identifying the nature and timing of satisfaction of performance obligations. BecauseThe Company may accept lower consideration than the Company considers contracts month-to-month,amount promised per the contract for certain revenue transactions and certain customers may receive cash based incentives, credits or refunds, which are accounted for as variable consideration is resolved atwhen estimating the timeamount of invoicing, which eliminatesrevenue to recognize. The Company estimates these amounts based on the useexpected amount to be provided to customers and constrains the revenue. The Company believes that there will not be significant changes to its estimates of estimates in determining the transaction price.variable consideration. For contracts satisfied over time, the Company applies the invoice practical expedient to depict the value transferred to the customer and measure of progress towards completion of its obligations. The Company considers the right to receive consideration from a customer to correspond directly with the value to the customer of its performance completed to date. The Company does not consider the effects of the time value of money as substantially all of the Company’s contracts are invoiced on a monthly basis, one month in arrears.
Revenue is recognized net of any taxes collected from customers, which are remitted to governmental authorities. The Company does not typically refund customers for services once it determines the performance obligations of the contract have been satisfied, but will assess any refund requests from customers and partners on a case by case basis. The Company records
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an allowance for potential future refunds, which is estimated based on historical trends and recorded as a reduction of net revenue.
Advertising. The Company generates advertising revenue primarily through the display of advertising products on its website and mobile app. These arrangements are evidenced by either written or electronic acceptance of a contract that
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stipulates the types of advertising to be delivered, the timing and pricing. Performance-based advertising placements are priced on a cost-per-click basis, while impression-based advertising placements are priced on a cost per thousand impressions basis. The Company recognizes revenue from the delivery of performance-based ads and impression-based ads in the period of delivery, in each case net of customer discounts. The Company also offers businesses premium features in connection with their business listing pages pursuant to fixed monthly fees, and recognizes revenue from such offerings over the service period.
The Company also generates advertising revenue through indirect sales of advertising products, such as through reseller contracts that allow partners to sell Yelp Branded Profiles to their clients and the monetization of remnant advertising inventory through third-party ad networks, and recognizes revenue in the period of delivery.
Transactions. The Company generates transactions revenue primarily from revenue-sharing partner contracts and, through October 10, 2017, Yelp Eat24 as a standalone product.
contracts. The Company's transactions platform provides consumers with the ability to complete food delivery and other transactions through third parties, primarily Grubhub, directly on Yelp. The Company earns a per-transaction commission fee pursuant to partnership contracts for acting as an agent for these transactions, which it recognizes on a net basis and includes in revenue upon completion of a transaction. Prior to the disposal of Eat24, the Company's Yelp Eat24 business generated revenue through arrangements with restaurants, in which restaurants paid a commission percentage fee on orders placed through the Yelp Eat24 platform. The Company recorded revenue associated with Yelp Eat24 transactions on a net basis as the restaurant is primarily responsible for providing the underlying service and the Company does not control the service provided by the restaurant to the consumer. Concurrently with the disposal of Eat24 on October 10, 2017, the Company entered into a partnership agreement with Grubhub; as a result, following the sale, the Company generates revenue from transactions placed through the Grubhub network, which includes the Eat24 restaurant network, that originate on Yelp.
Other ServicesRevenue. The Company generates other services revenue through subscription services contracts, such as sales of monthly subscriptions to Yelp Reservations and Yelp Waitlist,Guest Manager (previously referred to as Yelp Waitlist), licensing contracts for access to Yelp data, and other non-advertising, non-transaction partnerships. Subscription revenues are recognized ratably over the contract terms beginning on the commencement date of each contract, which is the date the service is made available to customers.
Cost of Revenue—The Company’s cost of revenue primarily consists of credit card processing fees, webwebsite infrastructure expense, which includes website hosting costs, and salaries, benefits and stock-based compensation expense for itsthe infrastructure teams related toresponsible for operating the Company’s website and mobile app. Itapp, and excludes depreciation and amortization expense. Cost of revenue also includes confirmation services expenses and delivery-related costs as well as video production expenses.third-party advertising fulfillment costs.
Research and Development—The Company incurs research and development expenses for costs it incurs in research aimed at developing, and in translating the results of such research into, new products and services or significant improvements to existing products or services, whether intended for sale or for internal use. Such costs are considered research and development expense up to the point in time at which the product or service achieves technological feasibility. These expenses primarily consist of employee-related costs (including stock-based compensation) for the Company's engineers and other employees engaged in the research and development of its products and services, as well as allocated indirect overhead costs. Research and development costs were $225.5$265.2 million, $205.8$230.1 million and $171.2$225.5 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively, and are recorded to costs and expenses in the consolidated statements of operations for those periods, primarily within product development costs.
Stock-Based Compensation—The Company accounts for stock-based employee compensation plans under the fair value recognition and measurement provisions, which require all stock-based payments to employees, including grants of stock options, restricted stock awards, restricted stock units ("RSUs"), performance-based restricted stock units ("PRSUs") and issuances under its 2012 Employee Stock Purchase Plan, as amended (“ESPP”("ESPP"), to be measured based on the grant-date fair value of the awards. The Company accounts for forfeitures as they occur.
The fair value of options granted to employees is estimated on the grant date using the Black-Scholes-Merton option valuation model. This valuation model for stock-based compensation expense requires the Company to make assumptions and judgments about the variables used in the calculation, including the expected term (weighted-average period of time that the options granted are expected to be outstanding), the expected volatility in the fair market value of the Company’s common stock, a risk-free interest rate and expected dividends. No compensation cost is recorded for options that do not vest. The Company uses the simplified calculation of expected life as the contractual term for options of 10 years is longer than the Company has been publicly traded. Expected volatility is based on an average of the historical volatilities of the common stock of several entities with characteristics similar to those of the Company. The risk-free rate is based on the U.S. Treasury yield curve in effect at the time of grant for periods corresponding with the expected life of the option. The Company uses the straight-line method for expense attribution.
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The fair value of RSUs is measured using to the closing price of the Company's common stock on the New York Stock Exchange on the grant date. The Company uses the straight-line method for expense attribution. No compensation cost is recorded for RSUs that do not vest. Shares for these grants are issued upon vesting, net of tax withholding to be paid byIn May 2020, the Company on behalfchanged its method of settling the employee tax liabilities
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associated with the vesting of RSUs from withholding a portion of the vested shares and covering such taxes with cash from its employees.balance sheet ("Net Share Withholding"), to selling a portion of the vested shares to cover taxes. In November 2020, the Company reverted its method of settling these employee tax liabilities to Net Share Withholding.
The vestingCompany has 2 types of PRSUs outstanding as of December 31, 2019 was— awards for which the vesting is subject to both a market performance condition and a time-based vesting schedule. Asschedule and either (a) a resultmarket condition or (b) the achievement of these multiple vesting requirements,performance goals.
For the awards subject to a market condition, the Company uses a Monte Carlo model to determine the fair value of the PRSUs. The Company uses the accelerated method for expense attribution. Compensation costs are recorded if the service condition is met regardless of whether the market performance condition is satisfied. No compensation cost is recorded if the service condition is not met.
For the awards subject to performance goals, compensation costs are recorded when the Company concludes that it is probable that the performance conditions will be achieved. The Company performs an analysis in each reporting period to determine the probability that the performance goals will be met, and recognizes a cumulative catch-up adjustment to compensation cost for changes in its probability assessment in subsequent reporting periods, if required, until the performance period has expired. The fair value of the PRSUs is measured using the closing price of the Company's common stock on the New York Stock Exchange on the grant date. The Company uses the accelerated method for expense attribution. No compensation cost is recorded if the service condition is not met.
Advertising Expenses—Advertising costs are expensed in the period in which the advertising takes place. Costs of producing advertising are expensed in the period in which production takes place. Total advertising expenses incurred were $20.7$56.3 million, $38.0$22.2 million and $50.3$20.7 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively.
Comprehensive Income (Loss)—Comprehensive income (loss) consists of net income (loss) and other comprehensive income (loss) income,, which consists of foreign currency translation adjustments.
Income Taxes—The Company records income taxes using the asset and liability method, which requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of events that have been recognized in the Company’s financial statements or tax returns. In estimating future tax consequences, the Company generally considers all expected future events other than enactments or changes in the tax law or rates. In assessing the realization of deferred tax assets, the Company considers whether it is more likely than not that all or some portion of deferred tax assets will not be realized. The ultimate realization of the deferred tax assets is dependent upon the generation of future taxable income during the periods in which those temporary differences become deductible. Valuation allowances are provided to reduce deferred tax assets to the amount that is more likely than not to be realized. In determining the need for a valuation allowance, the weight given to positive and negative evidence is commensurate with the extent to which the evidence may be objectively verified. The Company evaluates the ability to realize net deferred tax assets and the related valuation allowance on a quarterly basis.
The Company operates in various tax jurisdictions and is subject to audit by various tax authorities. The Company provides for tax contingencies whenever it is deemed probable that a tax asset has been impaired or a tax liability has been incurred for events such as tax claims or changes in tax laws. Tax contingencies are based upon their technical merits, relative tax law and the specific facts and circumstances as of each reporting period. Changes in facts and circumstances could result in material changes to the amounts recorded for such tax contingencies.
The Company recognizes a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position only if it is more likely than not that the tax position will be sustained on examination by the taxing authorities based on the technical merits of the position. The tax benefits recognized in the financial statements from such a position are then measured based on the largest benefit that has a greater than 50% likelihood of being realized upon ultimate settlement.
Employee Benefit Plan—The Company sponsors a qualified 401(k) defined contribution plan covering eligible employees. Participants may contribute a portion of their annual compensation up to a maximum annual amount set by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”). Employer contributions under this plan were $9.5$8.0 million, $12.0$6.1 million and $4.8$9.3 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively.
Insurance—The Company is self-insured for certain employee benefits includeincluding medical, detaildental and vision; however, the Company obtains third-party excess insurance coverage to limit its exposure to certain claims. Liabilities associated with these benefits include estimates of both claims filed and losses incurred but not yet reported. The Company utilizes valuations provided by reputable, independent third-party actuaries. The Company's self-insured liabilities are included in the consolidated balance sheets within accounts payable and accrued liabilities.
Recently Adopted Accounting Pronouncements
Lease Accounting—In February 2016, the Financial Accounting Standards Board ("FASB") issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-02, "Leases (Topic 842)" ("ASC 842"). ASC 842 supersedes the previous accounting guidance for leases included within Accounting Standards Codification 840, "Leases" ("ASC 840"). The new guidance generally requires lessees to recognize operating and financial lease liabilities and corresponding right-of-use assets on the balance sheet and to provide enhanced disclosures on the amount, timing and uncertainty of cash flows arising from lease arrangements.

