Google Maps URLs

CID, Place ID, and Feature ID

• What's the difference between a CID (Customer ID), Place ID, and Feature ID?

Example URLs:

• Feature ID — https://www.google.com/maps/place/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x880e2cbee269fbbb:0xcf09307f0945d4fd!8m2!3d40!4d90
  • https://www.google.com/maps/place/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xcf09307f0945d4fd!8m2!3d40!4d90
• Place ID — https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=Skydeck+Chicago&query_place_id=CChIJu_tp4r4sDogR_dRFCX8wCc8
  • The query "fallback" seems to be fairly required?
  • Not cross-platform, because it doesn't work with Android — https://www.google.com/maps/place/?q=place_id:ChIJgUbEo8cfqokR5lP9_Wh_DaM
• CID — https://maps.google.com/?cid=14918508562816029949 (converted from hex to decimal)

Ways to convert from one to another:

• Find the Place ID of any place.
• My preferred way to get a cross-platform URL is to:
  1. On the main Google page, make a search that's able to uniquely find my desired Maps entry, and that shows it in the side infobox.
  2. Copy-and-paste that Maps URL into my URL extractor tool.
  3. The "Extracted and then decoded" field has the URL you want.
• The general way to convert these is to obtain your own API key, and make the relevant API call.
• But what if you don't have an active API key?
  • This front-end is free to try.

First-party documentation:

• Important URLs
• Map ID (AKA Feature ID)
• Place ID