Use a URL to link to a Google map with a marker on it

Question

I want to link to google maps at a particular location with a marker on a particular point.

It's easy to link to a location:

http://maps.google.com/?ll=XX.XXXX,XX.XXXX

But how do I drop a marker at that point too? preferably with a bit of my own text but that's just a bonus.

2017 - Google has released documentation on this see new accepted answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/44477650/359135

Answer 1

In May 2017 Google launched the official Google Maps URLs documentation. The Google Maps URLs introduces universal cross-platform syntax that you can use in your applications.

Have a look at the following document:

https://developers.google.com/maps/documentation/urls/guide

You can use URLs in search, directions, map and street view modes.

For example, to show the marker at specified position you can use the following URL:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=36.26577,-92.54324

For further details please read aforementioned documentation.

You can also file feature requests for this API in Google issue tracker.