Google Launches New City Experts Project to Attract Reviewers and Rival Yelp

According to foreign media reports on August 4th, Beijing time, Google quietly announced the launch of a new project called City Experts this Friday, mainly providing additional convenient services for Google+ users who frequently search for local restaurants, bars, and shops on Google Maps.

To participate in this project, you must register as a Google+ user, write more than 50 "high-quality" reviews, and ensure that you publish more than 5 reviews each month. Previously, Google just launched the iOS, Android, and Web versions of Google Maps. Zagat, Google's restaurant review service, and comments from Google+ users in search results have become an important part of the new version of Google Maps.

So, what are the standards for a high-quality City Expert review? Google said: "A high-quality review usually consists of three to four sentences, describing specific, useful, and fair information about a particular business." Users who successfully register for the "City Experts" project or publish 50 reviews on Google Maps will be invited to join a Google+ community created by other Google+ friends. These reviews can be displayed on the local Google+ platform. Once joined, Google will send you an email every month with the latest and hottest reviews of the month, offering local discount information, free Google branded products, and invitations to join local special gatherings, etc.

Currently, within the United States, Google only accepts registration applications for the City Expert project in Austin, Chicago, New York, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina, and San Francisco. In the UK, cities where Google accepts applications for this project include Bristol, Edinburgh, London, and Manchester. Google also accepts applications from Google+ users in Sydney, Australia, and Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Google says the company hopes to expand the project to more cities in the future.

Currently, Yelp has always been the preferred website for users to post reviews of local stores. However, it is clear that Google is making efforts to attract local store reviewers and prove the correctness of these businesses choosing to advertise on Google through store reviews displayed on Google Maps.