CityGrid V2

Introduction

Welcome to the CityGrid Developer Documentation. Using the CityGrid webservices, you can access and display local content and advertising on your site or application.

Content By CityGrid

Content by CityGrid gives you access to rich, local business listings to enhance your existing user experience or create new local destinations. We can also provide tools to completely power your local search experience and add additional functionality such as reviews and deals.

With the CityGrid APIs, you can create mobile applications and websites that have access to the most comprehensive U.S. database of local listings. This gives you the power to connect your users to what's happening around them in a myriad of ways, including:

  • Places. Get detailed information about business listings including location, website, business hours, reviews, maps and more with our Places API. Display profiles of businesses using information from CityGrid's systems, which contain more than 18 million listings.
  • Search. CityGrid's businesses and offer search lets you show your users the most relevant local results. You can power your local search experience on both web and mobile.

Ads By CityGrid

Ads by CityGrid allows you to get paid for displaying this rich, local content. You can pass certification to become an approved partner, which means that your websites and mobile applications can now generate revenue for you. There are several revenue streams available for approved partners:

  • Places that Pay. Simply by displaying business profiles, you can generate revenue through the Places that Pay program. Anytime a user lands on a Places that Pay profile, and engages with the content, you make money. This provides you with an additional revenue stream for the profile page. Revenue sharing is as simple as tracking impressions and referrals.
  • Web and Mobile Ads. Use the Web Ads API and the Mobile Ads API to obtain pre-rendered, templatized ads to directly display on your web and mobile applications. When the user clicks on the ad, your application navigates to a specific URL, and you generate revenue.
  • Custom Ads. If you would prefer to render ads yourself, use the Custom Ads API to obtain listing information that you can turn into your own ad. When the user clicks on the ad, your application navigates to a specific URL, and you generate revenue.

The API Documentation is organized as follows:

Audience

This document is intended for website and mobile developers who want to enhance their current local content experience with basic and enhanced business information, deals, reviews, local search functionality, and multiple monetization tools. This guide provides an introduction and reference materials for using the CityGrid API.

The CityGrid REST APIs allow you to obtain and post information about local content. REST makes it easy to write and test applications. You can try out the various URLs by using a browser, and you can build mobile or web applications that interact with the APIs using any programming language that allows you to make HTTP calls.

Terms and Conditions and Usage Requirements

Before using CityGrid APIs, please carefully read the Terms and Conditions and the Usage Requirements.

Brand Guidelines

Please review our attribution guidelines document with CityGrid Brand and Logo usage guidelines.

Developer Support

Support is available to help you develop the best possible applications and websites that take advantage of the CityGrid APIs.

  • Developer Center. Visit the Developer Center to see example code, such as how to build an optimal landing page.
  • Forums. Look at what other developers are asking and building in the Forums. Learn, build and share!
  • Partner Account Managers. Our dedicated Partner Account Managers are here to help should you have any questions while you are working with us. We welcome your feedback.

What's New in Version 2

The following changes have been made from Version 1:

  • Version 1 parameters that used camel case have been renamed to use underscores instead.
  • The impression_id parameter and element have been added to track impressions.
  • The ad_destination_url element now contains an obfuscated URL.
  • Histograms have been added to return numbers of results, grouped by category.
  • Region searches now include both boxes and circles.
  • The Offers and Profile APIs have several new parameters and return elements.
  • Google Protocol Buffers have been added as a new return format option to some APIs.
  • Several new error codes have been added.