PotGuide is sort of like Leafly’s little brother. This site doesn’t have anywhere near Leafly or WeedMaps’ traffic, but it’s nearly as reputable in almost every way.
Covering an impressively robust array of topics, PotGuide firmly places its focus on the “legalized marijuana” industry, which most of us know as the recreational cannabis industry. While PotGuide may not be quite as hip to culture as certain Silicon Valley sites, this Rocky Mountain platform is true to recreational cannabis culture.
Since it’s reputable, informative, and offers truly valuable product and dispensary guides, we sometimes use PotGuide as a source at Best Dosage. Learn why as we review the authority and usefulness of PotGuide.
PotGuide quick facts
1. Launched in 2013
2. Based in Denver, Colorado
3. A product of the recreational cannabis revolution
4. Encyclopedic source of strain-specific product and dispensary info
5. Reasonably large player within the cannabis information landscape
Extensive focus on recreational cannabis in the USA
Each major cannabis website has a specific niche. For PotGuide, that niche is recreational cannabis.
You can find information on pretty much anything cannabis-related on PotGuide. This platform made its name, however, as a recreational-specific cannabis website, and many of PotGuide’s core services remain focused on recreational cannabis.
This business attitude speaks to PotGuide’s roots. Colorado was one of the two first states to legalize recreational cannabis, and PotGuide sprang into existence almost immediately afterward.
If there’s anything you want to know about US recreational cannabis from a business, culture, or product data standpoint, PotGuide is the place to look. While it isn’t a sprawling mega-conglomerate like some of its competitors, PotGuide is big enough to carry some clout.
Authoritative source of state-specific cannabis info
The PotGuide website is clearly designed to center around state-specific cannabis information. On PotGuide’s homepage, there’s a huge map that instantly orients visitors regarding the ongoing cannabis legalization situation in the United States.
You can click on any state to be routed to a landing page with basic state-specific cannabis information. Or, you can select a state from a dropdown to find local dispensaries anywhere in the US.
Even better, you can use PotGuide’s main menu to find everything from dispensary data to cannabis legal information in every state that has legalized cannabis to at least some degree. At Best Dosage, we often go to PotGuide first when we’re on the hunt for state-specific cannabis law info or dispensary reviews.
PotGuide also has a Canadian cannabis information area that’s easy to find by clicking the bright red maple leaf in the main menu. Rather than making a separate Canadian website like some cannabis sites have done, PotGuide has opted to provide a handful of hub pages around which its Canada-specific information is oriented.
Cannabis-friendly lodging guides and extensive travel guides
Certain hotels and other lodging providers throughout the United States have taken a relaxed stance toward cannabis. PotGuide has an intuitive feature you can use to find “420 Friendly Lodging” in a handful of US states.
PotGuide has also produced an extensive series of state-specific travel guides. You can use these guides to discover cannabis-related retailers, annual events, and other facets of the cannabis industry you can only experience in certain areas.
Informative cannabis and CBD reviews
Like many of its competitors, PotGuide has amassed an ample number of entries in its guide to different cannabis strains. What sets PotGuide apart, however, is its extensive array of authoritative reviews on products within both the hemp and cannabis industries.
On the PotGuide review page, you can find dozens of reviews of cannabis and hemp products. Unlike PotGuide’s strain guides, these reviews are of specific products, not just a particular strain of cannabis genetics.
It’s true that most of PotGuide’s older reviews were of cannabis flower, and this publisher has only branched out into hemp products recently. Rather than conveying inexperience, however, this fact indicates that PotGuide is rapidly expanding and will become even more reliable in the future.
Exhaustive educational content
PotGuide’s Educational Guides section is a treasure trove of information on a vast array of different cannabis topics. These guides are arranged intuitively, and PotGuide continues producing new educational content on a regular basis.
In terms of caliber, PotGuide educational content is some of the highest-quality cannabis content you can find anywhere on the web. When appropriate, relevant sources are cited, and PotGuide’s educational content topics range from the very basic to the intricately complex.
Robust news service
PotGuide’s educational content dovetails nicely with its news section. In some cases, these two sides of PotGuide intertwine, but the PotGuide Marijuana News section is where you’ll want to go to get an idea of the current state of the cannabis world.
It’s important to remember that PotGuide started out as a dispensary guide, became a cannabis education powerhouse, and only recently started focusing on news. Go to Marijuana Business Daily if you need down-to-the-minute updates on everything that’s happening in international cannabis.
If you want to be entertained or uplifted by interesting cannabis tidbits, however, the PotGuide news section is a lightweight yet authoritative source.
Growing cannabis authority with plenty to prove
PotGuide isn’t within the top five cannabis websites, but it’s firmly within the top 10. As a result, this site is near enough the pinnacle to be held accountable yet far enough away to strive for excellence.
We like PotGuide for what it does best. It’s a great place to find dispensaries in a state you’re traveling to and pick a 420-friendly bed-and-breakfast.
We also like PotGuide, however, for what it might do. This platform has started putting on a lot of different hats recently, and swift expansion seems on the horizon for PotGuide.
PotGuide overall score
All things considered, we give PotGuide a none-too-shabby overall score of 4.94 out of 5.
Authority: 4.8/5
Clarity: 5/5
Sourcing: 5/5
Topics: 5/5
Community: 4.9/5
PotGuide is smaller than some of the giants even if it harbors huge aspirations. This platform’s content is easy to navigate and understand, however, and it’s very well-sourced.
Covering an ever-increasing number of topics, PotGuide content is rapidly becoming more authoritative. PotGuide fills a critical role by helping recreational cannabis customers find dispensaries and vice versa, but this site hasn’t gotten quite big enough to take on a truly pivotal role within the cannabis community.
