For many people, services like Tripadvisor or Yelp are the reference sites when looking for reviews of restaurants, local attractions and service providers. But Google is not outdone by its review system on Google Maps, and now it has added a really useful new feature: search within reviews.
A priori it may seem like a fairly simple option, but there are countless uses you can make of keyword searches in Google Maps reviews. For example, you could use this to search for information about specific foods that people have talked about in restaurant reviews or to see if someone accuses a business of a specific behaviour you want to avoid.
How to search for keywords in Google Maps reviews
At the moment, this feature is available on the Android and iOS versions of Google Maps, so don’t try to look for the option in the web version.
First, make sure you have your Google Maps application up to date. If so, follow these instructions to search the reviews:
- Open Google Maps and do a simple restaurant search (for example).
- Click on the restaurant to see its description page.
- In the centre of the screen, enter the “reviews” tab.
- Once you have the list of opinions, you can organize them as you like, and search for keywords within the reviews.
This, added to the ability of Google Maps to make recommendations based on your tastes, is making the application a must for any traveler.