According to Reuters, Google has acquired the grandfather of restaurant reviews, Zagat, for an undisclosed sum.
Google has long made user ratings & reviews a part of Google Places, but the appeal of Places was mostly the tie-in to reliable location-based searching, maps & directions via Google Maps. I still expect that as Google Plus weaves a social networking thread more thoroughly into these properties, ratings will mean more. I’d love to filter reviews to only see opinions from people I care about, but at the very least, this is a step towards making all reviews less anonymous and (hopefully) more reliable. But now, Google brings the potential to tightly integrate expert local business reviews as a major element of a company’s online profile.
If this shakes down the way I expect, we’ll see Google Maps & Google Places become more valuable to consumers – and ultimately these could be major players in how buyers make decisions with the web. Keep in mind that Facebook just gave up on it’s Local Marketing Endeavor, Facebook Places, and Foursquare’s still a niche player that doesn’t even come close to having Google’s reach.
Google’s positioning itself to dominate local web marketing – and every organization should be working to lay the groundwork now to optimize its local listings and focus on Local SEO.