In the wake of a lawsuit that accused Yelp of extortion, the reviews site on Tuesday said it will revamp the way it displays reviews and eliminate its "favorite review" feature.

In the wake of a lawsuit that accused Yelp of extortion, the reviews site on Tuesday said it will revamp the way it displays reviews and eliminate its "favorite review" feature.

The "favorite review" feature allowed companies to pay for the right to select their favorite user review and have that review prominently featured on their Yelp page. Yelp will eliminate this feature, as well as provide the option for users to read reviews that have been filtered out by Yelp engineers.

"While Yelp has seen tremendous growth in just a few years, we're still new to a lot of people. Despite our best efforts to educate consumers and the small business community, myths about Yelp have persisted," Yelp chief executive Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a blog post.

Earlier this year, a group of small businesses filed a class-action lawsuit against Yelp, accusing the site of demanding monthly payments in exchange for the removal of negative reviews.

At the time, Stoppelman said the lawsuit was "false and easily refuted" and "borne from a lack of understanding of how Yelp works to provide consumers with useful information."

Stoppelman suggested that the lawyers for the companies suing Yelp had heard about Yelp's recent financing round "and may be seeking a share."

That case is still ongoing, but Yelp is now revamping the way it displays reviews in an effort to increase transparency.

"Lifting the veil on our review filter and doing away with 'Favorite Review' will make it even clearer that displayed reviews on Yelp are completely independent of advertising -- or any sort of manipulation," Stoppelman wrote. "We also hope it will demonstrate the importance of a safeguard such as our filter and the unique challenge we face daily to maintain the integrity of the review content on our site."

In order to weed out disingenuous reviews, Yelp employs a reviews engine that selects those that are most likely from a real Yelp reviewer. This protects businesses from unfavorable reviews that might be written by a competitor as well as glowing reviews that might have been written by an employee, not a customer, Stoppelman said.

Going forward, users will be able to read reviews that are not selected for display on a company's Yelp page, "and see for yourself the work the review filter has done behind the scenes," Stoppleman said. "You can see that Yelp's review filter works just the same for advertisers and non-advertisers alike. There is not  nor ever has been  a bias."

This does not mean Yelp will abandon the filter  "our engineers remain hard at work," he said.

How will Yelp recoup the dollars lost from eliminating "favorite review"? The site will allow companies to add a video to the photo slideshow on their business page.

"Additionally, in an effort to more formally integrate feedback from the business community, we've created a Small Business Advisory Council whose members will provide Yelp management with guidance and perspective regarding the concerns of small business owners," Stoppelman wrote.

Most users won't notice the changes, he said, "but we hope this new ability to 'look under the hood' will help everyone understand the lengths we've taken to ensure Yelp is the most trusted resource on the internet for connecting people with great local businesses."

Jared H. Beck, the lawyers for the companies suing Yelp, said the changes "are an important first step in the right direction for the thousands of businesses who have seen their livelihoods trampled or threatened by Yelp's extortionate practices."

Among Beck's clients is Cats & Dogs Animal Hospital in Long Beach, Calif., which said that Yelp demanded a $300 per month payment in exchange for removing a Yelp review the hospital considered to be false and defamatory.

Astro Appliance Service in San Carlos, Calif. also accused Yelp of promising prioritized placement over competitors if they agreed to become a paying Yelp sponsor. Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago, meanwhile, said Yelp told them the site would push bad reviews to the bottom of the pile if they paid up, according to Beck.

Don't think Tuesday's changes mean an end to the case.

"There is much work left to be done through the legal process, including the looming issues of Yelp's 'pay to play' sales tactics, as well as the pursuit of substantial restitution and damages owed to the class members," Beck said.