Yelp pages will now show you if a business is following coronavirus safety guidelines like spacing out tables and requiring staff to wear masks

• Yelp pages will now include information on business' coronavirus safety measures.
• New coronavirus safety sections will show whether a business is following social distancing and PPE guidelines, and will also come with a time stamp for the information.
• The information is volunteered by business owners, while its accuracy is enforced by customer feedback.
• "A lot of businesses pivoted to a new model over the last few months, and we wanted to make sure that we enable local businesses to make that pivot," Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, Yelp's head of consumer product, told Business Insider.
• The pandemic has forced customers to shift a large portion of their spending decisions online, and Yelp's new features make cleanliness indicators a part of restaurants' digital presence.

Yelp business pages will now come with a coronavirus safety section, the review aggregator announced in a blog post on Tuesday.

Business pages will now include information on whether a business enforces social distancing, sanitizes between customers, or requires masks or temperature checks for customers. The new sections will also notify customers on whether staff wears masks and gloves and sanitizes between customers, and if hand sanitizer and contactless payment methods are available.

The safety section will also include a timestamp to let customers know when a business's information was last updated. And at the top of each business page, there's a COVID banner where business owners can write and update a customized message.

"A lot of businesses pivoted to a new model over the last few months, and we wanted to make sure that we enable local businesses to make that pivot," Akhil Kuduvalli Ramesh, Yelp's head of consumer product, told Business Insider.

As the country starts to reopen, safety guidelines for businesses remain inconsistent across jurisdictions. Yelp's new ten-point safety checklist is comprised of the ten biggest consumer concerns the company found after conducting its own surveys and analyzing outside research.

Business owners will be able to select which safety measures they have implemented. Yelp does not have an internal vetting process to ensure that the information is accurate. Instead, it relies on customer feedback. When a customer visits a business, they will be able to confirm or deny that a business is following the safety measures listed on its page.

Restaurant analyst John Gordon told Business Insider in April that clear communication with customers and visible signs of cleanliness should be two of restaurants' top priorities as they reopen.

"There will have to be much more attention to operational protocols in terms of reassuring customers about sanitation and handling in the stores," Gordon said.

Yelp's new features essentially make those cleanliness indicators part of a restaurant's digital presence. And as consumers make an increasing number of their purchasing decisions online, a restaurant's digital presence has become more important than ever for communicating with and attracting customers.