Review Sentiment Analyzer

Scrape reviews from Google Maps or Yelp and run AI-powered sentiment analysis to understand what customers really think about any business.

What you get

Metric	Description
Reputation Health Score	0-100 composite score based on ratings, sentiment, response rate, and review velocity
Sentiment by Topic	Breakdown across 10 topics: service quality, pricing, wait time, cleanliness, staff friendliness, product quality, ambiance, location, communication, value for money
Trending Complaints	Most common negative themes with example quotes
Trending Praise	Most common positive themes with example quotes
Review Velocity	Reviews per month trend to spot momentum changes
Owner Response Rate	Percentage of reviews that received an owner reply
Rating Distribution	1-star through 5-star breakdown
Keyword Frequency	Most mentioned words/phrases with positive/negative/mixed tagging
Classified Reviews	Every review with AI-assigned topics, sentiment score, and keywords

Use cases

• Competitive intelligence — Analyze a competitor's reviews to find their weaknesses
• Reputation monitoring — Track your own business sentiment over time
• Market research — Understand what customers value in a specific niche
• Lead generation — Identify businesses with poor reviews that need reputation management
• Due diligence — Evaluate a business before acquisition or partnership

Input

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
url	string	required	Google Maps URL (place or search) or Yelp business URL
maxReviews	number	50	Maximum reviews to scrape and analyze (5-500)
anthropicApiKey	string	—	Your Anthropic API key for Claude Haiku AI analysis. Not needed in demo mode.
demoMode	boolean	true	Use sample data for testing. Set to false for real scraping.
proxyConfiguration	object	Residential	Proxy settings for scraping
webhookUrl	string	—	URL to POST results when analysis completes

Example input (Google Maps)

{
  "url": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Joe's+Pizza/@40.7308,-73.9973,17z",
  "maxReviews": 100,
  "anthropicApiKey": "sk-ant-...",
  "demoMode": false
}

Example input (Yelp)

{
  "url": "https://www.yelp.com/biz/joes-pizza-new-york",
  "maxReviews": 75,
  "anthropicApiKey": "sk-ant-...",
  "demoMode": false
}

Example input (Demo mode — no API key needed)

{
  "demoMode": true
}

Output

{
  "businessName": "Bella Notte Ristorante",
  "platform": "google_maps",
  "reputationHealthScore": 78,
  "averageRating": 3.85,
  "totalReviews": 247,
  "reviewsAnalyzed": 20,
  "ratingDistribution": {
    "1": 2,
    "2": 2,
    "3": 3,
    "4": 6,
    "5": 7
  },
  "topicSentiment": [
    {
      "topic": "Product Quality",
      "positive": 10,
      "negative": 2,
      "neutral": 2,
      "total": 14,
      "averageSentiment": 0.52
    }
  ],
  "trendingComplaints": [
    { "theme": "long wait", "count": 3, "examples": ["..."] }
  ],
  "trendingPraise": [
    { "theme": "great pasta", "count": 4, "examples": ["..."] }
  ],
  "reviewVelocity": [
    { "month": "2026-01", "count": 5 },
    { "month": "2026-02", "count": 8 }
  ],
  "ownerResponseRate": "45%",
  "keywordFrequency": [
    { "keyword": "great pasta", "count": 4, "sentiment": "positive" },
    { "keyword": "long wait", "count": 3, "sentiment": "negative" }
  ]
}

How it works

1. Navigate — Uses Camoufox stealth browser (C++ fingerprinting) with residential proxies to navigate to the business page. Handles Google consent overlays automatically. Search URLs are resolved to full place pages.
2. Scrape — Clicks the Reviews tab, scrolls to load review content, extracts text, rating, date, author, and owner responses. Retries automatically if the reviews panel doesn't load on first attempt.
3. Analyze — Sends reviews in batches of 20 to Claude Haiku 4.5 for topic classification, sentiment scoring, and keyword extraction. Falls back to rating-based classification if no API key is provided.
4. Compute — Aggregates AI classifications into topic breakdowns, trending themes, velocity charts, and the Reputation Health Score.
5. Deliver — Pushes structured results to the Apify dataset and optionally sends a webhook.

