According to the Google Mobile Blog, the company is now giving users the ability to rate and review local restaurants from their mobile handsets via a browser (screenshot below). On the details page for a local business, users can “sign in and write review.” Though somewhat buried, Google has made the process very simple; one can simply use a star-ratings pull-down menu to indicate approval or disapproval of the experience. No typing or narrative is required though is permitted.

The relative ease of this process should translate into additional reviews for Google, which can also be used online in Google Maps.

The best place to get visibility on local and mobile search best practices is SMX Local-Mobile, coming up next week in San Francisco.

Related Topics: Google: Maps & Local | Google: Mobile

About The Author: Greg Sterling is a Contributing Editor at Search Engine Land. He writes a personal blog Screenwerk, about SoLoMo issues and connecting the dots between online and offline. He also posts at Internet2Go, which is focused on the mobile Internet. Follow him @gsterling. See more articles by Greg Sterling