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The Company adopted and began applying ASC 842 on January 1, 2019 in accordance withRecently Adopted Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-11, "Targeted Improvements to ASC 842," using a modified retrospective approach. Based on its lease portfolio in place at the time of adoption, the Company determined that a cumulative-effect adjustment to the opening balance of accumulated deficit was not needed because there was no difference between the operating lease expense recorded to its condensed consolidated statement of operations following its adoption of ASC 842 and the amount that would have been recorded under ASC 840. The Company will continue to disclose comparative reporting periods prior to January 1, 2019 under ASC 840.
The Company elected the practical expedient available under ASC 842 to not record operating lease right-of-use assets or lease liabilities associated with leases with durations of 12 months or less. Those leases will be recorded on a straight line basis to the consolidated statement of operations over the lease term. The Company recorded operating lease right-of-use assets and lease liabilities for all of its leases that met the definition of a lease under ASC 842 and that had terms of greater than 12 months in duration upon its adoption of ASC 842.
The Company elected not to take the package of practical expedients permitted under the transition guidance within ASC 842, which allows an entity to not reassess whether any expired or existing contracts contain leases, the lease classification for any expired or existing leases, and treatment of initial direct costs for any existing leases. Additionally, the Company did not elect the hindsight practical expedient to determine the lease terms for existing leases.
The most significant changes as a result of ASC 842 were the recognition on the Company's consolidated balance sheet upon adoption on January 1, 2019 of operating lease right-of-use assets of $233.0 million, current operating lease liabilities of $55.2 million and long-term operating lease liabilities of $212.5 million. These balances consist of the Company's office lease portfolio and, to a much lesser extent, its computer equipment lease portfolio. The Company de-recognized deferred rent liabilities associated with its office lease portfolio of $34.8 million upon adoption.Pronouncements
Callable Debt SecuritiesIncome TaxesIn March 2017, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2017-08, "Receivables—Nonrefundable Fees and Other Costs (Subtopic 310-20): Premium Amortization on Purchased Callable Debt Securities" ("ASU 2017-08"). ASU 2017-08 requires entities to amortize purchased callable debt securities held at a premium to the earliest call date. The Company adopted ASU 2017-08 effective January 1, 2019 using the modified retrospective method. The Company does not hold any callable debt securities at a premium upon the adoption date, and, accordingly, no adjustment to opening retained earnings was required.
Non-Employee Share-Based Payment Accounting—In June 2018, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-07, "Compensation—Stock Compensation (Topic 718): Improvements to Nonemployee Share-Based Payment Accounting" ("ASU 2018-07"). ASU 2018-07 changes the accounting for non-employee share-based payments to align with the accounting for employee stock compensation. The Company adopted ASU 2018-07 effective January 1, 2019, and the adoption did not have a material impact on its consolidated financial statements.
Reclassification of Certain Tax Effects from Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income—In February 2018, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-02, "Reclassification of Certain Tax Effects from Accumulated Other Comprehensive Income" ("ASU 2018-02"). This new guidance permits a company to reclassify the income tax effects of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act on items within accumulated other comprehensive income to retained earnings. ASU 2018-02 is effective for all entities for fiscal years beginning after December 15, 2018 and interim periods within those fiscal years. The Company adopted ASU 2018-02 effective January 1, 2019 and elected to not reclassify the income tax effects of the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act from accumulated other comprehensive income to retained earnings.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements Not Yet Effective
In June 2016, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-13, “Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments” (“ASU 2016-13”). ASU 2016-13 requires certain types of financial instruments, including trade receivables and held-to-maturity investments measured at amortized cost, to be presented at the net amount expected to be collected based on historical events, current conditions and forecast information. The Company adopted and began applying ASU 2016-13 on January 1, 2020 by recording a cumulative-effect adjustment to retained earnings. This adjustment recorded an allowance related to expected credit losses on its held-to-maturity debt securities. This allowance took into consideration the composition and credit quality of the financial instruments, their respective historical credit loss activity, and reasonable and supportable economic forecasts and conditions at the time of adoption. The adoption did not have a material impact on the Company's consolidated financial statements.
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In January 2017, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2017-04, "Intangibles—Goodwill and Other (Topic 350): Simplifying the Test for Goodwill Impairment" ("ASU 2017-04"). ASU 2017-04 simplifies the subsequent measurement of goodwill by eliminating Step 2 from the goodwill impairment test. Under the new standard, entities will perform goodwill impairment tests by comparing the fair value of a reporting unit with its carrying amount and recognize an impairment charge for the amount by which the carrying amount exceeds the reporting unit’s fair value. The standard will be effective for the first interim period within annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2019. The Company adopted ASU 2017-04 on January 1, 2020 and the adoption did not have a material impact on its consolidated financial statements.
In August 2018, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-13, "Disclosure Framework—Changes to the Disclosure Requirements for Fair Value Measurement" (“ASU 2018-13”), which amends Accounting Standards Codification 820, "Fair Value Measurement." ASU 2018-13 modifies the disclosure requirements for fair value measurements by removing, modifying and adding certain disclosures. The standard will be effective for the first interim period within annual reporting periods beginning after December 15, 2019. The Company adopted ASU 2018-13 on January 1, 2020 and the adoption did not have a material impact on its consolidated financial statements.
In August 2018, FASB issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2018-15, "Customer’s Accounting for Implementation Costs Incurred in a Cloud Computing Arrangement That is a Service Contract" ("ASU 2018-15"). ASU 2018-15 requires a customer in a cloud computing arrangement that is a service contract to follow the internal-use software guidance in Accounting Standards Codification 350-40 to determine which implementation costs to defer and recognize as an asset. ASU 2018-15 generally aligns the guidance on recognizing implementation costs incurred in a cloud computing arrangement that is a service contract with that for implementation costs incurred to develop or obtain internal-use software, including hosting arrangements that include an internal-use software license. The Company adopted ASU 2018-15 prospectively and began applying it on January 1, 2020. The adoption did not have a material impact on the Company's financial statements.
In December 2019, FASBthe Financial Accounting Standards Board issued Accounting Standards Update No. 2019-12, Income"Income Taxes (Topic 740): “SimplifyingSimplifying the Accounting for Income Taxes” (“Taxes" ("ASU 2019-12”2019-12"), which simplifies the accounting for income taxes by removing certain exceptions to the general principles for recording income taxes, while also simplifying certain recognition and allocation approaches to accounting for income taxes. The Company adopted ASU 2019-12 will be effective foron January 1, 2021, and the first interim period within annual periods beginning after December 15, 2020 onadoption did not have a prospective basis, and early adoption is permitted. The Company is currently evaluating thematerial impact of ASU 2019-12 on its consolidated financial statements and related disclosures.

statements.
3. CASH, CASH EQUIVALENTS AND RESTRICTED CASH
Cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash as of December 31, 20192021 and 20182020 consisted of the following (in thousands):
December 31,
2019
December 31,
2018
December 31,
2021
December 31,
2020
CashCash$43,581  $81,055  Cash$89,407 $85,750 
Cash equivalentsCash equivalents126,700  251,709  Cash equivalents390,376 510,125 
Total cash and cash equivalentsTotal cash and cash equivalents170,281  332,764  Total cash and cash equivalents$479,783 $595,875 
Restricted cashRestricted cash22,037  22,071  Restricted cash858 665 
Total cash, cash equivalents and restricted cashTotal cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash$192,318  $354,835  Total cash, cash equivalents and restricted cash$480,641 $596,540 
AsCash equivalents consist of money market accounts, including a $100.0 million investment made during December 31, 2019 and 2018,2021 in the Company had letters of credit collateralized fully by bank depositsEmpower Money Market Share Class, which totaled $22.0 million and $22.1 million, respectively. These letters of credit primarily relateaims to lease agreements for certain of the Company’s offices, which are required to be maintained and issued to the landlords of each facility. Each letter of credit is subject to renewal annually until the applicable lease expires. As the bank deposits have restrictions on their use, they are classified as restricted cash on the Company's consolidated balance sheets.

support underserved communities through minority-owned banking institutions.
4. FAIR VALUE OF FINANCIAL INSTRUMENTS
The Company’s investments in money market accounts are recorded as cash equivalents at fair value in the consolidated balance sheets. All other financial instruments are classified as held-to-maturity investments and, accordingly, are recorded at amortized cost; however, the Company is required to determine the fair value of these investments on a recurring basis to identify any potential impairment.
The accounting guidance for fair value measurements prioritizes the inputs used in measuring fair value in the following hierarchy:
Level 1—Observable inputs, such as quoted prices in active markets,
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Level 2—Inputs other than quoted prices in active markets that are observable either directly or indirectly, or
Level 3—Unobservable inputs in which there are little or no market data, which require the Company to develop its own assumptions.
This hierarchy requires the Company to use observable market data, when available, to minimize the use of unobservable inputs when determining fair value. The Company’s money market funds are classified within Level 1 of the fair value hierarchy because they are valued using quoted prices in active markets. The Company’s commercial paper, corporate bonds, U.S. government bonds and agency bondsCompany's certificates of deposit are classified within Level 2 of the fair value hierarchy because they have been valued using inputs other than quoted prices in active markets that are observable directly or indirectly.     
The following table represents the fair value of the Company’s financial instruments, including those measured at fair value on a recurring basis, and those held-to-maturity, as of December 31, 20192021 and 20182020 (in thousands):
December 31, 2019December 31, 2018
Level 1Level 2Level 3TotalLevel 1Level 2Level 3Total
Cash Equivalents:
Money market funds$126,700  $—  $—  $126,700  $221,173  $—  $—  $221,173  
Commercial paper—  —  —  —  —  30,536  —  30,536  
Marketable Securities:
Commercial paper—  130,472  —  130,472  —  175,070  —  175,070  
Corporate bonds—  85,611  —  85,611  —  131,496  —  131,496  
Agency bonds—  79,750  —  79,750  —  50,846  —  50,846  
U.S. government bonds—  —  —  —  —  65,502  —  65,502  
Total cash equivalents and marketable securities$126,700  $295,833  $—  $422,533  $221,173  $453,450  $—  $674,623  
December 31, 2021December 31, 2020
Level 1Level 2Level 3TotalLevel 1Level 2Level 3Total
Cash equivalents:
Money market funds$390,376 $— $— $390,376 $510,125 $— $— $510,125 
Other investments:
Certificates of deposit— 10,000 — 10,000 — 10,933 — 10,933 
Total cash equivalents and other investments$390,376 $10,000 $— $400,376 $510,125 $10,933 $— $521,058 
DuringThe certificates of deposit are reflected in prepaid expenses and other current assets on the year endedconsolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 2018, the Company sold a security (with an expected maturity date of May 17, 2019) that had been classified as a held-to-maturity short-term marketable security on the Company's consolidated balance sheet prior to its sale. On October 29, 2018, a reputable ratings agency downgraded the security from "A+" to "A." Because the Company has a policy of maintaining securities that are at an investment grade of A+ or above, it sold the security on October 31, 2018. The security was carried at amortized cost of $18.0 million as of October 29, 20182021 and the Company recorded a loss of $0.1 million upon its sale, which was recorded in other income, net on the Company's consolidated statement of operations for the year ended December 31, 2018.


2020.
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The Company's long- and indefinite-lived assets, such as property, equipment and software, goodwill and other intangible assets, are measured at fair value on a non-recurring basis if the assets are determined to be impaired. The Company recognized an impairment charge related to right-of-use ("ROU") assets and leasehold improvements associated with certain of its operating leases that it subleased during the year ended December 31, 2021. See Note 9, "Leases," for further details. The Company estimated the fair value of these assets as of the effective dates of the agreements using an income approach based on expected future cash flows from the subleased properties, which relied on certain assumptions made by management based on both internal and external data, such as the incremental borrowing rates used to discount these cash flows to its present values. As a result, these assets are classified within Level 3 of the fair value hierarchy.
5. MARKETABLE SECURITIES
TheIn March 2020, the Company changed its investment strategy in response to uncertainties resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic to allow for more flexibility in preserving liquidity, which led to the transfer of $300.2 million of amortized cost gross unrealized gainsof its investment portfolio from a held-to-maturity classification to available-for-sale. As a result of this transfer, in March 2020, the Company reversed the allowance for credit loss that had been previously recorded upon adoption of Accounting Standards Update No. 2016-13, "Financial Instruments—Credit Losses (Topic 326): Measurement of Credit Losses on Financial Instruments" (“ASU 2016-13”), and losses, andmeasured the securities at fair value as of the transfer date by recording an immaterial allowance for credit loss to other income, net and the remaining adjustment as an immaterial unrealized loss recorded to other comprehensive income.
Following this transfer, during the six months ended June 30, 2020, the Company liquidated its investment portfolio, which consisted of available-for-sale short- and long-term marketable securities, held-to-maturity asfor proceeds of $253.4 million. The Company recorded an immaterial net realized gain to other income, net and reinvested the proceeds from the sales, along with $73.0 million from maturities and redemptions of marketable securities, into money market funds.
As of December 31, 20192021 and 2018 were as follows (in thousands):
December 31, 2019
Amortized CostGross Unrealized GainsGross Unrealized LossesFair Value
Short-term marketable securities:
Commercial paper$130,464  $17  $(9) $130,472  
Corporate bonds85,396  225  (10) 85,611  
Agency bonds26,140  90  —  26,230  
Total short-term marketable securities242,000  332  (19) 242,313  
Long-term marketable securities:
Agency bonds53,499  21  —  53,520  
Total long-term marketable securities53,499  21  —  53,520  
Total marketable securities$295,499  $353  $(19) $295,833  
December 31, 2018
Amortized CostGross Unrealized GainsGross Unrealized LossesFair Value


