Google Launches City Expert Program

Date: November 5, 2013
Category:

• Local Search

Author: Kaycie Smith

Google recently launched a new program called Google City Experts in an effort to encourage reviews for local businesses. As we have known for quite some time, reviews are an important part of any business. As consumers, reviews give us an insight that we consider to be fairly true and unbiased and these opinions are now available at our fingertips in a moments notice. What hair salon, restaurant or doctor should we go to? Check out your favorite directory on the internet and look over the host of reviews posted by like minded Googlers.

Since 2005, Yelp has had a similar program to the Google City Experts called Yelp Elite. Yelp tends to hide or “filter” reviews left by one-time reviewers. While I might read the reviews posted on Yelp, because of this, I might be less inclined to write one. On the other hand, if your business receives a review from an Elite Yelper, you move up in the Yelp search ranks. As of yet, that is not yet the case with the Google City Experts but it very well could be down the road.

Currently, the Google City Expert Program is offered only in the following U.S. Cities: Austin, Chicago, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh-Durham and San Francisco. Internationally it is available in Bristol, Edinburgh, London, Manchester, Tokyo, Osaka and Sydney.

To be selected for this program you need an active Google+ profile page. Google has also set guidelines which include a 50 review minimum. The reviews need to be well thought out and meaningful and three or four sentences long. There have been launch parties in several cities across the United States to date, including Portland, Chicago and San Francisco. The launch party in Phoenix is scheduled for mid November. Keep an eye out for my next post – I hope to have some first hand details on what exactly it means to be a Google City Expert.