Why isn't Yelp returning all of the results?

Question

I am using the Business Search function in the Yelp Fusion Api.

Why can't I seem to get all of the businesses?

Here is an example:

When I make this request, it returns a the first 20 results and a total property of 485.

https://api.yelp.com/v3/businesses/search?limit=20&term=childcare&location=NY

However, if I add an offset, it doesn't return any results. Even though it should return results 450-470.

https://api.yelp.com/v3/businesses/search?limit=20&term=childcare&location=NY&offset=450

Here is the output after adding the offset:

{
  "businesses": [],
  "total": 485,
  "region": {
    "center": {
        "longitude": -73.99429321289062,
        "latitude": 40.70544486444615
    }
  }
}

Can you post the output from API as well as I'm not able to reproduce the same. — Dipen Shah, Aug 10 '18 at 16:31
@DipenShah I posted a sample output. I think I had a mistake in my original url. Sorry about that. — Jack Fairfield, Aug 10 '18 at 21:20
Running the same query gives me 22700 results, so still can't reproduce it. — Dipen Shah, Aug 10 '18 at 21:23
@DipenShah Oops.... I think I still had a messed up url. Try it now: https://api.yelp.com/v3/businesses/search?limit=20&term=childcare&location=NY&offset=450 — Jack Fairfield, Aug 10 '18 at 21:31
@DipenShah I have noticed this issue in multiple different queries. I wonder if there is any workaround. — Jack Fairfield, Aug 10 '18 at 22:06
There is an open issue on Github so most probably there isn't any work around. — Dipen Shah, Aug 10 '18 at 23:21
@DipenShah I created the issue on Github just a few minutes ago... — Jack Fairfield, Aug 10 '18 at 23:30
I'm talking about https://github.com/Yelp/yelp-fusion/issues/264, Not the one you created. — Dipen Shah, Aug 10 '18 at 23:49

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 16 '18 at 15:17

3

The API doesn't return the correct "total" number of results available. Try loading https://api.yelp.com/v3/businesses/search?limit=20&offset=330&term=childcare&location=NY - this is the last page of results I was able to find, at offset 330. If you change the offset to 350, no businesses will be returned.

Seems like you'll have to scan through the list from the front until you stop getting businesses back in your results since the total is unreliable.

answered Aug 16 '18 at 15:17

Zach Bloomquist

3,805
21
36

But there are some results (with reviews) that aren't in the results set if you search on yelp's website. It seems like the total is more accurate. – Jack Fairfield Aug 16 '18 at 15:27
Maybe their API isn't returning all the results it has for some reason. – Zach Bloomquist Aug 16 '18 at 15:28
1

Hmm.... Yeah. Ok, I'll have to admit it is a bug and just hope yelp can get back to me via github. Thanks for your response. – Jack Fairfield Aug 16 '18 at 15:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 17 '19 at 03:57

I had the same problem, and I've discovered that if you don't set the "limit" parameter, it will default to 20. However, I have also discovered that the maximum you can set "limit" to is 50, and when I did that I had 50 results instead of the 20 I had when I did not set the "limit" parameter.

In my case, I plan to now narrow my search radius and run a script that will call many different areas with individual URLs in order to get around this. Let me know if this is also what you experience.

Why isn't Yelp returning all of the results?

2 Answers2