Cash equivalents:
Commercial paper$30,536  $—  $—  $30,536  
Total cash equivalents30,536  —  —  30,536  
Short-term marketable securities:
Commercial paper175,070  —  —  175,070  
Corporate bonds131,626   (138) 131,496  
U.S. government bonds65,513  —  (11) 65,502  
Agency bonds50,887  —  (41) 50,846  
Total short-term marketable securities423,096   (190) 422,914  
Total marketable securities$453,632  $ $(190) $453,450  
The following tables present gross unrealized losses2020, the Company did not have any marketable securities and fair values for those securities thata majority of the Company’s investments were in an unrealized loss position ashighly liquid money market funds.
Prior to the adoption of December 31, 2019 and 2018, aggregated by investment category andASU 2016-13 in 2020, the length of time that the individual securities have been in a continuous loss position (in thousands):
December 31, 2019
Less Than 12 Months12 Months or GreaterTotal
Fair ValueUnrealized LossFair ValueUnrealized LossFair ValueUnrealized Loss
Commercial paper$63,639  $(9) $—  $—  $63,639  $(9) 
Corporate bonds20,979  (10) —  —  20,979  (10) 
Total$84,618  $(19) $—  $—  $84,618  $(19) 
December 31, 2018
Less Than 12 Months12 Months or GreaterTotal
Fair ValueUnrealized LossFair ValueUnrealized LossFair ValueUnrealized Loss
Corporate bonds$121,566  $(138) $—  $—  $121,566  $(138) 
U.S. government bonds65,502  (11) —  —  65,502  (11) 
Agency bonds50,846  (41) —  —  50,846  (41) 
Total$237,914  $(190) $—  $—  $237,914  $(190) 
The Company periodically reviewsreviewed its investment portfolio for other-than-temporary impairment. The Company considersconsidered such factors as the duration, severity and reason for the decline in value, and the potential recovery period. The Company also considersconsidered whether it iswas more likely than not that it willwould be required to sell the securities before the recovery of their amortized cost basis, and whether the amortized cost basis cannotcould not be recovered as a result of credit losses. During the yearsyear ended December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, the Company did not recognize any other-than-temporary impairment loss.

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6. PREPAID EXPENSES AND OTHER CURRENT ASSETS
Prepaid expenses and other current assets as of December 31, 20192021 and December 31, 20182020 consisted of the following (in thousands):
December 31, 2019December 31, 2018December 31,
2021
December 31,
2020
Prepaid expensesPrepaid expenses$10,188  $9,436  Prepaid expenses$13,480 $10,438 
Certificates of depositCertificates of deposit10,000 10,930 
Other current assetsOther current assets4,008  7,668  Other current assets34,056 7,082 
Total prepaid expenses and other current assetsTotal prepaid expenses and other current assets$14,196  $17,104  Total prepaid expenses and other current assets$57,536 $28,450 
Prepaid expenses included $0.5 million of short-term capitalized implementation costs related to cloud computing arrangements that are service contracts. The long-term portion of capitalized cloud computing implementation costs are included in other non-current assets. The Company recorded an immaterial amount of amortization expense during the year ended December 31, 2021 related to capitalized implementation costs.
As of December 31, 2021, other current assets primarily consisted of non-trade receivables, deferred costs related to unsettled share repurchases, and short-term deposits. The net increase in other current assets during the year ended December 31, 2021 was driven by an increase in non-trade receivables comprising $26.0 million of insurance proceeds that the Company anticipates receiving based on its preliminary agreement to settle certain pending litigation. For more information, see Note 13, "Commitments and Contingencies."
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7. PROPERTY, EQUIPMENT AND SOFTWARE, NET
The Company capitalized $33.9$31.0 million, $26.9$32.4 million and $20.4$33.9 million in website and internal-use software costs during the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively, which are included in property, equipment and software, net on the consolidated balance sheets. Amortization expense related to capitalized website and internal-use software was $24.2$30.6 million, $19.0$27.1 million and $16.7$24.2 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively. The Company wrote off $0.6 million, $1.5 million, and $1.6 million of capitalized website and internal-use software costs in the year ended December 31, 2019, and wrote off an immaterial amount in each of the years ended December 31, 20182021, 2020 and 2017.2019, respectively.
Property, equipment and software, net as of December 31, 20192021 and 20182020 consisted of the following (in thousands):
December 31,
2019
December 31,
2018
December 31,
2021
December 31,
2020
Capitalized website and internal-use software development costs

Capitalized website and internal-use software development costs

$140,886  $108,590  Capitalized website and internal-use software development costs$202,169 $171,831 
Leasehold improvements

(1)
Leasehold improvements

(1)
86,089  83,811  
Leasehold improvements

(1)
59,190 88,687 
Computer equipmentComputer equipment43,626  40,801  Computer equipment48,264 46,581 
Furniture and fixturesFurniture and fixtures18,403  17,839  Furniture and fixtures12,573 18,339 
TelecommunicationTelecommunication5,154  4,691  Telecommunication4,953 4,951 
SoftwareSoftware1,687  1,651  Software1,703 1,717 
TotalTotal295,845  257,383  Total328,852 332,106 
Less accumulated depreciation(184,896) (142,583) 
Less accumulated depreciation and amortizationLess accumulated depreciation and amortization(244,995)(230,388)
Property, equipment and software, netProperty, equipment and software, net$110,949  $114,800  Property, equipment and software, net$83,857 $101,718 
(1) The cost basis was reduced to reflect an impairment of $2.7 million recorded during the year ended December 31, 2021 as a result of sublease agreements the Company entered into for portions of its office space.
Depreciation and amortization expense related to property, equipment and software for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 20172019 was approximately $52.8 million, $48.0 million and $46.1 million, $39.3respectively. The Company recorded $5.2 million and $34.6 million, respectively.of accelerated depreciation for leasehold improvements during the year ended December 31, 2021 related to the termination of 1 of the Company’s office leases.

For more information on the impairment and lease termination, see
Note 9, "Leases."
8. GOODWILL AND INTANGIBLE ASSETS
The Company’s goodwill is the result of its acquisitions of other businesses and represents the excess of purchase consideration over the fair value of assets acquired and liabilities acquired.assumed. The Company completedperformed its annual goodwill impairment analysis on August 31, 20192021 and concluded that goodwill was not impaired, as the fair value of eachthe reporting unit exceeded its carrying value.
Goodwill as of December 31, 2019 and 2018, andThe changes in the carrying amountamounts of goodwill during the years ended December 31, 20192021 and 2018,2020, were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,
2019201820212020
Balance, beginning of periodBalance, beginning of period$105,620  $107,954  Balance, beginning of period$109,261 $104,589 
Effect of currency translationEffect of currency translation(1,031) (2,334) Effect of currency translation(4,133)4,672 
Balance, end of periodBalance, end of period$104,589  $105,620  Balance, end of period$105,128 $109,261 
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Intangible assets atas of December 31, 20192021 and 20182020 consisted of the following (dollars in thousands):
As of December 31, 2019December 31, 2021
Gross
Carrying
Amount
Accumulated
Amortization
Net
Carrying
Amount
Weighted
Average
Remaining
Life
Gross
Carrying
Amount
Accumulated
Amortization
Net
Carrying
Amount
Weighted
Average
Remaining
Life
Business relationshipsBusiness relationships$9,918  $(2,841) $7,077  8.6 yearsBusiness relationships$9,918 $(4,786)$5,132 7.1 years
Developed technologyDeveloped technology7,832  (4,959) 2,873  2.2 yearsDeveloped technology7,709 (7,453)256 0.2 years
Content3,814  (3,814) —  0.0 years
Licensing agreementsLicensing agreements6,129 (860)5,269 8.2 years
Domain and data licensesDomain and data licenses2,869  (2,748) 121  1.7 yearsDomain and data licenses2,869 (2,853)16 1.5 years
Trademarks877  (872)  0.2 years
User relationships146  (140)  0.2 years
TotalTotal$25,456  $(15,374) $10,082  Total$26,625 $(15,952)$10,673 

As of December 31, 2018December 31, 2020
Gross
Carrying
Amount
Accumulated
Amortization
Net
Carrying
Amount
Weighted
Average
Remaining
Life
Gross
Carrying
Amount
Accumulated
Amortization
Net
Carrying
Amount
Weighted
Average
Remaining
Life
Business relationshipsBusiness relationships$9,918  $(1,868) $8,050  9.4 yearsBusiness relationships$9,918 $(3,814)$6,104 7.8 years
Developed technologyDeveloped technology7,832  (3,562) 4,270  3.1 yearsDeveloped technology7,709 (6,238)1,471 1.2 years
Content3,873  (3,696) 177  0.8 years
Licensing agreementsLicensing agreements6,129 (215)5,914 9.2 years
Domain and data licensesDomain and data licenses2,869  (2,359) 510  1.5 yearsDomain and data licenses2,869 (2,837)32 2.2 years
Trademarks877  (579) 298  1.2 years
User relationships146  (92) 54  1.2 years
TotalTotal$25,515  $(12,156) $13,359  Total$26,625 $(13,104)$13,521 
Amortization expense for the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019 2018 and 2017 was $3.3$2.8 million, $3.5$2.6 million and $6.6$3.3 million, respectively.
As of December 31, 2019, the2021, estimated future amortization of purchased intangible assets for (i) each of the succeeding five years and (ii) thereafter wasexpenses were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ending December 31,Amount
2020$2,402  
20212,262  
20221,045  
2023714  
2024708  
Thereafter2,951  
Total$10,082  

