The better option for local ranking

Selected answers from the Dumb SEO Questions Facebook & G+ community.

• 
  Don Vermeer:
• 
  Abd Raaz: did you understand what I mean by a CID ? example: https://www.google.com/maps?cid=12150150428018748330 this is a cid
• 
  Don Vermeer: Abd Raaz whoops, I read cgid. Sorry!
• 
  Don Vermeer: Still I`d use a normale url if available
• 
  Abd Raaz: Don Vermeer I do also use the main website url, but I saw some of the big agencies are using cid instead of website url.thats why I asked
• 
  George G.: use the url where the business schema is. if it is single location, use the home page. ideally, you want links to the cids too. but not on the citations.
• 
  Michael Martinez: From what I can tell by scanning blogs and forum discussions, a lot of people are confused about what CID means. Acronyms tend to pick up a lot of associations, and for some reason instead of linking to the Google support articles that explain what they (believe) they are referring to, marketers are just glibly tossing things out with the expectation that everyone knows what is going on.
  
  In this context CID = (Google) Customer ID. It is used in Google Maps and other applications.
  
  I can`t begin to correctly list all the ways it`s supposed to be used.
  
  The URL+CID format shows people a Google Map with a Place Label (the little red popup icon).
  
  Some people use the CID-enhanced URL in Google Maps as a short URL for embedding maps in Schema markup. This isn`t something I`ve done.
  
  Google may ask for a CID when debugging problems with listings.
  
  Whether including these URLs in citations helps with local search rankings, I don`t know, but they could certainly help searchers find a location quickly if they click on them.
• 
  Michael Martinez: As best I can determine, you get this CID value from the Google Places API. This document specifically mentions them (in an example of what is returned by the API) but it`s in the middle of the process. You should read the whole section in proper order to understand what these things are used for.
  
  https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/details