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Friday, August 28, 2015

Google's Home Services Product Finally, Officially Launches Today

You can find a plumber on Yelp, book a cleaning person on Amazon, hire a handyman on TaskRabbit — or, as of today, do all of the above through Google.

Clogged toilet? No problem — Google's got a solution for that.

Today, after much anticipation, Google is finally launching (the beta version of) its local home services product, which will allow some San Francisco Bay Area residents to request the services of handymen, home cleaners, locksmiths, and other service professionals who have been prescreened and approved by Google. The product is an extension to Google's AdWords Express, a paid app for small business owners, and it is two-pronged. People living in the Bay Area who search for a plumber will see a sponsored widget in their search results, through which they can evaluate and contact said plumber without ever leaving the search results page. For the service providers, who pay for the placement, the product is an extension of the existing Google AdWords app and will allow them to receive service requests, book jobs, and contact clients.

BuzzFeed first reported that Google was working on such a product in April. As Re/code reported in July, some queries that implied the need for a service professional — e.g., "clogged toilet" — were already returning service provider info embedded in the search results. According to the blog post announcing home services, there are millions of such searches every day.

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The product does more than provide a name and number. By choosing a given service provider and clicking "Send Request," users can actually directly contact a plumber, who can then come deal with the situation. (Or, if they prefer, they can just call them on the phone.) The customer and service provider can then arrange a deal outside of Google (unlike with Amazon, where the financial transaction actually happens on the website, making it harder to negotiate). Providing direct communication between the customer and "Magic Plumbing" or whoever else definitely makes AdWords Express home services more than the typical ad product.


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