2022$1,676 
20231,359 
20241,353 
20251,353 
20261,353 
Thereafter3,579 
   Total amortization$10,673 
9. ACQUISITIONS AND DISPOSALS
Nowait, Inc.
On February 28, 2017, the Company acquired Nowait, Inc. (“Nowait”). In connection with the acquisition, all outstanding capital stock and options and warrants to purchase capital stock of Nowait — including the 20% equity investment in Nowait the Company acquired in July 2016 — were converted into the right to receive an aggregate of $39.8 million in cash. Of the total amount of consideration paid in connection with the acquisition, $7.9 million is being held in escrow to secure the Company’s indemnification rights. The key purpose underlying the acquisition was to secure waitlist system and seating tool technology. The Company utilized an income approach to determine the valuation of the Company’s existing equity investment in Nowait as of the acquisition date. The carrying value of the Company’s investment approximated its fair value.
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LEASES
The acquisition was accounted for as a business combination in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification Topic 805, “Business Combinations” (“ASC 805”), with the resultscomponents of Nowait’s operations included in the Company’s consolidated financial statements from February 28, 2017. The final purchase price allocation is as follows (in thousands):
February 28, 2017
Fair value of purchase consideration:
Cash:
Distributed to Nowait stockholders$31,892 
Held in escrow account7,945 
Total purchase consideration$39,837 
Fair value oflease cost, net assets acquired:
Cash and cash equivalents$1,004 
Intangible assets12,670 
Goodwill25,959 
Other assets1,065 
Total assets acquired40,698 
Liabilities assumed(861)
Total liabilities assumed(861)
Net assets acquired$39,837 
Estimated useful lives and the amount assigned to each class of intangible assets acquired are as follows (dollars in thousands):
Intangible Asset Type:Amount AssignedUseful Life
Enterprise restaurant relationships$8,500 12.0 years
Acquired technology$2,900 5.0 years
Trademarks$610 3.0 years
Local restaurant relationships$600 5.0 years
User relationships$60 3.0 years
Weighted average9.6 years
The intangible assets are being amortized on a straight-line basis, which reflects the pattern in which the economic benefits of the intangible assets are being utilized. The goodwill results from the Company’s opportunity to drive daily engagement in its key restaurant vertical by allowing consumers to move more quickly from search and discovery to transacting at a local business. None of the goodwill is deductible for tax purposes.
The Company recorded 0 acquisition-related transaction costs for the years ended December 31, 20192021, 2020 and 2018. For the year ended December 31, 2017, the Company recorded acquisition-related transaction costs of approximately $0.1 million, which were included in general and administrative expenses in the accompanying consolidated statement of operations.
The consolidated statements of operations for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 included $7.8 million and $5.3 million of revenues attributable to the Nowait product, respectively. The Company completed the integration of Nowait's operations into those of the Company during the three months ended December 31, 2017 and, as such, determining Nowait's contribution to the net income of the Company for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 is impracticable.
Turnstyle Analytics Inc.
On April 3, 2017, the Company acquired all of the equity interests in Turnstyle Analytics Inc. (“Turnstyle”) for $20.6 million, approximately $1.0 million of which represents compensation cost due to a continuous service requirement, and the remainder of which represents purchase consideration. Of the total consideration paid in connection with the acquisition, $3.1 million was initially held in escrow for an 18-month period after the closing to secure the Company’s indemnification rights. The remaining escrow funds were released in October 2018. The key factor underlying the acquisition was to obtain a customer
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retention and loyalty product in the form of a location-based marketing and analytics platform that provides wifi as a digital marketing tool to expand the Company's product offerings for local businesses.
The acquisition was accounted for as a business combination in accordance with ASC 805, with the results of Turnstyle’s operations included in the Company’s consolidated financial statements from April 3, 2017. The final purchase price allocation is as follows (in thousands):
April 3, 2017
Fair value of purchase consideration:
Cash:
Distributed to Turnstyle stockholders$16,648 
Held in escrow account3,093 
Total purchase consideration$19,741 
Fair value of net assets acquired:
Cash and cash equivalents$30 
Intangible assets4,252 
Goodwill16,048 
Other assets250 
Total assets acquired20,580 
Deferred tax liability(450)
Liabilities assumed(389)
Total liabilities assumed(839)
Net assets acquired$19,741 
Estimated useful lives and the amount assigned to each class of intangible assets acquired are as follows (dollars in thousands):
Intangible Asset Type:Amount AssignedUseful Life
Acquired technology$3,250 5.0 years
Business relationships$672 5.0 years
Trademarks$250 3.0 years
User relationships$80 3.0 years
Weighted average4.9 years
The intangible assets are being amortized on a straight-line basis, which reflects the pattern in which the economic benefits of the intangible assets are being utilized. The goodwill results from the Company’s opportunity to expand its product offerings to local businesses through the Turnstyle marketing and analytics platform, which the Company renamed Yelp WiFi Marketing. None of the goodwill is deductible for tax purposes.
The Company recorded 0 acquisition-related transaction costs for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018. For the year ended December 31, 2017, the Company recorded acquisition-related transaction costs of approximately $0.3 million, which were included in general and administrative expenses in the accompanying consolidated statement of operations.
The consolidated statements of operations for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 include $2.1 million and $3.1 million of revenue attributable to Yelp WiFi Marketing, respectively.
The Company completed the integration of Turnstyle's operations into those of the Company during the three months ended December 31, 2017 and, as such, determining Turnstyle's contribution to the net income of the Company for the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 is impracticable. The consolidated statement of operations for the year ended December 31, 2017 includes $8.8 million of net loss attributable to Turnstyle.
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Eat24, LLC
On October 10, 2017, pursuant to the terms of a Unit Purchase Agreement, dated as of August 3, 2017 (the “Purchase Agreement”), by and among the Company, Eat24, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company, Grubhub Inc. (“Grubhub”) and Grubhub Holdings Inc. (“Purchaser”), a wholly owned subsidiary of Grubhub, the Company completed the sale of all of the outstanding equity interests in Eat24 to the Purchaser (the “Disposal”). Immediately prior to the closing of the Disposal, the Company transferred certain assets to Eat24, which consisted of assets that were material to or necessary for the operation of the Eat24 business that were not then owned by Eat24. The Company entered into a Marketing Partnership Agreement (“Partnership Agreement”) with the Purchaser concurrently with the Purchase Agreement. The purpose of the Disposal was to further capitalize on the Company's strong market position of connecting people with local businesses by selling Eat24 to the Purchaser, which has a strong presence in online and mobile food ordering, and entering into the Partnership Agreement, pursuant to which the Company earns a fee on all food orders placed through the Grubhub restaurant network, including Eat24 restaurants, that originate on the Company's platform.
The Company received $251.7 million in cash at closing; the Purchaser paid the remaining $28.8 million of the purchase price into an escrow account, which was held for an initial 18-month period after closing to secure the Purchaser's rights of indemnification under the Purchase Agreement and was presented on the Company's consolidated balance sheets as an Other non-current asset as of December 31, 2018 (see Note 11,"Other Non-Current Assets"). Following the expiration of the escrow period in April 2019, the full amount in escrow was released to the Company. The Company received approximately $1.0 million in additional purchase consideration on December 14, 2017 as a net working capital adjustment. As a result of the sale, the Company recognized a pre-tax gain of $163.7 million during the year ended December 31, 2017, which is included in gain on disposal of a business unit in the Company's consolidated statement of operations and is net of $0.3 million in Disposal-related costs. Prior to the Disposal, Eat24 was its own reporting unit and $110.8 million of goodwill associated with the Eat24 reporting unit was de-recognized and included with the net assets transferred in the Disposal.
The Disposal was accounted for as an asset group disposal in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification 360, "Property, Plant, and Equipment." The results of Eat24's operations are included in the Company's consolidated financial statements through October 10, 2017. As the Disposal represented the sale of an individually significant component, the loss before provision for income taxes attributable to Eat24 was $11.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2017. The Company acquired Eat24 on February 9, 2015. The final disbursement from the escrow account created to secure indemnification obligations related to the Company's acquisition of Eat24 was completed in the three months ended March 31, 2018.

10. LEASES
The components of lease cost as of December 31, 2019 were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended
December 31, 2019
Operating lease cost$54,451 
Short-term lease cost (12 months or less)1,287 
Sublease income(4,759)
Total lease cost, net$50,979 
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Operating lease cost$49,989 $55,214 $54,451 
Short-term lease cost (12 months or less)532 1,288 1,287 
Sublease income(8,490)(7,826)(4,759)
   Total lease cost, net$42,031 $48,676 $50,979 
The Company's leases and subleases do not include any variable lease payments, residual value guarantees, related-party leases, or restrictions or covenants that would limit or prevent the Company from exercising its right to obtain substantially all of the economic benefits from use of the respective assets during the lease term.

The Company will continue to disclose comparative reporting periods prior to January 1, 2019 under ASC 840.

During the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, the Company recognized rent expense, net of sublease rental income, on a straight-line basis over the lease period. Rent expense, net was $51.2 million and $42.5 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and December 31, 2017, respectively.

The Company subleased certain office facilities under operating lease agreements that expire in 2025. The sublease agreements do not contain any options to renew. The Company recognizes sublease rental income as a reduction in rent expense on a straight-line basis over the lease period. Sublease rental income was $2.2 million and $2.6 million for the years ended December 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively.

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Supplemental cash flow information related to leases for the yearyears ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019 was as follows (in thousands):

December 31, 2019
Cash paid for amounts included in the measurement of lease liabilities:
Operating cash flows from operating leases$56,672 
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Cash paid for amounts included in the measurement of lease liabilities:
Operating cash flows from operating leases$52,091 $58,515 $56,672 
As of December 31, 2019,2021, maturities of lease liabilities for (i) each of the succeeding five years and (ii) thereafter were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ending December 31,Operating
Leases
2020$59,522  
202152,060  
2022202244,712  2022$48,559 
2023202341,652  202345,608 
2024202439,420  202442,874 
2025202522,331 
202620267,394 
ThereafterThereafter37,112  Thereafter23,206 
Total minimum lease paymentsTotal minimum lease payments274,478  Total minimum lease payments189,972 
Less imputed interestLess imputed interest(42,215) Less imputed interest(21,756)
Present value of lease liabilitiesPresent value of lease liabilities$232,263  Present value of lease liabilities$168,216 
As of December 31, 2018, maturities of lease liabilities for (i) each of the succeeding five years2021 and (ii) thereafter were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ending December 31,Operating
Leases
2019$56,703  
202059,009  
202151,429  
202243,603  
202340,517  
Thereafter69,980  
Total minimum lease payments$321,241  
As of December 31, 2019,2020, the weighted-average remaining lease term and weighted-average discount rate were as follows:
December 31, 2019
Weighted-average remaining lease term (years) — operating leases5.5
Weighted-average discount rate — operating leases6.1 %
December 31, 2021December 31, 2020
Weighted-average remaining lease term (years) — operating leases4.85.1
Weighted-average discount rate — operating leases5.4 %6.0 %
In October 2019,During the year ended December 31, 2021, the Company entered into sublease agreements for portions of its office space in San Francisco and New York. The Company evaluated the associated ROU assets and leasehold improvements for impairment as a lease agreement forresult of the subleases in accordance with Accounting Standards Codification Topic 360, "Property, Plant, and Equipment," because the change in circumstances indicated that the carrying amount of such assets may not be recoverable. The Company compared the future undiscounted cash flows under the sublease agreements to the carrying amounts of the respective ROU assets and leasehold improvements and determined that an office facilityimpairment existed.
The Company compared the carrying values of the impacted assets to the fair values to determine the impairment amount related to the subleases. The Company recognized an impairment charge of $11.2 million during the year ended December 31, 2021, which is included in London, U.K. for whichgeneral and administrative expenses on its consolidated statement of operations, and reduced the carrying amount of the ROU assets and leasehold improvements by $8.5 million and $2.7 million, respectively. For more information on the fair values of the ROU assets and leasehold improvements used in the impairment analysis, see Note 4,"Fair Value Measurements."
In December 2021, the Company terminated the lease term has not yet commenced. The lease expiresfor its office space in 2030 andWashington, D.C. As a result, the Company expects to classify it as an operating lease.recognized a net gain of $3.7 million, which includes certain termination-related fees and is included in general and administrative expenses on its consolidated statement of operations. The Company expects to record $15.0accelerated the depreciation of related leasehold improvements assets and recorded $5.2 million of operating lease cost overdepreciation expense for these assets during the life of the lease.

year ended December 31, 2021.

