Google is in talks to acquire the popular reviews website Yelp, as it looks to bolster its presence in local listings.
Reports suggest that the search engine is prepared to pay as much as $500m (£309m) for the San Francisco startup, which provides user-generated reviews of shops, restaurants and other businesses across the US.
The two companies have held discussions in the past, but serious talks about a deal are believed to have started several months ago.
Yelp - which is based in San Francisco - is one of the most popular user-generated review sites in the US, with more than 8 million reviews covering businesses all around the country.
In the past year it has made a determined effort to expand elsewhere, in particular launching in Britain last spring. The company has raised more than $30m from investors but, like most advertising-based businesses, it has found money harder to come by during the recession.
Google, for its part, has been increasingly turning to local search results and business listings it expands its ever-growing business. It has already become a major player in the sector, but is widely seen to have struggled to dominate in the same way it does in the wider web search market.
Yelp is expected to generate between $30m and $50m in revenues this year, and could provide the Silicon Valley giant with a new - and more social - way of providing information to people about their local area.
A spokeswoman for Yelp told the Guardian that the company does not comment on rumour or speculation.
If the deal goes through, it will mark the latest a flurry of activity for the world's most influential technology company. It has garnered a reputation for big money acquisitions in recent years by purchasing a string of high-profile web services, but had slowed down the number of buys it was making over the past year.
That came partially and the urging of chief executive Eric Schmidt, who has been closing down some as a way to get staff to focus more clearly on its core businesses.
The company has conducted a series of takeovers since early November, however - most notably buying the mobile advertising service AdMob for $750m.
As news of the potential deal spread around the web, experts suggested might be positive news for both companies.
"If the deal happens, then it's a good move for Yelp and its backers, who are selling at what I think is the top of the market," said Om Malik, the founder of Silicon Valley blog GigaOm.
"In the near term, the deal is good for Google as well, since it gives it a fighting chance to build a decent enough local business, something it's struggled with in the recent past."
