Google is currently in negotiations with Yelp to acquire the company for $500 million. The deal has yet to be finalized, but as sources confirm, the deal is 80% likely to go through.
Yelp is a website that allows members to review local businesses from local nightlife, shopping centers to restaurants and religious organizations. Users can submit reviews and ratings on their experience for other curious shoppers to see. Yelp is available in The United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, which offers location services to find places near you.
Yelp was founded in 2004 and quickly grew to 9 million unique visitors a month, according to Comscore, but Yelp claims that the numbers are around 25 million unique visitors a month.
If and when the deal goes through, Google will likely combine the review website and its Google Map services together. Google is said to be building the local businesses reviews into its Maps and its local search.
Google is already building their local business index, but since Yelp already has all of this information Google could easily integrate all of this information right into its search engine and directory.