The Product Experts Program from Google is a community of passionate users who are recognized by Google for their exceptional knowledge and helpfulness in Google’s online help forums.
The product experts are not Google employees but rather enthusiastic volunteers who love Google products and enjoy helping people around the world using them.
These experts offer advice, share best practices, troubleshoot problems, and generally create a positive and supportive environment for other users across a wide range of Google products (e.g., Ads, Search, Maps, Photos, YouTube and many others).
Where To Find Google Product Experts?
Google has support communities for most of its products. You can access these communities by to the support section of a specific product and looking for the ‘community’ section.
How does the Google Product Experts Program work?
There three main aspects of Google Product Experts Program, Participation, Recognition, and Perks.
Product Experts actively participate in Google’s help communities by answering questions, providing solutions, sharing their insights, and mentoring other experts in the community.
Google recognizes helpful contributors through a tiered status system and a manual review process by community managers.
There are five levels of these product experts:
- Bronze: It’s awarded automatically when someone starts contributing and reaches 100 points for their contributions. It needs at least one Recommended Answer by the community members.
- Silver: It is awarded to product enthusiasts who demonstrate developing product knowledge.
- Gold: Gold Product Experts are trusted experts with strong knowledge about the product in question. They are consistent contributors to the community.
- Platinum: Platinum Product Experts are experienced experts who mentor others, create content, and go beyond just providing support.
- Diamond: It’s the the highest level, reserved for the most active and knowledgeable experts.
It is very important to understand that when some start contribution as a Google product expert, the Bronze level in automatically awarded based on the expert’s contributions. But, all other levels of the product experts program are manually reviewed by Google help community and product managers.
As Product Experts gain status, they can unlock many benefits such as:
- Exclusive badges and recognition
- Listing in Google’s official Product Experts Directory
- Early access to new/beta Google features
- Direct communication channels with Google teams
- Invitations to special events and summits around the world
Google Top Contributor Program Vs Product Experts Program
The Google’s Product Experts Program was known as Top Contributor Program initially. It was renamed in early 2019. In the Top Contributor Program, there used to two levels only – Rising Stars (RS) and Top Contributors (TC).
I have been the part of these programs from Google since 2015. So yes, I was a Rising Star and then became a TC in 2016. When the product experts program came into existence, all TCs were given the Gold Levels. And later they were promoted based on their contributions.
I have been associated with 5 Google help communities by now and helping everyday Google users in Google Ads, Google Search, Google Photos, Android TV, and Files By Google communities. I have been active in Google Ads community all these years and attended expert only events, one of the exclusive program perks, in many countries like USA, Ireland, United Kingdom, Singapore, India etc.. Currently, I am a Platinum Level Product Expert for Google Ads.
Do Google Product Experts get paid?
No. Google product experts do not get paid. However, expert only events are funded by Google. Hotels, foods, and flights are all taken care of by Google, even for outside the country summits.
The recognition that product experts get, exclusive beta testing opportunities, access to direct product managers for product feedbacks, invites to global summits, and free goodies are great perks for Google product experts.
How to become the part of Google’s product Experts Program?
The first thing is to start contributing in Google help communities and sign up for the Product Experts Program. As you move past the Bronze status, your contributions are consistently evaluated by fellow contributors and Google community manager(s). Such reviews are usually done twice a year. If you are found to be a great contributors, you are contacted by community managers.
