Google Maps Similar Places Scraper

Extract the "People also search for" / similar / related places carousel from any Google Maps business page in seconds. Get the full list of competing or complementary nearby businesses that Google itself thinks travelers and locals consider when looking at your target place — including their ratings, review counts, categories, and clean place URLs ready for follow-up scraping.

Perfect for competitive intelligence, market research, hotel comparison shopping, restaurant discovery flows, and building "places like this" recommendation pipelines on top of Google Maps data.

What it does

Point the actor at any Google Maps place URL (a restaurant, hotel, landmark, store, etc.) and it returns the related-places carousel that Google shows in the side panel — with every field that Google actually publishes for those related places:

• Related place name and placeId (the Google Maps feature ID, ready for re-scraping)
• A clean, CID-based Google Maps URL for each related place
• Rating (totalScore) and review count
• Category name and the full categories list
• Latitude / longitude coordinates
• A max-resolution thumbnail image URL
• Carousel rank (1 = first card shown)
• The carousel section type ("People also search for", "Similar places", etc.)
• Back-references to the source business (name, placeId, URL) so a dataset of multiple sources stays joinable

Input

Field	Type	Description
placeUrl (required)	string	Any Google Maps place URL — /maps/place/...
maxResults	integer (1–50)	How many related places to extract. Default: 20
language	enum	Maps interface language: en, es, fr, de, it, pt, ja, ko, zh, ar, ru. Default: en
proxyConfiguration	proxy	Optional. The scraper works without proxy by default; if a place fails to load, the actor automatically retries through the proxy you supply here

Example input:

{
  "placeUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Ritz+London/@51.5070782,-0.1416273,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m6!3m5!1s0x48760529d30fc857:0x596135811e044014",
  "maxResults": 10,
  "language": "en"
}

Output

One dataset record per related place:

{
  "sourceBusinessName": "The Ritz London",
  "sourcePlaceId": "0x48760529d30fc857:0x596135811e044014",
  "sourcePlaceUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps/place/The+Ritz+London/...",
  "relatedSectionType": "People also search for",
  "rank": 1,
  "name": "The Savoy",
  "placeId": "0x0:0x...",
  "googleMapsUrl": "https://www.google.com/maps?cid=...",
  "categoryName": "5-star hotel",
  "categories": ["5-star hotel", "Hotel"],
  "totalScore": 4.6,
  "reviewsCount": 12453,
  "latitude": 51.5101,
  "longitude": -0.1208,
  "image": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/p/...=s512",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-06-16T08:50:12.345678+00:00"
}

Empty / unknown fields are omitted entirely — every record only contains the keys Google actually publishes for that place. No null values, no sentinels.

How it works (without the implementation noise)

Google ships the related-places carousel pre-baked inside the Maps HTML payload as a structured data block. This scraper reads that block directly — no flaky DOM walking, no fragile XPath — which is why the output is so clean and the actor is so fast.

A DOM fallback exists for the rare case where the structured block is shaped differently, so you never get an empty dataset on a normal place page.

Use cases

• Hotel competitive analysis: feed in a hotel URL, get the 10 hotels Google says travelers also looked at
• Restaurant discovery flows: build "if you liked X, you might like..." recommenders backed by Google's own signals
• Landmark itineraries: turn one landmark URL into a list of related landmarks (museums adjacent to a famous one, e.g.)
• Market mapping: chain this actor with the regular Google Maps scraper to expand from a small seed list to a full neighborhood map in two passes
• SEO & local marketing: see which competitors Google associates with your business listing

FAQ

Does it need cookies / login / an API key?
No. The actor runs against the public Google Maps web UI.

Does it need a proxy?
No — by default it runs without any proxy and works fine from Apify datacenter IPs. A proxy field is exposed for fallback only.

Will every place have related places?
Restaurants, cafes, bars and dining venues return the most reliable data — these consistently surface a "People also search for" carousel that the actor extracts in full (place ID, rating, reviews, coordinates, image). Hotels, large landmarks and tourist attractions sometimes show a lazy-loaded carousel that doesn't populate on every request; for those, output may be partial or empty. A retry pass through the optional proxyConfiguration field usually helps when the no-proxy attempt comes up empty.

How many results per page?
Google itself shows 5–8 cards per carousel; the actor's maxResults caps that — and if Google ever increases the carousel size, the actor automatically picks up the extra cards.

Does it work in non-English markets?
Yes. The language input controls the Maps locale. The actor recognises section headers in several languages, and the extracted data fields (placeIds, ratings, coordinates, images) are language-agnostic.

Can I run it on multiple URLs at once?
Yes — point it at one URL per run. To process many URLs in a batch, run the actor multiple times (e.g., from the Apify Scheduler or a parent actor); each run's output goes to its own dataset and includes the sourcePlaceId field so you can join them downstream.

Data Source

Public Google Maps web UI. No login, no API key, no paid third-party service required.

🗺️ Complete Google Maps Scraper Suite

This actor is part of a comprehensive Google Maps data extraction toolkit by crawlerbros. All actors run on the free Apify plan, use no proxy by default, and return clean, structured data.

Actor	What it does
🏢 Google Maps Business Scraper	Extract business data — name, address, phone, website, rating, reviews, hours, amenities
⭐ Google Maps Reviews Scraper	Scrape reviews with reviewer Local Guide level, photos, mentioned items, owner replies
📸 Google Maps Photos Scraper	Extract all photos from any place — max-resolution URLs, contributor info, categories
🕐 Google Maps Business Hours Scraper	Full 7-day hours, timezone, current local time, next open/close, holiday hours
📊 Google Maps Popular Times Scraper	Busy hours histogram for all 7 days + current busyness + typical visit time
📧 Google Maps Email Extractor	Find business emails + social media links by crawling websites
🗺️ Google Maps Area Scanner	Geographic grid scanning — bypass the 120-place limit with bounding box / circle / polygon
💼 Google Maps Leads Scraper	B2B lead generation with email + phone enrichment, US states + global countries
🤖 Google Maps MCP Server	Unified MCP server combining search + reviews for AI assistants
🧭 Google Maps Directions Scraper	A→B routing — distance, duration, traffic, route alternatives for driving/walking/transit
📍 Google Maps Geocoding Scraper	Bidirectional geocoding — address ↔ coordinates, with address components
🍽️ Google Maps Menu Scraper	Restaurant menu items, prices, descriptions, photos
📌 Google Maps Nearby Scraper	Find places near a coordinate point — lightweight POI search by category
📋 Google Maps Place List Scraper	Extract Google's curated "Top X in Y" lists — best hotels/restaurants/things to do
🌍 Google Maps Timezone Scraper	IANA timezone + current local time from coordinates