Here's a quick tip for anyone that's been wanting to prompt your visitors/customers/members to review your business on Google maps.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's no official documentation on how to link to your Google business page and automatically get the review box to open.

It used to be possible in an old version where there was a URL parameter name review or something that would open up the box. But with the new format, it's unclear what kind of data that is being encoded into the URL.

I just found a way

Today as I was reading my Local Guide email from Google, it suddenly struck me that they're doing just that: linking to the business and automatically opening the review box. So I checked the URL and found this.

There's something interesting there. An id that we never refer to when linking to our business from Google Maps or when you go to Google My Business

So I looked up where I could find it, and you can find your own id if you go to your Google Maps listing and inspect the "review button". Notice the highlighted id string.

Now, take that ID and append it to the URL: http://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=[put your id here]

In the case of my business the URL is: http://search.google.com/local/writereview?placeid=ChIJJxmocr9B0i0RfU4_C7mDQxk