Back in 2011, Google bought Zagat with the hopes that it would offer restaurant reviews in its search results, but things didn’t really pan out for the search engine giant. Google has apparently sold Zagat to the restaurant discovery platform, The Infatuation.
The Infatuation plans to keep Zagat as a separate brand and increase its exposure. At the same time, the company plans help it with a “tech-drive platform” that will provide a “more meaningful alternative” to crowdsource review sites like Yelp.
The terms of the deal weren’t made public, but Google had bought Zagat for $151 million. The deal with The Infatuation probably wasn’t nearly as high, so Google probably sold it at a significant loss. Google doesn’t really need the cash, but there was also no point in holding onto the brand since it wasn’t really serving its original purpose it was bought for.
Google didn’t provide a reason why it was selling Zagat, but the restaurant review brand hasn’t had much luck either. The brand’s listings were integrated into Maps and other Google service, but everything went pretty silent in 2013 until the release of a reworked Zagat app and new website in 2016.
