The other day, I was trying to find a way to link directly to a business listing in Google. There’s a lot of information available about this online, but it’s all quite disjointed. Here’s an overview of what I found.

Local reviews

Google really wants to help business owners get more reviews on Google, so they share a few different links to encourage this:

• “Write a review” URL
  • Format: https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid={googlePlaceId}
  • Requires the Google Place ID to be known
  • Will ask the user to sign in if they aren’t already
  • Example
• “Local reviews” URL
  • Format: https://search.google.com/local/reviews?placeid={googlePlaceId}
  • Requires the Google Place ID to be known
  • Does not require login, but brings up a separate popup
  • Example

URLs using CID

Opening up a location directly in Google Maps and Google Search is possible if you know the “CID” (also known as “ludocid”) of the location. You can get this through the url field in the Google Places details API endpoint.

• Maps CID URL
  • Format: https://maps.google.com/?cid={cid}
  • Requires the CID to be known
  • Will open in the Maps app on mobile if installed
  • Example
• Google Search CID URL
  • Format: https://local.google.com/place?id={cid}&use=srp
  • Requires the CID to be known
  • Only URL that opens the location in Google Search without popups
  • Example

Helpful tools

• Brightlocal Review Link Generator