- Running Connect a Location did not add valid Google links to your landing page
- Your Google URLs box is not showing any valid Google Search or Maps URLs
- You’re missing a Google Place ID and therefore have no Review Pop-up URL
Our Connect a Location feature pulls its Google listing information from Google’s Places API, and uses this information to serve you a selection of review site links. Sometimes, Google creates incomplete business listings for what they call “service-area businesses (SABs).” These are generally businesses for which the location either:
- Doesn’t exist (e.g. a plumber may not have a storefront or even an office)
- Is irrelevant to the business (e.g. a painting business may have its HQ in Jersey City but primarily works in Manhattan).
SABs are therefore not served up by Google’s Places API. Sometimes Google will misidentify an unclaimed or incomplete non-SAB listing, causing the same issue of no links being generated. This is something that you will eventually want to rectify with Google.
But we can help you create valid links in the meantime. In cases like this, we must manually find three unique numeral strings for the business’ listing — called the Place ID, FID, and CID — and add them in as follows:
Place ID
1) Go to Google’s Place ID finder tool at https://developers.google.com/places/place-id
2) Type in your business name for best results. Using only your business address can lead to an inaccurate Place ID. After submitting, select and copy your Place ID.
3) In your dashboard, go to Dashboard > Funnel > Links > Review Profile and click the Google URLs for this location button (You must have run Connect a Location for this to be visible).
4) Paste your Place ID in the Place ID field and press enter
5) Refresh the page in your browser.
6) Click the Google URLs for this location button again. You should now have a Review Dialog link.
CID and FID
1) Search for your business in Google, then click Write a Review (if the business does not have any reviews, expand the knowledge pane and click Be the First to Review). The resulting URL will look similar to this (note that a link like this – without going through the following steps – will not work with Review Monitoring):
https://www.google.com/search?q=union+pizza+works&oq=union+pizza+works&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2j69i60j0l2.1968j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#lrd=0x89c25ea78efb9e83:0xfb2901bc8fd3383a,3,,
2) Find your FID in the URL. Select and copy the string of hexadecimal digits from “0x” on. Using the above example, that would be “0x89c25ea78efb9e83:0xfb2901bc8fd3383a”
3) Find your CID. From the string in step 2, select and copy only the string of hexadecimal digits after “:0x“. Using the above example, that would be “fb2901bc8fd3383a“.
Note that the CID is also contained in the FID (CID in bold): 0x89c25ea78efb9e83:0xfb2901bc8fd3383a
4) In your dashboard, go to Dashboard > Funnel > Links > Review Profile and click the Google URLs for this location button (You must have run Connect a Location for this to be visible).
5) Paste the result from step 2 in the bottom Google FID field, and the results from step 3 into the Google CID field (click the text to change).
5) Refresh the page in your browser.
6) Click the Google URLs for this location button again. The correct Google links will now appear in the list. You can use any of these new URLs as your Google link and it they will be monitored.
Click your preferred URL to select it, then copy it to your clipboard.
Adding the link to the landing page
1) Manually add a Google link if you don’t have one, or click the Pencil icon (
) to edit an existing Google link.
2) Paste any of your newly generated URLs as your call-to-action URL. Press Submit to save your changes.