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11.10. OTHER NON-CURRENT ASSETS
Other non-current assets as of December 31, 20192021 and 20182020 consisted of the following (in thousands):
20192018
Deferred tax assets$20,054  $17,240  
Deferred contract costs15,138  12,345  
Escrow deposit—  28,750  
Other non-current assets3,177  1,109  
Total other non-current assets$38,369  $59,444  
The escrow deposit consisted of the funds held in escrow related to the Disposal of Eat24 (see Note 9,"Acquisitions and Disposals"), which were held for an 18-month period after closing to secure the Purchaser's rights of indemnification under the Purchase Agreement. Following the expiration of the escrow period in April 2019, the deposit was released to the Company.
December 31,
2021
December 31,
2020
Deferred tax assets$40,606 $31,163 
Deferred contract costs16,931 14,522 
Other non-current assets7,013 3,163 
Total other non-current assets$64,550 $48,848 
Deferred contract costs as of December 31, 20192021 and 2018,2020, and changes in deferred contract costs during the years ended December 31, 20192021 and 2018,2020, were as follows (in thousands):
20192018
Balance, beginning of period$12,345  $9,089  
Add: costs deferred on new contracts14,998  14,572  
Less: amortization recorded in sales and marketing expenses(12,205) (11,316) 
Balance, end of period$15,138  $12,345  

Year Ended December 31,
20212020
Balance, beginning of period$14,522 $15,138 
Add: costs deferred on new contracts17,015 15,328 
Less: amortization recorded in sales and marketing expenses(14,606)(15,944)
Balance, end of period$16,931 $14,522 
12.11. CONTRACT BALANCES
The allowance for doubtful accounts as of December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, and changes in the allowance for doubtful accounts during the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Balance, beginning of periodBalance, beginning of period$8,685  $8,602  $6,196  Balance, beginning of period$11,559 $7,686 $8,685 
Add: provision for doubtful accountsAdd: provision for doubtful accounts22,543  24,515  20,917  Add: provision for doubtful accounts14,574 32,265 22,543 
Less: write-offs, net of recoveriesLess: write-offs, net of recoveries(23,542) (24,432) (18,511) Less: write-offs, net of recoveries(18,980)(28,392)(23,542)
Balance, end of periodBalance, end of period$7,686  $8,685  $8,602  Balance, end of period$7,153 $11,559 $7,686 
The net decrease in the allowance for doubtful accounts in the year ended December 31, 2021 was primarily a result of a reduction in expected customer delinquencies compared to December 31, 2020, as collection rates improved.
The net increase in the allowance for doubtful accounts in the year ended December 31, 2020 primarily related to an anticipated increase in customer delinquencies due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In calculating the allowance for doubtful accounts as of December 31, 2021 and 2020, the Company considered expectations of probable credit losses, including probable credit losses associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, based on observed trends in cancellations, observed changes in the credit risk of specific customers, the impact of anticipated closures and bankruptcies using forecasted economic indicators in addition to historical experience and loss patterns during periods of macroeconomic uncertainty.
Contract liabilities consist of deferred revenue, which is recorded on the consolidated balance sheets when the Company has received consideration, or has the right to receive consideration, in advance of transferring the performance obligations under the contract to the customer.
As
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The changes in short-term deferred revenue during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,
20212020
Balance, beginning of period$4,109 $4,315 
Less: recognition of deferred revenue from beginning balance(3,279)(3,869)
Add: net increase in current period contract liabilities3,326 3,663 
Balance, end of period$4,156 $4,109 
The majority of the Company’s deferred revenue as of December 31, 2019, deferred revenue was $4.3 million, the majority of which2021 is considered short-term and is expected to be recognized as revenue in the subsequent three-month period ending March 31, 2020. Changes in2022. An immaterial amount of long-term deferred revenue during the years endedis included in other long-term liabilities as of December 31, 2019 and 2018 were as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,
20192018
Balance, beginning of period$3,843  $3,469  
Less: recognition of deferred revenue from beginning balance(3,744) (3,436) 
Add: net increase in current period contract liabilities4,216  3,810  
Balance, end of period$4,315  $3,843  
The net increase in contract liabilities primarily relates to new contracts with customers during the periods presented.2021. No other contract assets or liabilities are recorded on the Company's consolidated balance sheets as of December 31, 20192021 and 2018.2020.
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13.12. ACCOUNTS PAYABLE AND ACCRUED LIABILITIES
Accounts payable and accrued liabilities as of December 31, 20192021 and 20182020 consisted of the following (in thousands):
December 31,
2019
December 31,
2018
Accounts payable$6,002  $6,540  
Employee related liabilities41,488  23,634  
Accrued sales and marketing expenses2,982  4,536  
Taxes payable3,695  3,438  
Accrued cost of revenue7,208  5,463  
Other accrued liabilities10,958  17,451  
Total accrued liabilities$72,333  $61,062  

14. LONG-TERM LIABILITIES
Long-term liabilities as of December 31, 2019 and 2018 consisted of the following (in thousands):
December 31,
2019
December 31,
2018
Deferred rent$—  $31,253  
Other long-term liabilities6,798  3,887  
Total long-term liabilities$6,798  $35,140  
December 31,
2021
December 31,
2020
Accounts payable$16,127 $8,853 
Employee-related liabilities50,132 57,684 
Accrued sales and marketing expenses5,455 2,137 
Accrued cost of revenue9,537 8,269 
Accrued legal settlements26,037 385 
Other accrued liabilities12,332 10,432 
Total accounts payable and accrued liabilities$119,620 $87,760 
The Company de-recognizednet increase in accounts payable and accrued liabilities during the deferred rent balance as of year ended December 31, 2018 upon its adoption of ASC 8422021 was primarily driven by a $26.0 million increase in accrued legal settlements based on January 1, 2019. Seethe Company’s preliminary agreement to settle certain pending litigation. For more information, see Note 213, "Summary of Significant Accounting PoliciesCommitments and Contingencies.."

15.13. COMMITMENTS AND CONTINGENCIES
Legal Proceedings—In January 2018, a putative class action lawsuit alleging violations of the federal securities laws was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, naming as defendants the Company and certain of its officers.officers (the “Securities Class Action”). The complaint, which the plaintiff amended on June 25, 2018, alleges violations of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, by the Company and its officers for allegedly making materially false and misleading statements regarding its business and operations on February 9, 2017. The plaintiff seeks unspecified monetary damages and other relief. On August 2,November 27, 2018, the Company and the other defendants filed a motion to dismiss the amended complaint, which the courtCourt granted in part and denied in part on November 27, 2018.the defendants’ motion to dismiss. On October 22, 2019, the Court approved a stipulation to certify a class in this action.action and, on September 9, 2021, it denied the defendants’ motion for summary judgment. The case remains pending. Duewas scheduled for trial to begin on February 7, 2022. However, on December 3, 2021, the defendants reached a preliminary agreement with the plaintiff to settle this matter for $22.25 million, which payment the Company expects to be funded by defendants’ insurers. The proposed settlement would resolve all claims asserted against all defendants in the Securities Class Action without any liability or wrongdoing attributed to them. The parties are currently negotiating the definitive terms of the settlement, which they will then present to the preliminary nature of this lawsuit,Court for approval.
On December 2, 2021, the Company reached a preliminary agreement to settle a pending stockholder derivative lawsuit (the “Derivative Action”) asserting claims against certain current and former officers, and naming the Company as a nominal defendant, which arose out of the same facts as the Securities Class Action and is unablepending before the same Court in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. The proposed settlement would resolve all claims asserted against all defendants in the Derivative Action without any liability or wrongdoing attributed to reasonably estimate eitherthem personally or to the probabilityCompany. Under the terms of incurringthe proposed settlement, the Company’s board of directors would adopt and implement certain corporate governance modifications and the Company would receive $18.0 million of insurance proceeds, of which the Company has agreed to pay $3.75 million to the plaintiff’s attorneys as fees. The plaintiff submitted the proposed settlement to the Court for preliminary approval on January 28, 2022.
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The Company assesses, in conjunction with its legal counsel, the need to record a liability for litigation and contingencies, which it will accrue when it believes a loss or an estimated rangeis probable and the amount can be reasonably estimated. While the proposed settlement terms for the Derivative Action are subject to Court approval and the terms of sucha proposed settlement of the Securities Class Action remain to be finalized (and would also be subject to Court approval), the Company believes the loss if any, fromfor both are probable and the lawsuit.payment amounts described above, which total $26.0 million, represent reasonable estimates of loss contingencies. The Company also believes that the anticipated insurance proceeds related to each action described above, which also total $26.0 million, are probable and represent reasonable estimates for loss recovery. Accordingly, the Company recorded a $26.0 million accrual for loss contingency within accounts payable and accrued liabilities as well as a $26.0 million receivable for loss recovery within prepaid expenses and other current assets on its consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2021. The net expense impact for the loss contingency and recovery are recorded within general and administrative expenses on its consolidated statement of operations.
The Company is subject to other legal proceedings arising in the ordinary course of business. Although the results of litigation and claims cannot be predicted with certainty, the Company currently does not believe that the final outcome of any of these other matters will have a material adverse effect on the Company’s business, financial position, results of operations or cash flows.
Indemnification Agreements—In the ordinary course of business, the Company may provide indemnifications of varying scope and terms to customers, vendors, lessors, business partners and other parties with respect to certain matters, including, but not limited to, losses arising out of the breach of such agreements, services to be provided by the Company or from intellectual property infringement claims made by third parties.
In addition, the Company has entered into indemnification agreements with directors and certain officers and employees that require the Company to, among other things, indemnify them against certain liabilities that may arise by reason of their status or service as directors, officers or employees.
While the outcome of claims cannot be predicted with certainty, the Company does not believe that the outcome of any claims under the indemnification arrangements will have a material effect on the Company’s financial position, results of operations or cash flows.

