Citysearch is an online

city guide A guide book or travel guide is "a book of information about a place designed for the use of visitors or tourists". It will usually include information about sights, accommodation, restaurants, transportation, and activities. Maps of varying det ...

that provides information about businesses in the categories of dining, entertainment, retail, travel, and professional services in cities throughout the United States. Visitors to each of Citysearch's local city guides will find contact information, maps, driving directions, editorial, and user reviews for the businesses listed. Citysearch is headquartered in

West Hollywood West Hollywood is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Incorporated in 1984, it is home to the Sunset Strip. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 U.S. Census, its population was 35,757. It is considered one of the most ...

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

and is an owned and operated web site of CityGrid Media, which is an operating business of IAC. The original office was in Pasadena, California. Citysearch was founded in September 1995 by Jeffrey Brewer, Caskey Dickson, Brad Haaugard, Taylor Wescoatt, and Tamar Halpern.

Charles R. Conn Charles R. Conn (born 22 August 1961) is a Canadian and American CEO, conservationist and author. In 2021 he co-founded and is partner of Monograph, a life sciences venture firm. In 2019 he was the CEO of Oxford Sciences Innovation. Previously ...

was then recruited to lead the new company. The idea, initiative, and seed capital came initially from Bill Gross. In August 1998, Citysearch merged with

Ticketmaster Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation under the name Live Nation Entert ...

Online. In July 1999, Citysearch acquired the competing

Sidewalk.com The Sidewalk.com website was formerly the location of a Microsoft Corporation local information project. The website is now owned by Ask Media Group. History Sidewalk.com was first registered in 1995 by a C.D. Bell of Los Angeles, CA, as a websi ...

website from

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

, and merged the two sites together. In December 1999, Ticketmaster-CitySearch received a $40 million investment from USA Networks, Inc., then controlled by Barry Diller. In 2007, another competitor,

Insider Pages Insider Pages is an online "local search" service operated by IAC. Insider Pages was founded by Stuart MacFarlane and Sean Olson in 2004. Before its acquisition by IAC the company was based in Redwood Shores, California, and had over 600,000 rev ...

was acquired. In June 2010, Citysearch LLC rebranded as CityGrid Media. The company also operates similar local consumer properties, such as

. While many local search sites mushroomed in the 21st century, Citysearch's biggest competition comes from the fast-growing

Yelp, Inc. Yelp Inc. is an American company that develops the Yelp.com website and the Yelp mobile app, which publish crowd-sourced reviews about businesses. It also operates Yelp Guest Manager, a table reservation service. It is headquartered in San F ...

In the late 2000s, Yelp was growing at 80% while Citysearch growth remained flat. Local search engines from Bing, Google and Yahoo are also widely used alternatives to finding local businesses on the internet.

Best of Citysearch

Best of Citysearch is a feature that gives locals an opportunity to vote for their favorite businesses in popular categories such as Restaurants, Nightlife, Hotels and Services. Citysearch opens up its annual polls with nominations from editors. Throughout the voting period visitors to the site cast votes for their favorite local business. After the polls close, the top ten businesses in each category are revealed to their cities.

Criticism

*In 2005, Citysearch was criticized by a blogger for their alleged inflation of user submitted ratings and reviews. Citysearch has since updated their ratings system. Citysearch has also stated that they have the right to refuse to post or to remove any user review that violates the terms of use. Reviews that are subject to removal include unacceptable content such as profanity, personal information, promotion of illegal activity and harmful content. In November 2007, Citysearch partnered with MerchantCircle,Search Engine Watch, Nov 29, 2007
a company that conducts automated telemarketing to small businesses to sell them online advertising packages.

References

External links

* {{IAC American review websites Companies based in Los Angeles County, California Online mass media companies of the United States IAC (company) Webby Award winners City guides