On Thursday, a report from The Wall Street Journal said Yelp was exploring a sale of itself.
After the news, shares of the product- and business-review website gained more than 20%.
And in a note to clients on Thursday, Gene Munster at Piper Jaffray, one of the top tech analysts on Wall Street, said he thought there was a better than 50% chance that the company would find a buyer.
Munster said in his note that he saw the most logical buyers as Google, Facebook, and Apple, writing that all of these companies "would benefit from further traction in the local advertising space, have ample capital to consummate a sale, and would experience technology infrastructure synergies."
Before Thursday's news and big spike, the most recent news out of Yelp was its quarterly earnings report, which disappointed and sent the stock tumbling.
Analysts at Jefferies also said Priceline, GrubHub, and Yahoo could make sense as buyers of Yelp. They added that Google made the most sense but noted that the companies have had a rocky relationship.
Credit Suisse noted that a hurdle to an imminent deal between Yelp and Google could be Google CFO Ruth Porat, who isn't expected to start the job until May 26.
In premarket trade Friday, Yelp shares were down about 1%.