Revolving Credit Facility
—The Company is a party to a Credit Agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, National Association (the “Credit Agreement”), which provides for a three-year, $75.0 million senior unsecured revolving credit facility including a letter of credit sub-limit of $25.0 million. The commitments under the Credit Agreement expire on May 5, 2023. Interest on any borrowings under the revolving credit facility will accrue at either LIBOR plus 1.25% or at an alternative base rate plus 0.25%, at the Company's election. Interest is payable monthly in arrears for base rate loans and at the end of the applicable interest period (or, if the interest period extends over three months, at the end of each three-month interval during the interest period) for LIBOR loans. The Company is also required to pay an annual commitment fee that accrues at 0.25% per annum on the unused portion of the aggregate commitments under the revolving credit facility, payable quarterly in arrears. Debt issuance-related costs were $0.4 million and will be amortized to interest expense on a straight-line basis over the life of the Credit Agreement.
The Company is required to pay a fee that accrues at 0.70% per annum on the undrawn portion of any letter of credit, payable quarterly in arrears. As of December 31, 2021, the Company had $21.5 million of letters of credit under the sub-limit related to lease agreements for certain office locations, which are required to be maintained and issued to the landlords of each facility, and $53.5 million remained available under the revolving credit facility as of this date.
The Company was in compliance with all covenants associated with the credit facility and there were no loans outstanding under the Credit Agreement as of December 31, 2021. See "Liquidity and Capital Resources," included under Part II, Item 7 in this Annual Report for additional information on the covenants included in the Credit Agreement.
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16.14. STOCKHOLDERS’ EQUITY
The following table presents the number of shares authorized and issued and outstanding as of the dates indicated:indicated (in thousands):
December 31, 2019December 31, 2018December 31, 2021December 31, 2020
Shares
Authorized
Shares
Issued and
Outstanding
Shares
Authorized
Shares
Issued and
Outstanding
Shares
Authorized
Shares
Issued
Shares
Authorized
Shares
Issued
Stockholders’ equity:Stockholders’ equity:Stockholders’ equity:
Common stock, $0.000001 par valueCommon stock, $0.000001 par value200,000,000  71,185,468  200,000,000  81,996,839  Common stock, $0.000001 par value200,000 72,171 200,000 75,371 
Undesignated preferred stockUndesignated preferred stock10,000,000  —  10,000,000  —  Undesignated preferred stock10,000 — 10,000 — 
Stock Repurchase Program
On JulyAs of December 31, 2017,2021, the Company’s board of directors approved a stock repurchase program under which the Company washad authorized it to repurchase up to $200.0 millionan aggregate of its outstanding common stock. The Company's board of directors authorized the Company to repurchase an additional $250.0 million$1.2 billion of its outstanding common stock, on each$231.7 million of November 27, 2018 and February 11, 2019, bringing the total amountwhich remained available as of authorized repurchases to $700.0 million by December 31, 2019.2021. The Company may purchase shares at management’s discretion in the open market, in privately negotiated transactions, in transactions structured through investment banking institutions, or a combination of the foregoing.
During the yearsyear ended December 31, 2019 and 2018,2021, the Company repurchased 6,995,170 shares on the open market for an aggregate purchase price of $262.9 million. The Company retired 7,094,000 shares during the year ended December 31, 2021 and had no treasury stock balance as of December 31, 2021.
During the year ended December 31, 2020, the Company repurchased 803,691 shares on the open market for an aggregate purchase price of $24.4 million, which reflects the Company’s suspension of share repurchases under its stock repurchase program between April 2020 and November 2020 pursuant to its restructuring plan announced on April 9, 2020 (the "Restructuring Plan"). See Note 19, "Restructuring," for further details on the Restructuring Plan. The Company retired 704,673 shares during the year ended December 31, 2020 and had a treasury stock balance of 99,018 shares as of December 31, 2020, which were excluded from its outstanding share count as of such date and subsequently retired 14,190,409 and 4,896,003 shares, respectively, for aggregate purchase prices of approximately $481.0 million and $187.4 million, respectively.in January 2021.
Common Stock Reserved for Future Issuance
As of December 31, 2019,2021, the Company had reserved shares of common stock for future issuances in connection with the following:following (in thousands):
Number of Shares
Stock options outstanding6,210,6853,979 
RSUs outstanding7,625,58410,016 
Available for future equity award grants7,233,28910,809 
Available for future ESPP offerings1,542,1301,870 
Total reserved for future issuance22,611,68826,674 
Equity Incentive Plans
The Company has outstanding awards under 32 equity incentive plans:plans — the 2011 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2011 Plan”) and the 2012 Equity Incentive Plan, as amended (the “2012 Plan”) — and had outstanding awards under a third equity incentive plan — the Amended and Restated 2005 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2005 Plan”); — for a portion of the 2011 Equity Incentive Plan (the “2011 Plan”); and the 2012 Equity Incentive Plan, as amended (the “2012 Plan”).year ended December 31, 2021. In July 2011, the Company adopted the 2011 Plan, terminated the 2005 Plan and provided that no further stock awards were to be granted under the 2005 Plan. All outstanding stock awards under the 2005 Plan continue to be governed by their existing terms. Upon the effectiveness of the underwriting agreement in connection with the Company’s initial public offering, (“IPO”), the Company terminated the 2011 Plan and all shares that were reserved under the 2011 Plan but not issued were assumed by the 2012 Plan. No further awards will be granted pursuant to the 2011 Plan. All outstanding stock awards under the 2011 Plan continue to be governed by their existing terms. Under the 2012 Plan, the Company has the ability to issue incentive stock options, non-statutory stock options, stock appreciation rights, RSUs, restricted stock awards, performance units and performance shares. Additionally, the 2012 Plan provides for the grant of performance cash awards to employees, directors and consultants.
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Stock Options
Stock options granted under the 2012 Plan are granted at a price per share not less than the fair value of a share of the Company’s common stock on the grant date. Options granted to date generally vest over athree- or four-year period, on one of 42 schedules: (a) 25% vesting at the end of one year and the remaining shares vesting monthly thereafter;thereafter or (b) 10% vesting over the first year, 20% vesting over the second year, 30% vesting over the third year and 40% vesting over the fourth year; (c) ratably on a monthly basis; or (d) 35% vesting over the first year, 40% vesting over the second year and 25% vesting over the third year.basis. Options granted are generally exercisable for contractual terms of up to 10 years. The Company issues new shares when stock options are exercised.
For the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, the weighted-average assumptions used for the Black-Scholes-Merton option valuation model were as follows:
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Dividend yieldDividend yield—  —  —  Dividend yield— — — 
Annual risk-free rateAnnual risk-free rate2.5 %2.2 %2.1 %Annual risk-free rate1.1 %0.5 %2.5 %
Expected volatilityExpected volatility48.3 %42.0 %44.0 %Expected volatility49.4 %45.9 %48.3 %
Expected term (years)Expected term (years)6.06.05.9Expected term (years)6.05.76.0
A summary of stock option activity for the year ended December 31, 20192021 is as follows:
Number of
Shares
Weighted-
Average
Exercise
Price
Weighted-
Average
Remaining
Contractual
Term (in
years)
Aggregate
Intrinsic
Value (in
thousands)
Number of
Shares (in thousands)
Weighted-
Average
Exercise
Price
Weighted-
Average
Remaining
Contractual
Term (in
years)
Aggregate
Intrinsic
Value (in
thousands)
Outstanding at December 31, 20186,818,682  $24.54  5.1$88,983  
Outstanding at December 31, 2020Outstanding at December 31, 20204,623 $29.89 4.7$30,451 
GrantedGranted662,150  36.06  Granted80 39.17 
ExercisedExercised(826,124) 21.18  Exercised(663)13.04 
CanceledCanceled(444,323) 40.57  Canceled(61)48.92 
Outstanding at December 31, 20196,210,385  $25.10  4.3$75,805  
Options vested and exercisable at December 31, 20195,310,712  $22.94  3.7$75,540  
Outstanding at December 31, 2021Outstanding at December 31, 20213,979 $32.59 4.4$24,580 
Options vested and exercisable at December 31, 2021Options vested and exercisable at December 31, 20213,665 $32.33 4.1$24,103 
Aggregate intrinsic value represents the difference between the closing price of the Company’s common stock as quoted on the New York Stock Exchange on a given date and the exercise price of outstanding, in-the-money options. The total intrinsic value of options exercised was approximately $12.0$13.8 million, $18.9$33.8 million and $28.0$12.0 million for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively.
The weighted-average grant date fair value of options granted was $17.64, $18.89$18.55, $10.01 and $15.35$17.64 per share for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, respectively.
As of December 31, 2019,2021, total unrecognized compensation costs related to unvested stock options was approximately $15.0$4.8 million, which the Company expects to recognize over a weighted-average time period of 2.31.8 years.
RSUs
RSUs generally vest over a four-yearfour-year period, on one of 32 schedules: (a) 25% vesting at the end of one year and the remaining vesting quarterly or annually thereafter;thereafter or (b) 10% vesting over the first year, 20% vesting over the second year, 30% vesting over the third year and 40% vesting over the fourth year; or (c) ratably on a quarterly basis.
RSUs also include performance-based restricted stock units (“PRSUs”), which are subject to both a time-based vesting schedule and either (a) a market condition or (b) the achievement of performance goals. The time-based vesting schedule is quarterly over four years (the “Time-Based Vesting Schedule”). For PRSUs for whichsubject to a market condition, the Company recognizes expense is recognized from the date of grant. TheFor PRSUs are subject to both a performance goal and a time-based vesting schedule. goals, the Company recognizes expense when it is probable that the performance condition will be achieved.
The shares underlying each PRSU award subject to a market condition will be eligible to vest only if the average closing price of the Company's common stock equals or exceeds $45.3125 over any 60-day trading period during the four years following the grant date of February 7, 2019 (the "Performance Goal").2019. If the Performance Goalthis market condition is met, the shares underlying each PRSU award will vest quarterly over four years fromaccording to the grant date (the "Time-BasedTime-Based Vesting Schedule").Schedule. Any shares subject to the PRSUs that have met the Time-Based Vesting Schedule at the time the Performance Goal
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Schedule at the time the market condition is achieved will fully vest as of such date; thereafter, any remaining unvestednonvested shares subject to the PRSUs will continue vesting solely according to the Time-Based Vesting Schedule, subject to the applicable employee's continued service as of each such vesting date.
For PRSUs subject to performance goals, a percentage of the target number of shares, ranging from zero to 200%, will become eligible to vest based on the Company's level of achievement of certain financial targets, subject to the Time-Based Vesting Schedule. The shares subject to performance goals become eligible to vest once the achievement against the financial targets is known, which will be no later than March of the following year. On the quarterly vest date immediately following such determination (or a vest date otherwise specified in the agreement), the eligible shares, if any, will vest to the extent that the employee has met the Time-Based Vesting Schedule as of such date. Thereafter, the eligible shares will continue to vest in accordance with the Time-Based Vesting Schedule, subject to the applicable employee's continued service as of each such vesting date. The Company performed an analysis as of December 31, 2021 to assess the probability of achievement of the PRSU financial targets and, as a result, recorded compensation costs in the year ended December 31, 2021 for the PRSUs that it expected to vest.
As the PRSU activity during the year ended December 31, 20192021 was not material, it is presented together with the RSU activity in the table below.

A summary of RSU and PRSU activity for the year ended December 31, 20192021 is as follows:follows (in thousands, except per share amounts):
Number of
Shares
Weighted-
Average Grant
Date Fair Value
Nonvested at December 31, 20186,563,863  $38.67  
Granted6,205,023  34.35  
Vested (1)
(3,273,159) 36.01  
Canceled(1,870,143) 37.82  
Nonvested at December 31, 20197,625,584  $36.51  
Number of
Shares
Weighted-
Average Grant
Date Fair Value
Nonvested at December 31, 20209,758 $29.22 
Granted6,998 36.40 
Vested(1)
(4,393)32.06 
Canceled(2,347)31.75 
Nonvested at December 31, 202110,016 $32.39 
(1) Included in this balance is 1,254,365Includes 1,680,135 shares that vested but were not issued due to net share settlement for payment of employee taxes.
The aggregate fair value as of the vest date of RSUs and PRSUs that vested during the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019 2018 and 2017 was $112.4$164.5 million, $131.1$95.0 million and $104.2$112.4 million, respectively. As of December 31, 2019,2021, the Company had approximately $266.2$301.6 million of unrecognized stock-based compensation expense related to RSUs and PRSUs, which the Companyit expects to recognize over the remaining weighted-average vesting period of approximately 2.82.6 years.
Employee Stock Purchase Plan
The ESPP allows eligible employees to purchase shares of the Company’s common stock at a discount through payroll deductions of up to 15% of their eligible compensation, subject to any plan limitations, during designated offering periods. At the end of each offering period, employees are able to purchase shares at 85% of the fair market value of the Company’s common stock on the last day of the offering period, based on the closing sales price of the Company's common stock as quoted on the New York Stock Exchange on such date.
During the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, employees purchased 534,120, 442,679517,309, 662,063 and 373,580534,120 shares, respectively, at a weighted-average purchase price per share of $27.66, $32.07$31.58, $21.47 and $29.23,$27.66, respectively. The Company recognized stock-based compensation expense related to the ESPP of $2.6$3.0 million, $2.6$2.5 million and $2.0$2.6 million in the years ended December 31, 2021, 2020 and 2019, 2018 and 2017, respectively.
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Stock-Based Compensation
The following table summarizes the effects of stock-based compensation expense related to stock-based awards in the consolidated statements of operations during the periods presented (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Cost of revenueCost of revenue$4,535  $4,572  $4,010  Cost of revenue$4,302 $3,784 $4,535 
Sales and marketingSales and marketing30,668  30,779  28,100  Sales and marketing32,335 29,670 30,668 
Product developmentProduct development63,433  56,882  47,280  Product development81,624 67,622 63,433 
General and administrativeGeneral and administrative22,876  22,153  21,025  General and administrative33,418 23,498 22,876 
Total stock-based compensation recorded to income before incomes taxesTotal stock-based compensation recorded to income before incomes taxes121,512  114,386  100,415  Total stock-based compensation recorded to income before incomes taxes151,679 124,574 121,512 
Benefit from income taxesBenefit from income taxes(31,565) (30,237) (1,407) Benefit from income taxes(35,778)(31,920)(31,565)
Total stock-based compensation recorded to net incomeTotal stock-based compensation recorded to net income$89,947  $84,149  $99,008  Total stock-based compensation recorded to net income$115,901 $92,654 $89,947 
During the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, the Company capitalized $9.8$10.7 million, $7.8$9.4 million and $5.8$9.8 million, respectively, of stock-based compensation expense as website and internal-use software costs.

costs and, to a lesser extent, implementation costs incurred related to cloud computing arrangements that are service contracts.
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17.15. OTHER INCOME, NET
Other income, net for the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 20172019 consisted of the following (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Interest income, net$13,328  $13,804  $4,189  
Transaction gain (loss) on foreign exchange27  (70) 258  
Other non-operating income, net901  375  417  
Other income, net$14,256  $14,109  $4,864  

Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Interest (expense) income, net$(116)$2,273 $13,328 
Transaction gain on foreign exchange, net231 20 27 
Other non-operating income, net2,089 1,377 901 
Other income, net$2,204 $3,670 $14,256 
18.16. INCOME TAXES
The following table presents domestic and foreign components of income (loss) before income taxes for the periods presented (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
United StatesUnited States$55,292  $44,856  $194,376  United States$44,009 $(28,878)$55,292 
ForeignForeign(5,525) (4,850) (9,890) Foreign(10,291)(6,247)(5,525)
Total income before income taxes$49,767  $40,006  $184,486  
Total income (loss) before income taxesTotal income (loss) before income taxes$33,718 $(35,125)$49,767 

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The income tax (benefit) provision is composed of the following (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Current:Current:Current:
FederalFederal$8,598  $(819) $25,785  Federal$1,133 $(4,823)$8,598 
StateState2,570  384  5,069  State1,859 (434)2,570 
ForeignForeign517  560  354  Foreign245 737 517 
Total current taxTotal current tax$11,685  $125  $31,208  Total current tax$3,237 $(4,520)$11,685 
Deferred:Deferred:Deferred:
FederalFederal$(2,916) $(10,032) $(28) Federal$(9,338)$(10,456)$(2,916)
StateState59  (6,491) 15  State(443)(731)59 
ForeignForeign58  1,054  296  Foreign591 58 
Total deferred taxTotal deferred tax(2,799) (15,469) 283  Total deferred tax(9,190)(11,181)(2,799)
Total provision for (benefit from) income taxes$8,886  $(15,344) $31,491  
Total (benefit from) provision for income taxesTotal (benefit from) provision for income taxes$(5,953)$(15,701)$8,886 
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The following table presents a reconciliation of the statutory federal rate and the Company’s effective tax rate for the periods presented:
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Income tax at federal statutory rateIncome tax at federal statutory rate21.00 %21.00 %35.00 %Income tax at federal statutory rate21.00 %21.00 %21.00 %
State tax, net of federal tax effectState tax, net of federal tax effect2.83  3.24  3.54  State tax, net of federal tax effect6.20 2.87 2.83 
Foreign income tax rate differentialForeign income tax rate differential(0.56) (0.54) 0.50  Foreign income tax rate differential(1.84)1.04 (0.56)
Stock-based compensationStock-based compensation3.46  (16.80) (4.82) Stock-based compensation(17.26)(6.42)3.46 
Provision to return true-upsProvision to return true-ups2.46 (1.30)(0.31)
Income tax creditsIncome tax credits(26.94) (35.83) (5.39) Income tax credits(39.39)39.52 (26.94)
Change in valuation allowanceChange in valuation allowance10.40  (25.08) (30.23) Change in valuation allowance11.50 (15.64)10.40 
Change in uncertain tax positionsChange in uncertain tax positions0.56  4.48  0.98  Change in uncertain tax positions(16.53)(0.36)0.56 
Gain on disposal of a business unit—  —  17.42  
Employee fringe benefitsEmployee fringe benefits5.97  7.28  0.24  Employee fringe benefits0.42 (2.27)5.97 
Other non-deductible expensesOther non-deductible expenses1.42  2.73  0.12  Other non-deductible expenses11.49 (1.85)1.42 
Deferred adjustmentsDeferred adjustments0.37  2.24  (0.12) Deferred adjustments1.30 1.37 0.37 
Net operating loss carryback and true-upNet operating loss carryback and true-up3.00 5.64 — 
OtherOther(0.65) (1.07) (0.18) Other(0.01)1.10 (0.34)
Effective tax rateEffective tax rate17.86 %(38.35)%17.06 %Effective tax rate(17.66)%44.70 %17.86 %
On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (the “CARES Act”) was signed into law. The CARES Act allows losses incurred in 2018, 2019 and 2020 to be carried back to each of the five preceding tax years and to offset 100% of regular taxable income. The Company recognized a benefit in the year ended December 31, 2020 as a result of the ability to carry back its 2020 losses to 2017 as permitted under the CARES Act.
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Deferred Tax Balances
Deferred income taxes reflect the net tax effects of temporary differences between carrying amounts of assets and liabilities for financial reporting purposes and the amounts used for income tax purposes. The following table presents the significant components of the Company’s deferred tax assets and liabilities for the periods presented (in thousands):
As of December 31,As of December 31,
2019201820212020
Deferred tax assets:Deferred tax assets:Deferred tax assets:
Reserves and othersReserves and others$6,547  $14,223  Reserves and others$4,963 $5,246 
Stock-based compensationStock-based compensation19,950  19,689  Stock-based compensation21,749 20,388 
Net operating loss carryforwardNet operating loss carryforward4,628  5,956  Net operating loss carryforward3,064 5,509 
Tax credit carryforwardTax credit carryforward23,642  23,073  Tax credit carryforward47,340 40,513 
Operating lease liabilitiesOperating lease liabilities60,206  —  Operating lease liabilities40,616 49,229 
Gross deferred tax assetsGross deferred tax assets114,973  62,941  Gross deferred tax assets117,732 120,885 
Valuation allowanceValuation allowance(23,447) (18,381) Valuation allowance(32,815)(28,941)
Total deferred tax assetsTotal deferred tax assets91,526  44,560  Total deferred tax assets84,917 91,944 
Deferred tax liabilities:Deferred tax liabilities: Deferred tax liabilities: 
Depreciation and amortizationDepreciation and amortization(16,359) (16,666) Depreciation and amortization(5,506)(15,551)
Disposal of a business unit

—  (7,454) 
Deferred contract costsDeferred contract costs(3,869) (3,201) Deferred contract costs(4,372)(3,735)
Operating lease right-of-use assetsOperating lease right-of-use assets(51,244) —  Operating lease right-of-use assets(34,515)(41,495)
Total deferred tax liabilitiesTotal deferred tax liabilities(71,472) (27,321) Total deferred tax liabilities(44,393)(60,781)
Net deferred tax assetsNet deferred tax assets$20,054  $17,239  Net deferred tax assets$40,524 $31,163 
AtAs of December 31, 2019,2021, the Company had federal and state net operating loss carry-forwardscarryforwards of approximately $10.7$5.4 million and $30.5$29.0 million, respectively, expiring beginning in 20342036 and 2020,2025, respectively. AAs of the balance sheet date, the Company's wholly owned entity,subsidiary, Yelp GmbH also had trading losses of $2.4 million at December 31, 2019 in Germany, which may be carried forward indefinitely against profits. Another wholly owned entity, Darwin Social Marketing Inc.(Germany), had non-capital lossesnet operating loss carryforwards of $0.4$1.1 million, at December 31, 2019 in Canadawhich have an indefinite carryforward period. The Company had federal research credit carryforwards of approximately $40.0 million (gross) that begin to expire in 2037. At December 31, 2019, the Company had federal research credit carry-forwards of approximately $18.5 million that expire beginning in 2031, andif unused; California research credit carry-forwardscarryforwards of approximately $47.0$65.8 million (gross) that do not expire.expire; and Canada research credit carryforwards of approximately $2.9 million (gross) that begin to expire in 2041.
Utilization of net operating loss carry-forwardscarryforwards and credits may be subject to a substantial annual limitation due to the ownership change limitations provided by the Internal Revenue Code of 1986, as amended, and similar state provisions. The annual limitation may result in the expiration of net operating losses and credits before utilization. The Company does not expect any previous ownership changes, as defined under Section 382 and 383 of the Internal Revenue Code, to result in a limitation that will materially reduce the total amount of net operating loss carry-forwardscarryforwards and credits that can be utilized.
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Further, foreign loss carry-forwardscarryforwards may be subject to limitations under the applicable laws of the taxing jurisdictions due to ownership change limitations.
On December 22, 2017, the U.S. Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (the “Tax Act”) was signed into law. The Tax Act made broad and complex changes to the U.S. tax code that impact the Company's provision for income taxes, including, but not limited to, reducing the U.S. federal corporate income tax rate from 35.0% to 21.0% (the "Tax Rate Reduction") and requiring a one-time Deemed Repatriation Tax (the "Transition Tax”) on certain un-repatriated earnings of foreign subsidiaries.

Prior to the effectiveness of the Tax Act, the Company did not recognize a deferred tax liability related to un-remitted foreign earnings because such earnings were expected to be reinvested indefinitely. Because such earnings were previously subject to the one-time Transition Tax on foreign earnings, any taxes due with respect to such earnings or the excess of the amount for financial reporting over the tax basis of the Company's foreign investments would generally be limited to foreign and state taxes. As of December 31, 2019,2021, the Company had accumulated undistributed earnings generated by its foreign subsidiaries of approximately $4.9$9.3 million. The Company has not recognized a deferred tax liability relatedcontinues to un-remittedassert that all its foreign earnings as it intendsare to indefinitely reinvest these earningsbe permanently reinvested and expects future U.S. cash generation to be sufficient to meet future U.S. cash needs.

As such, the Company has not recognized a deferred tax liability related to unremitted foreign earnings.
Deferred Tax Valuation Allowance
As more fully described in “Income Taxes” in Note 2,,"Summary of Significant Accounting Policies," the Company maintains valuation allowances against deferred tax balances where appropriate and considers all positive and negative evidence that the Company would have future taxable income sufficient to realize the benefit of its deferred tax assets. 
At December 31, 2018, the Company considered all positive and negative evidence on whether the Company would have future taxable income sufficient to realize the benefit of its deferred tax assets and concluded that, at the required more-likely-than-not level of certainty, the Company would have future taxable U.S. income sufficient to realize the benefit of certain domestic deferred tax assets. As such, the valuation allowance previously recorded against certain domestic deferred tax assets was released. The benefit from income taxes for the year ended December 31, 2018 includes a $16.6 million benefit associated with this release.
Valuation allowances of $23.4$32.8 million and $18.4$28.9 million primarily related to California state tax credits were recorded against the Company's net deferred tax asset balancebalances as of December 31, 20192021 and 2018,2020, respectively. Since the Company mainly conducts research and development activities in California but earns a substantial portion of its U.S. income in other states, the Company could not assert, at the required more-likely-than-not level of certainty, that it will generate future taxable California income sufficient to realize the benefit of these deferred tax assets. Accordingly, the Company maintained a valuation allowance against specific state credits.
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Unrecognized Tax Benefits
As of December 31, 2019, 2018 and 2017, the Company had $40.7 million, $33.1 million and $18.2 million, respectively, of unrecognized tax benefits. A reconciliation of the beginning and ending amount of unrecognized tax benefits is as follows (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Balance at the beginning of the yearBalance at the beginning of the year$33,107  $18,215  $10,340  Balance at the beginning of the year$48,207 $40,718 $33,107 
(Decrease) increase based on tax positions related to the prior year(611) 3,654  667  
Decrease based on tax positions related to the prior yearDecrease based on tax positions related to the prior year(291)(453)(611)
Increase based on tax positions related to the current yearIncrease based on tax positions related to the current year9,995  11,485  7,209  Increase based on tax positions related to the current year10,750 7,942 9,995 
Decrease from tax authorities' settlementsDecrease from tax authorities' settlements(1,773) —  —  Decrease from tax authorities' settlements— — (1,773)
Lapse of statute of limitationsLapse of statute of limitations—  (247) (1) Lapse of statute of limitations(6,061)— — 
Balance at the end of the yearBalance at the end of the year$40,718  $33,107  $18,215  Balance at the end of the year$52,605 $48,207 $40,718 
As of December 31, 2019,2021, the Company had $23.4$26.2 million of unrecognized tax benefits that, if recognized, would affect the effective tax rate. The Company’s policy is to record interest and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits as income tax expense. During each of the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, the Company recorded an immaterial amount of interest and penalties.
In addition, the Company is subject to the continuous examination of its income tax returns by the IRS and other tax authorities. The Company’s federal and state income tax returns for fiscal years subsequent to 2003 remain open to
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examination. In the Company’s foreign jurisdictions – Canada, Ireland, United Kingdom and Germany – the tax years subsequent to 20142016 remain open to examination. The Company regularly assesses the likelihood of adverse outcomes resulting from examinations to determine the adequacy of its provision for income taxes, and monitors the progress of ongoing discussions with tax authorities and the impact, if any, of the expected expiration of the statute of limitations in various taxing jurisdictions. The Company believes that an adequate provision has been made for any adjustments that may result from tax examinations. However, the outcome of tax audits cannot be predicted with certainty. If any issues addressed in the Company’s tax audits are resolved in a manner not consistent with management’s expectations, the Company could be required to adjust its provision for income taxes in the period such resolution occurs. Although the timing of the resolution or closure of audits is not certain, the Company believes that it is reasonably possible that its unrecognized tax benefits could be reduced by $0.1$0.9 million within the next 12 months.

