Zagat May Be Sold By Google

Google acquired the popular U.S. restaurant review guide Zagat back in 2011 for $151 million. According to a new report, the company is now thinking about selling this property. The company is said to have held informal talks with several companies about selling Zagat. It’s also claimed that any deal is likely going to involve the Zagat brand name and website.

Zagat reviews are incorporated by Google in its restaurant listings. The website, Zagat.com, is maintained by a small team at Google. It features articles about restaurants in major cities.

It’s going to be a change in strategy for the company if it does decide to offload Zagat. It once had ambitious plans for this property which were headed by ex-Googler Marissa Mayer who later went on to become the CEO of Yahoo.

Once Google started focusing more on its Google+ social network, Zagat became less of a priority for the company. This effort many be part of Google’s parent company Alphabet’s move to offload small non-core assets in order to focus more on the core businesses in its portfolio.

Sources mentioned in the Reuters report claim that it’s unclear how much Google is asking for Zagat and that there’s no certainty if it’s even going to agree to a sale. A spokeswoman for the company declined to comment on the report so there’s no word as yet from the company about this.

Adnan Farooqui
Categories: General
Tags: Google, zagat