Scraping Google Maps search results

Since they first appeared, geographical maps have been our windows to the world, guiding explorers, traders, and dreamers. Navigation was not just about following directions but a gateway to endless possibilities. In the modern world, Google Maps has been our guide, evolving from a basic navigation tool into a dynamic app that opens doors for everyone – from individuals exploring new horizons to businesses, big and small.

Regarding businesses, it's clear that Google Maps contains crucial data about local enterprises, including contact information, reviews, etc. This data arrives in an unstructured format aimed to help find places but poses challenges for comprehensive analysis. At this point, GoLess Google Maps Scraper comes into play - an automated tool capable of extracting this data. With this tool, you can compile all the information, save it in a CSV file, and use Excel or Google Spreadsheet for subsequent in-depth analysis.

Which kinds of information can I retrieve from Google Maps?

By default, our scraper gathers name, address, website, and phone number. But you can tweak the scraper to collect other information such as reviews, images, opening hours, booking prices, and more.

What's wrong with the official Google Maps API?

Providing API access is a common and beneficial approach for most reputable IT services. And Google Maps follows the same principle. However, many people still avoid it (Spoiler: primarily for economic reasons).

Indeed the reality is, utilizing the official API can incur high costs and involve uncertain factors. It can be challenging to manage and monitor the expenses effectively.

How to use data scraping?

Let's go through a few examples of how to scrape google maps.

Example 1:

Imagine you need to list all fish restaurants in a particular district in your city. Your list should include names and contacts:

Open a new tab, go to the GoLess marketplace, sign up, Install workflow.  Next just run it. Enter your city, district, and any other information regarding your places of interest. For example, we will look for fish restaurants in the New York Bronx and put a limit of 15 restaurants.

As the scraper gets to work, it will extract data from Google, such as each restaurant's name, address, and contact information. Do not touch your keyboard and mouse. You will see how the scraper imitates user actions, clicks on every restaurant, and gathers necessary data.

This process requires patience, but once it's wrapped up, you will see the file with the results saved. This data lets you easily structure and analyze all the restaurants within your specified search area.

Example 2:

Let's take another situation when you need to check a specific city area. We will apply a small hack to do this.

1. Let's open Google Maps, find your city, and type "fish restaurant". Then focus on the precise city district you need to analyze. Remember that you'll discover more detailed results in a particular urban area when you zoom in. If you don't do this, you'll receive a broader selection of places that Google Maps considers appropriate.

2. Next, after successfully pinpointing the restaurants within your area, copy the URL from the address bar. This will be the work zone for the scraper to gather the information. For example, https://www.google.com/maps/search/fish+restaurant/@40.6527569,-73.9439982,13z/data=!4m2!2m1!6e5?entry=ttu

3. Here, we will apply a small hack. Within this workflow, you'll come across the block (1), where you insert the URL (2) copied earlier from Google Maps.

4. Run workflow. In the next step, you can integrate your workflow with your Google Sheets, but in this example, we will skip it and click "run" to get the result in a CSV file:

The same as in the previous example, this process requires some time. As a result, you will get a CSV file with the contacts gathered from your specified urban zone.

The potential of scraped data from Google Maps

Nowadays, all businesses are presented on Google Maps. You can treat this as an extensive graphical database of places, their contacts, and other valuable information. Here are just a couple of examples of how you can use this extracted data:

1. Smart market research. If you are looking for a specific product or service, you can scrape google maps data, sort all the businesses offering what you need, and pick the best one.

2. Savvy competition analysis. Imagine you offer some services and need to check who offers the same in your district. Check what your competitors are up to by scraping data from google maps.

3. Find your leads. If you offer B2B services, you can gather your very own super-charged database of emails, phone numbers, and so on. You can scrape all that info for a specific district, city, or even country by working with zooming options.

Even small fish can win big!

If you are a minor player in the big sea of companies, you can dive and find excellent opportunities to grow your business and cook up a killer market strategy.

See? As we said in the beginning, Google Maps isn't just about getting directions – it's like a treasure map for businesses! Start exploring, try our web scraper, and make your business dreams come true.

FAQ

Is scraping google maps legal?

As said in the Constitutions of major big countries, everyone has the right to seek and receive information by any lawful means freely. So, in short - yes. Web scraping is legal if it does not interfere with personal data and copyright restrictions.

Can I gather data other than contacts with GoLess scraper?

In theory, yes. However, customizing the scraper may require technical knowledge to align with your requirements.

Can I scrape all data according to my request from the particular city?

No, due to Google Maps limitations, you can scrape only part of the data given by your request. You can heavily zoom in and retrieve the data from each particular district that you need.