19.17. NET INCOME (LOSS) PER SHARE
Basic net income (loss) per share is computed using the weighted-average number of outstanding shares of common stock during the period. Diluted net income (loss) per share is computed using the weighted-average number of outstanding shares of common stock and, when dilutive, potential shares of common stock outstanding during the period. Potential common shares consist of the incremental shares of common stock issuable upon the exercise of stock options, shares issuable upon the vesting of RSUs (including PRSUs), and, to a lesser extent, purchase rights related to the ESPP.
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The following table presentstables present the calculation of basic and diluted net income (loss) per share for the periods presented (in thousands, except per share data):
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Basic net income per share attributable to common stockholders:
Numerator:
Net income$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  
Denominator:
Weighted-average shares outstanding74,627  83,573  81,602  
Basic net income per share attributable to common stockholders:$0.55  $0.66  $1.87  
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Basic net income (loss) per share:
Net income (loss)$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 
Shares used in computation:
Weighted-average common shares outstanding74,221 73,005 74,627 
Basic net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:$0.53 $(0.27)$0.55 

Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Diluted net income per share attributable to common stockholders:
Numerator:
Allocation of undistributed earnings for basic calculations$40,881  $55,350  $152,995  
Denominator:
Number of shares used in basic calculation74,627  83,573  81,602  
Weighted-average effect of dilutive securities
Stock options2,367  2,984  3,279  
Restricted stock units973  2,137  2,289  
Employee stock purchase program 15  —  
Number of shares used in diluted calculation77,969  88,709  87,170  
Diluted net income per share attributable to common stockholders$0.52  $0.62  $1.76  
Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Diluted net income (loss) per share:
Net income (loss)$39,671 $(19,424)$40,881 
Shares used in computation:
Weighted-average common shares outstanding74,221 73,005 74,627 
Stock options786 — 2,367 
RSUs3,607 — 973 
ESPP— 
Number of shares used in diluted calculation78,616 73,005 77,969 
Diluted net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:$0.50 $(0.27)$0.52 
The following weighted-average stock-based instruments were excluded from the calculation of diluted net income (loss) per share because their effect would have been anti-dilutive for the periods presented (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,
201920182017
Stock options2,580  2,030  1,659  
Restricted stock units and awards2,020  373  593  

Year Ended December 31,
202120202019
Stock options1,541 4,623 2,580 
RSUs59 9,758 2,020 
ESPP— 62 — 
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20.18. INFORMATION ABOUT REVENUE AND GEOGRAPHIC AREAS
The Company considers operating segments to be components of the Company for which separate financial information is available and evaluated regularly by the Company’s chief operating decision maker in deciding how to allocate resources and in assessing performance. The chief operating decision maker for the Company is the chief executive officer. The chief executive officer reviews financial information presented on a consolidated basis, accompanied by information about revenue by product line and geographic region for purposes of allocating resources and evaluating financial performance.
The Company has determined that it has a single operating and reporting segment. When the Company communicates results externally, it disaggregates net revenue into major product lines and primary geographical markets, which is based on the billing address of the customer. The disaggregation of net revenue by major product lines is based on the type of service provided and also aligns with the timing of revenue recognition.recognition for each. To reflect the Company's strategic focus on creating differentiated experiences for its Services categories and Restaurants, Retail and Other categories, the Company further disaggregates advertising revenue to reflect these two high-level category groupings. The Services categories consist of the following businesses: home, local, auto, professional, pets, events, real estate and financial services. The Restaurants, Retail and Other categories consist of the following businesses: restaurants, shopping, beauty & fitness, health and other.
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Net Revenue
The following table presents the Company’s net revenue by major product line (and by category for advertising revenue) for the periods presented (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
Net revenue by product:Net revenue by product:Net revenue by product:
Advertising revenue by category(1):
Advertising revenue by category(1):
ServicesServices$607,770 $515,019 $512,729 
Restaurants, Retail & OtherRestaurants, Retail & Other377,455 321,096 464,196 
AdvertisingAdvertising$976,925  $907,487  $775,678  Advertising985,225 836,115 976,925 
TransactionsTransactions12,436  13,694  60,251  Transactions13,196 15,017 12,436 
Other services24,833  21,592  14,918  
OtherOther33,418 21,801 24,833 
Total net revenueTotal net revenue$1,014,194  $942,773  $850,847  Total net revenue$1,031,839 $872,933 $1,014,194 
(1) In 2021, the Company updated its method of disaggregating advertising revenue by category. Prior-period amounts have not been updated as it is impracticable to do so, given certain historical information was not available.
During the years ended December 31, 2019, 20182021, 2020 and 2017,2019, no individual customer accounted for 10% or more of consolidated net revenue.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Company considered whether there was any impact to the manner in which it recognizes revenue, in particular with respect to the collectability criteria for recognizing revenue from contracts with customers. The Company did not change the manner in which it recognizes revenue as a result of that assessment.
The Company offered a number of relief incentives to advertising and other revenue customers most impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic totaling $3.5 million and $22.6 million during the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020, respectively. These incentives were primarily in the form of waived advertising and subscription fees. The Company accounted for these incentives as price concessions and reduced net revenue recognized in the years ended December 31, 2021 and 2020 accordingly. During the year ended December 31, 2020, the Company also paused certain advertising campaigns that were scheduled to run from April to May 2020 and offered certain free advertising products during those months with a total value of $14.5 million. All paused advertising campaigns that were not cancelled by customers resumed by the end of May 2020.
The following table presents the Company’s net revenue by major geographic region for the periods indicatedpresented (in thousands):
Year Ended December 31,Year Ended December 31,
201920182017202120202019
United StatesUnited States$1,000,245  $929,569  $836,766  United States$1,023,143 $863,300 $1,000,245 
All other countriesAll other countries13,949  13,204  14,081  All other countries8,696 9,633 13,949 
Total net revenueTotal net revenue$1,014,194  $942,773  $850,847  Total net revenue$1,031,839 $872,933 $1,014,194 
Long-Lived Assets
The following table presents the Company’s long-lived assets by major geographic region for the periods indicatedpresented (in thousands):
As of December 31,As of December 31,
2019201820212020
United StatesUnited States$109,849  $112,984  United States$79,027 $97,548 
All other countriesAll other countries1,100  1,816  All other countries4,830 4,170 
Total long-lived assetsTotal long-lived assets$110,949  $114,800  Total long-lived assets$83,857 $101,718 

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21. RESTRUCTURING AND INTEGRATION
On November 2, 2016, the Company announced plans to significantly reduce sales and marketing activities in markets outside of the United States and Canada. $0.3 million of restructuring and integration costs were incurred during 2017, and the restructuring plan was completed by December 31, 2017. All costs related to this plan were paid by this date. The Company incurred 0 restructuring and integration costs during the years ended December 31, 2019 and 2018 and does not expect to incur any additional expenses related to this restructuring plan. No goodwill, intangible assets or other long-lived assets were impaired as a result of the restructuring plan.

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22. SUBSEQUENT EVENTS19. RESTRUCTURING
On January 15,In April 2020, the Company's boardCompany announced the Restructuring Plan to help manage the near-term financial impacts of directors authorized the repurchase ofCOVID-19 pandemic. In addition to reductions and deferrals in spending, the Restructuring Plan’s cost-cutting measures included workforce reductions affecting approximately 1,000 employees and furloughs affecting approximately 1,100 additional employees, as well as salary reductions and reduced-hour work weeks. In July 2020, the Company announced an additional $250workforce reduction (separate from the Restructuring Plan) affecting approximately 60 employees. By the end of August 2020, the Company restored reduced salaries and returned many of its furloughed employees.
The Company incurred an immaterial amount of restructuring costs during the year ended December 31, 2021 and does not expect to incur any material additional restructuring costs related to the Restructuring Plan and subsequent workforce reduction in July 2020. The Company incurred $3.9 million ofin restructuring costs during the Company's common stock pursuant to its stock repurchase program, bringingyear ended December 31, 2020 in connection with terminations under the total amount authorized sinceRestructuring Plan and additional workforce reduction, which represent expenditures for severance, payroll taxes and related benefits costs. These costs were recorded as restructuring expenses on the commencement of the stock repurchase program to $950 million, of which $269 million remains available.

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Table of Contents
SELECTED QUARTERLY FINANCIAL DATA (UNAUDITED)
(In thousands, except per share data)
The following tables set forth the Company's unaudited quarterly consolidated statements of operations data for each ofoperations. Additional costs related to supporting furloughed employees incurred during the eight quarters in the two-year periodyear ended December 31, 2019 (in thousands, except per share data). The Company has prepared this quarterly data on a consistent basis with the audited consolidated financial statements included2020 were excluded from restructuring expenses and recorded in this Annual Report. In the opinion of management, the quarterly financial information reflects all necessary adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, necessary for a fair presentation of this data. This information should be read in conjunction with the audited financial statements and related notes included elsewhere in this Annual Report. The results of historical periods are not necessarily indicative of the results of operations for any future period.
Quarter Ended
Dec 31, 2019Sep 30, 2019Jun 30, 2019Mar 31, 2019Dec 31, 2018Sep 30, 2018Jun 30, 2018Mar 31, 2018
Consolidated Statements of
Operations Data:
 
Net revenue$268,823  $262,474  $246,955  $235,942  $243,740  $241,096  $234,863  $223,074  
Costs and expenses:
Cost of revenue (exclusive of depreciation and amortization shown separately below)16,656  16,514  14,975  14,265  14,255  14,177  14,708  14,732  
Sales and marketing126,370  127,655  122,045  124,316  121,256  121,759  120,653  119,641  
Product development61,138  56,661  54,566  58,075  54,273  53,764  52,789  51,493  
General and administrative34,164  39,703  30,932  31,292  29,677  30,302  28,583  32,007  
Depreciation and amortization12,849  12,391  12,240  11,876  11,557  10,713  10,509  10,028  
Total costs and expenses251,177  252,924  234,758  239,824  231,018  230,715  227,242  227,901  
Income (loss) from operations17,646  9,550  12,197  (3,882) 12,722  10,381  7,621  (4,827) 
Other income, net2,611  3,063  3,891  4,691  4,160  3,921  3,424  2,604  
Income (loss) before income taxes20,257  12,613  16,088  809  16,882  14,302  11,045  (2,223) 
Provision for (benefit from) income taxes3,105  2,552  3,785  (556) (15,064) (684) 341  63  
Net income (loss) attributable to
common stockholders
$17,152  $10,061  $12,303  $1,365  $31,946  $14,986  $10,704  $(2,286) 
Net income (loss) per share attributable
to common stockholders:
Basic$0.24  $0.14  $0.16  $0.02  $0.39  $0.18  $0.13  $(0.03) 
Diluted$0.24  $0.14  $0.16  $0.02  $0.37  $0.17  $0.12  $(0.03) 
Weighted-average shares used to compute net income (loss) per share attributable to common stockholders:
Basic70,627  70,773  75,601  81,772  82,706  84,008  83,769  83,785  
Diluted72,987  73,712  78,530  85,087  86,287  88,724  88,651  83,785  

operating expenses.
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