# Changelog of Google Hotels Scraper - Hotel Price Tracker & Comparison (`akhil_rajesh/google-hotels-scraper`) Actor

- **URL**: https://apify.com/akhil\_rajesh/google-hotels-scraper/changelog.md
- **Full Actor documentation**: https://apify.com/akhil\_rajesh/google-hotels-scraper.md

## Changelog

### 0.1.6 (2026-09-28)

Fixes from an audit run after launch (code review, security review, live runs with inputs as users type them, fuzzed
input, and a scan of every platform run so far).

- Prices before and after taxes: about one Google session in seven on the platform shows each price with taxes
  already in and no price before taxes, often from other booking sites. Those prices were stored as prices before
  taxes, and price tracking reported rises of 20-60% and falls back between runs. Such a page is now asked again in a
  new session; a search that never shows both prices is reported as not loaded, and booking-site prices shown that
  way are left out (uncharged).

- Empty answers: Google now and then answers a city or hotel it knows with an empty page (Singapore on one of three
  dates; the Fairmont Royal York once in seven runs). Each is asked again in a new session. A place Google answered on
  another date is reported as not loaded for the empty one, never as a place Google doesn't recognise; a hotel name
  that stays empty in every session is not found, and a link to another site is reported as not found without a
  search.

- Security: the run's memory is capped at 1 GB; residential and other per-GB proxies are refused (datacenter and own
  proxies work); own proxies that don't validate stop the run, and no proxy password reaches the log or the status;
  a run takes up to 100 places or hotels of up to 200 characters (2,000 for a link); a redirect loop or a garbled
  page fails only its own search; the page parser can't be slowed down by malformed pages; dependencies are pinned to
  the tested minor versions.

- Landmarks: Google reads some on their own as other places ("hotels near the Colosseum" became the whole United
  States, with Las Vegas hotels) or not at all ("hotels near Times Square" alone). Each row now has `googlePlace`
  (where Google searched), the status message points out a search read as somewhere else, and a place Google doesn't
  recognise gets that message instead of "loosen the filters".

- Prices in other languages: with-taxes prices written with a dot for thousands ("32.553 ¥" in German) were read as
  decimals. Prices are now read correctly in any language, and languages spoken are found on non-English hotel pages.

- Price tracking: tasks sharing one history (History name) with different guests, currency or stay length no longer
  compare each other's prices; tasks running at the same time no longer overwrite each other's history (one record
  per search); a very large history no longer drops the stays a run has just seen.

- Specific hotels: a name is matched both ways, so a sister hotel ("Toronto/Mississauga" for "Toronto Airport") is
  never taken for the one asked; names are looked up without the search filters; bare ids in Google's short "Cg…"
  form are accepted; a name tracked over several check-in dates is looked up once.

- Robustness: a negative price no longer hangs the run; odd input types get clear messages; a row the dataset refuses
  is skipped (uncharged) instead of failing the run; an error page (HTTP 4xx) is reported as not loaded; an unexpected
  error ends with a clear status; "Nothing matched" is no longer said of a search that was never read; the proxy
  editor's "Own proxies" are used; the last check-in date is checked against Google's 11-month window; a booking link
  that isn't a web address is left out rather than shown as a clickable link.

- The summary for specific hotels says how many came with booking-site prices, instead of claiming all did.

### 0.1 (2026-09-28)

First version.

- Hotel and vacation-rental prices from Google Hotels for any place, dates, adults and children, in 35 currencies.
- Google's own filters: sort order, price range, star class, guest rating, 20 amenities, property type, free
  cancellation, special offers and eco-certified. Near matches Google adds outside the filters are left out unless
  asked for, and are marked `matchesFilters: false`.
- Booking-site prices: every booking site's price for the stay, per night and in total, before and after taxes, with
  free cancellation, the room name and a booking link; every room rate the sites list, with breakfast and free
  cancellation; review quotes; the full amenity list by category and the languages spoken; the address and phone.
- Specific hotels: price hotels given by Google Hotels link, id or name. A name Google doesn't recognise is reported
  as not found, never replaced by another hotel.
- Only price changes: scheduled runs return just the price drops and rises since the last run of the same watch
  list, with the previous price and the change, and stays that became priced again or stopped being priced.
  Unchanged properties aren't returned or charged. Moves under 1% are ignored by default, measured from the last price
  reported, so a slow slide still shows once it adds up.
- Up to 60 check-in dates in a row in one run.
- A search that doesn't load, or that Google refuses, is reported by name; the run fails only when no search worked.