Restaurant recommendation service Yelp will soon add hygiene scores to reviews in several cities.

Yelp’s stock price took a sharp dive after the debut of Facebook’s new search capability, Graph Search, Tuesday. Investors seemed concerned because Graph Search can show you restaurants your friends like, so you can take recommendations from friends rather than strangers. But perhaps with hygiene scores and detailed reviews, Yelp can remain a destination for people looking for places to eat.

The iniative will start with establishments in New York and San Francisco in the next few weeks. After that, it will expand to Chicago, Boston, Philadephia, and potentially other cities.

Examples of places that already have health scores on Yelp include San Francisco’s Royal Ground Coffee and The Cheese Steak Shop.

Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman explains in a blog post today that the service doesn’t necessarily help Yelp’s finances, but it could have a “positive impact on society”:

Today, we’re excited to join San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee in announcing that restaurant hygiene scores from the City of San Francisco will be imported onto Yelp business pages. This is huge news in itself, but perhaps the bigger news is what we’ve created to enable this new business attribute: a new open data standard — the “Local Inspector Value-entry Specification” or, simply, LIVES.

The LIVES standard was co-developed by Yelp and the technology departments of the cities of San Francisco and New York. The standard was created with the guidance and encouragement of the White House.

LIVES enables local municipalities to display their hygiene inspection data as a business attribute on Yelp. Consumers in SF and NYC will be the first to benefit from this program as it rolls out in the weeks ahead. San Francisco users will be able to click through and view the inspection history of a local establishment.

Public/private partnerships like this don’t necessarily provide a direct contribution to Yelp’s bottom line, but evidence suggests the LIVES open data standard will have a positive impact on society.

Woman covering mouth while eating via Blend Images/Shutterstock

When you look at products online at Amazon or another site, it’s instinctual to take a glance at the star ratings by your peers. But with a new expose just posted by the New York Times about user review bribery, this is a good time to remind yourself not to trust those reviews.

The article shows how a small company called VIP Deals (which has no website) offered a full refund on a product in exchange for a user review.

On Amazon.com, VIP Deals was selling a Vipertek-made leather case for the Kindle Fire for only $10. After a user purchased the case, VIP Deals would send a letter to the user offering a refund in exchange for a review.

“In return for writing the review, we will refund your order so you will have received the product for free for a review,” the letter said. “Please also rate your five-star experience. We strive to earn 100 percent perfect ‘FIVE-STAR’ scores from you!”

Amazon told the New York Times that VIP Deals had violated its guidelines, which prohibit compensation for user reviews. The VIP Deals company page and its products are no longer listed on Amazon.com.

What the story amounts to is another lesson on what sources you can trust online. Not all user reviews are fakes, obviously, but it’s a good idea to do your own research before you buy. And if you want a second opinion then, hell, may just go back to “word of mouth” as your primary trusted source.

[Computer user image: Ivan Nakonechnyy/Shutterstock]

Net revenue for the first nine months of 2011 was $58.4 million, up 80 percent from a year earlier. About $40 million came from local advertising, $12.6 million from brand ads, and $5.4 million from other.

Yelp is seeking to raise about $100 million. The company has $23 million in cash.

Yelp lost $7.6 million for the nine-month period, compared to a loss of $8.5 million a year earlier.

The company has 22 million reviews on businesses as of Sept. 30, up 66 percent from a year ago. Yelp says there are more than 27 million businesses in the U.S., according to the Census Bureau. Those local businesses spent $19.6 billion on online ads and $113.6 billion on traditional offline ads in 2010.

The service has 61 million monthly unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year ago.

Some 529,000 local businesses have claimed their locations on Yelp.

Yelp is in 65 markets around the world, compared to 49 a year ago.

Every second or so, a consumer looks up directions to or calls a local business from a Yelp mobile app.

Yelp recognized revenue from 19,000 active local business accounts for the quarter ended Sept. 30, up 75 percent from a year ago.

The average Yelp review has more than 100 words.

During the quarter ended Sept. 30, contributors submitted over 25,000 reviews per day.

About 23 percent of businesses that have been reviewed are restaurants and another 23 percent are shopping locations. About 10 percent are home and local services, 9 percent are beauty and fitness, 8 percent are arts and entertainment and events, 5 percent are health, 4 percent are auto, 4 percent are nightlife and 4 percent are travel and hotel. About 10 percent are other.

The company has not been shy about its plans to IPO. Indeed, it even stated so at VentureBeat’s MobileBeat conference this year. Chief executive officer Jeremy Stoppelman said, “We’re venture backed. We’re going to go public.”

The company began getting its IPO ducks in row with the late July hiring of Yelp chief financial officer Rob Krolik. Over the last two weeks, the company brought on its bankers, solidifying plans completely.

The filing states the company’s proposed maximum aggregate price is $100 million. In the first nine months of 2011, Yelp raked in $58.4 million in net revenue. That’s nearly $26 million more than it’s reported $32.5 million in the first nine months of 2010. The company earns money through local advertising, brand advertising along with other forms such as revenue from Yelp Deals, which the company recently scaled back to improve efficiency. The company also has revenue sharing agreements with OpenTable and Orbitz.