Reputation Health Score formula

The 0-100 score is computed from 5 weighted components:

Component	Weight	Description
Average Rating	40%	Star rating normalized (5.0 = 40 pts)
Sentiment Ratio	20%	Proportion of positive reviews
Owner Response Rate	15%	How often the owner replies
Review Velocity	15%	Monthly review volume (10+/mo = full score)
Topic Health	10%	Proportion of topics with positive sentiment

Pricing

Pay-per-event: $0.15 per business analyzed.

This covers scraping + AI sentiment analysis. Demo mode is free ($0.00).

AI costs

Claude Haiku is used for sentiment analysis. Typical cost per run:

• 50 reviews: ~$0.01-0.02 in Anthropic API usage
• 200 reviews: ~$0.05-0.08 in Anthropic API usage

You need your own Anthropic API key. Get one at console.anthropic.com.

Tips

• Start with demo mode to see the output format before providing real URLs
• 50-100 reviews gives a solid analysis for most businesses
• More reviews = better accuracy but longer runtime and slightly higher AI costs
• Reviews are sorted by newest first (when possible) to capture recent trends
• If you skip the API key, the actor still works but uses rating-based classification (less accurate)

Integrations

Send results directly to your workflow via webhook:

• Zapier — Use a Webhooks by Zapier trigger
• Make (Integromat) — Use a Custom Webhook module
• n8n — Use a Webhook node
• Custom — Any endpoint that accepts POST with JSON body

Technical details

• Browser: Camoufox (C++ level fingerprinting) with standard Firefox fallback
• Crawler: Crawlee PlaywrightCrawler with automatic retries (up to 3 attempts)
• Proxy: Apify residential proxies for anti-detection
• AI Model: Claude Haiku 4.5 (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) — fast and cost-effective
• Memory: 4 GB default, supports up to 8 GB for large review sets
• Timeout: 10 minutes default
• Retry Logic: If reviews don't load on first attempt (common with Google Maps), the crawler automatically retries with a fresh browser session and proxy IP

Common Scenarios

Scenario 1: Competitive Intelligence

Analyze a competitor's reviews to find their weaknesses — then use those insights in your marketing.

{
  "url": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/Competitor+Name/...",
  "maxReviews": 100,
  "anthropicApiKey": "sk-ant-...",
  "demoMode": false
}

Scenario 2: Monthly Reputation Monitoring

Schedule monthly runs in Apify Console to track your Reputation Health Score over time. Use webhooks to auto-populate dashboards.

Scenario 3: Lead Generation for Reputation Management

Find businesses with low scores — they need your help.

{
  "url": "https://www.yelp.com/biz/struggling-restaurant-city",
  "maxReviews": 50,
  "demoMode": false
}

Businesses with scores below 50 are prime prospects for reputation management services.

Scenario 4: Market Research

Analyze 10-20 businesses in the same category to understand what customers value most and what frustrates them.

FAQ

Q: Do I need an Anthropic API key?

A: Only for AI-powered sentiment analysis. Without a key, the actor still works but uses basic rating-based classification (less accurate). Demo mode doesn't need a key.

Q: How many reviews should I analyze?

A: 50-100 gives solid results for most businesses. More reviews = better accuracy but longer runtime and slightly higher AI costs.

Q: Does this work for any Google Maps or Yelp business?

A: Yes. Any public business listing with reviews. The URL just needs to be a valid Google Maps place URL or Yelp business URL.

Q: How accurate is the AI sentiment analysis?

A: Claude Haiku classifies reviews by topic and sentiment with high accuracy. The biggest value is the aggregate breakdown — individual review classifications are directional.

Q: How long does it take?

A: Depends on review count. 50 reviews typically takes 60-90 seconds. 200 reviews may take 3-5 minutes.

Q: What if the business has very few reviews?

A: The actor works with any number of reviews, but scores and trends are more meaningful with 20+ reviews.

Troubleshooting

"No reviews found"

• Make sure the URL is a direct business page, not a search results page
• Google Maps URLs should contain /place/ in the path
• Yelp URLs should contain /biz/ in the path

"AI analysis skipped"

• Provide your anthropicApiKey for full sentiment analysis
• Without it, the actor uses basic rating-based classification

"Timeout"

• Reduce maxReviews to 50 or less
• Google Maps review extraction requires scrolling — more reviews = longer runtime

---

Support

• Actor Arsenal: Full Actor Catalog
• Developer: John Rippy

---

Built by John Rippy | Actor Arsenal