Finding the Google My Business CID, PlaceID, FID and MREID

Every Google My Business listing has a range of identification numbers/codes. Some can be used in generating Review links (now better done with the Google Short name); others are simply identification numbers for clarity and tracking.

The best known for Google My Business listings is the CID – and the one you most need when you’re troubleshooting or requesting help.

These identification numbers are also helpful to put into structured data in your website. It helps reduce ambiguity for Google, and strengthen the location signals for the pages on your site.

Google CID / ludocid

A Google CID (Customer ID Number) is a unique identifier Google assigns to a specific businesses entity. It is used by Google to cluster information about a business across Google My Business and Google Maps products. It can also be used to view a specific business.

It’s also one of the most frequently used identification numbers.

Why you need the Google CID

If you ever have an issue with your business listing, your CID is the best way to be hyper-specific when troubleshooting your GMB listing.

This is one of the key identifiers for a local business listing, and I highly recommend you make a record of it. Why? Occasionally Google goofs and mixes listings up, wrongly suspends listings, restores old archived listings, or makes duplicate listings.

There is value in keeping your original listing – age, history, associations, and so on. This CID lets you keep track of it in a way a regular maps search doesn’t. It’s also a good idea to use this link in your website structured data, to help Google from getting itself confused.

How to find your Google CID

There are a few ways to find the CID. This is most easily done on a desktop and works for both shopfronts and service area businesses.

Google My Business Dashboard

If you hover over the “View on Maps” link on your dashboard, you can see the link at the bottom of your browser. You can also click the link and the web page address will provide you with the CID. It follows immediately after “ludocid=” part of the string and is a series of 18 numbers.

In this case, the CID is 999992442715585828.

https://www.google.com.au/search?q=Your+Busisness+Name&ludocid=999992442715585828&lsig=A...

Tools to find your CID

There are also a range of tools to make this easier. There are chrome extensions, many GMB listing management tools give you this info, and there are a few good CID finder online tools.

Page Code Method

1. Go to Google Maps
2. Look up the business by name & address so it’s the only business displaying on the left hand side of your screen with a map on the right
   • View the page sourceGo to the URL bar and type view-source: in front of the link OR
   • Click in the whitespace near the name and right-click – select “view page source” from the menu
3. hold the CTRL and F keys on the new page that’s covered in web programming language. It should create a search / find box in the upper right corner of your screen (Chrome) or lower left hand corner (Firefox). Safari makes this difficult, so am skipping that browser.
4. Enter ludocid in the search box and tap enter.
5. After the text the browser has highlighted, you’ll see a set of 7 characters: \\u003d.
6. And after the “d”, you’ll see a series of numbers – that’s the CID.

To test your CID, add it after the following in the web address bar: https://google.com/maps/?cid=

Example CID

https://www.google.com/maps?cid=1083889242972429966

the Google PlaceID

A PlaceID is another unique identifier Google assigns to a specific business location. Most tools you would use to find the PlaceID won’t find it for service area businesses.

There are two uses of the Place ID.

1. The Google Places API. You use this ID to ask Google perform an action or return information about a business listing.
2. Used to create a URL which can show all the reviews for a business, or display a page where users can write a new review for a business.

Case 2 used to be a good way to generate the Google Write a Review link for any business. That has been overtaken by the Google Short name.

How to find your PlaceID

Google PlaceID tool & other online tools

These tools only work for shopfront type businesses. Business types which hide their address (such as service area businesses) will not be found, as Google’s API does not return non-physical locations.

Page Code Method

1. Go to Google Maps
2. Look up the business by name & address so it’s the only business displaying on the left hand side of your screen with a map on the right
   • View the page sourceGo to the URL bar and type view-source: in front of the link OR
   • Click in the whitespace near the name and right-click – select “view page source” from the menu
3. hold the CTRL and F keys on the new page that’s covered in web programming language. It should create a search / find box in the upper right corner of your screen (Chrome) or lower left hand corner (Firefox). Safari makes this difficult, so am skipping that browser.
4. Enter null,\”ChIJ in the search box and tap enter.
5. The PlaceID is a weird set of numbers and letters 27 characters in length.

Example PlaceID

The “old” way of generating a link to write new reviews uses the PlaceID ChIJa9YEa61QkWsReBrzeLvXC9s as follows

https://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJa9YEa61QkWsReBrzeLvXC9s

Notes:

• PlaceID’s vary in length.
• They can also vary in beginning characters. The use case given above is what you will typically find for a business. An example of variation in beginning characters is the Island Garden Walk in Singapore – PlaceID = Eh5Jc2xhbmQgR2FyZGVucyBXYWxrLCBTaW5nYXBvcmUiLiosChQKEgkJNMihKRfaMRGZCT_CsYZkxhIUChIJBZhgpxQX2jERfEp8XAH-XYY

0x6b9150ad6b04d66b:0xdb0bd7bb78f31a78

Google MREID (Machine-Readable Entity ID)

This is the least known of the identifiers Google use on listings. This appears to be the main identifier Google use across products to cluster information.

You may have seen articles saying MREID increases visibility. Without test results, I’m suspicious of the claim. However, disambiguation is ALWAYS a good idea and may help increase visibility.

How to use an MREID

Primarily you’d put this in your website structured data in a schema.org “sameAs” property.

How to find your MREID

Google Trends

Go to Google Trends and enter your brand name or partial name. Look for a type of search other than “search term”. The MREID does not show for search terms. If you don’t see it, use the page code method.

Once you click on the entity, you can see how much brand recognition Google is tracking. You’ll also see the MREID as part of the URL:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=%2Fg%2F1td76qvq

In this example the MREID is 1td76qvq

Page Code Method

1. Go to Google Maps
2. Look up the business by name & address so it’s the only business displaying on the left hand side of your screen with a map on the right
   • View the page sourceGo to the URL bar and type view-source: in front of the link (Chrome) OR
   • Click in the whitespace near the name and right-click – select “view page source” (Chrome) / Show Page Source (Safari) from the menu
3. Hold the CTRL and F keys on the new page that’s covered in web programming language. It should create a search / find box in the upper right corner of your screen (Chrome) or lower left hand corner (Firefox). Safari makes this difficult, so am skipping that browser.
4. Enter n,\”/g/ in the search box and tap enter. This is the code you normally see for GMB listings. Even unclaimed listings have this ID.
   If your listing is older and listed in Freebase or Wikipedia, you may see a variation -search for n,\”/m/
5. The MREID is a short set of numbers and letters between the “/” and subsequent “\”
6. Add to your structured data in a link

Example MREID usage

"SameAs": ["https://www.google.com/search?q=Taylor+Swift&kponly&kgmid=/m/0dl567"]

Replace the “Taylor+Swift” with your business name, and the /m/0dl567 with /g/yourMREID.

note: I have seen other articles on the web stating you only need to search for “/g/” to find the MREID. While it’s true you can find it that way, you’ll also find other information on the listing with differing characters following. They’re part of this entity, but not the precise identification you need.

Links to helpful tools

• Chrome extensions to easily find your CID
  • Company Information in Google
  • GatherUp Google Review Link Generator
• Pleper, a Google My Business tool – https://pleper.com/
• Brightlocal’s Review Link Generator Tool – https://www.brightlocal.com/free-local-seo-tools/google-id-and-review-link-generator/
• Hex to decimal converter – https://www.rapidtables.com/convert/number/hex-to-decimal.html
• Google’s PlaceID finder tool https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/javascript/examples/places-placeid-finder
• Google My Business API – https://developers.google.com/my-business/content/overview