# Google Maps Recent Low-Reviews Filter (`limitless_cricket/google-maps-low-reviews-filter`) Actor

Upload a JSON dataset of Google Maps businesses. This actor scrapes their latest reviews, identifies businesses with 1-3 star reviews in the last 28 days (configurable), and outputs only the affected businesses with their reviews.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/limitless\_cricket/google-maps-low-reviews-filter.md
- **Developed by:** [InTourist Pakistan](https://apify.com/limitless_cricket) (community)
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage, which gets cheaper the higher subscription plan you have.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-usage

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Google Maps Recent Low-Reviews Filter (Apify Actor)

An Apify Actor designed to process large Google Maps business datasets, inspect their latest reviews on Google Maps, and filter out only the businesses that received **1 to 3 star reviews within the last 28 days** (both timeframe and star ratings are fully customizable).

Businesses with matching negative reviews are saved to the dataset along with the extracted reviews. Businesses with no recent negative reviews are automatically skipped.

***

### 🚀 Features

- **Direct File Upload**: Upload your JSON dataset file directly via the Apify UI (`editor: "fileupload"`), or provide a file URL / local path.
- **Smart Early-Stop**: Sorts Google Maps reviews by **"Newest"** automatically. The moment reviews older than your cutoff (e.g., 28 days) appear, scraping for that business immediately stops, saving hours of unnecessary scraping.
- **Flexible Filter Controls**:
  - `maxDays`: Set review age threshold (default: 28 days).
  - `minStars`: Lowest star rating to target (default: 1).
  - `maxStars`: Highest star rating to target (default: 3).
  - `maxBusinesses`: Limit processing (e.g. 10 or 50 for quick testing, 0 for all).
  - `maxReviewsPerBusiness`: Safety cap per business (default: 30).
- **Rich Output**: Retains all original business attributes (`name`, `phone`, `website`, `address`, `category`, etc.) and attaches an array of `matchedReviews` with exact text, rating, days ago, reviewer name, and owner response.

***

### 📥 Input Example

When running on the Apify platform, you can configure the actor via UI or pass JSON input:

```json
{
  "jsonFile": "https://api.apify.com/v2/key-value-stores/.../records/dataset.json",
  "maxDays": 28,
  "minStars": 1,
  "maxStars": 3,
  "maxBusinesses": 0,
  "maxReviewsPerBusiness": 30
}
```

***

### 📤 Output Dataset Example

```json
[
  {
    "name": "Dr méd. Paolo Fornaciari",
    "rating": 4.9,
    "phone": "+41 22 718 03 80",
    "address": "Av. de Champel 24, 1206 Genève, Switzerland",
    "link": "https://maps.app.goo.gl/HBfTGxCzzsXyqTwW8",
    "matchedReviewsCount": 1,
    "matchedReviews": [
      {
        "reviewerName": "S",
        "rating": 1,
        "dateText": "Edited 3 weeks ago",
        "daysAgo": 21,
        "reviewDateEstimated": "2026-08-14T13:40:00.000Z",
        "text": "I really don't recommend it 🤨 …",
        "ownerResponse": null
      }
    ],
    "filteredAt": "2026-09-04T13:42:00.000Z"
  }
]
```

***

### 🛠️ Deploying to Apify

1. **Log in to Apify CLI**:
   ```bash
   apify login
   ```
2. **Push Actor**:
   From this directory, run:
   ```bash
   apify push
   ```
3. Once pushed, you can run the Actor in your Apify Console, upload your JSON file in the input tab, and click **Start**!

***

### 💻 Local Execution & Testing

1. **Install dependencies**:
   ```bash
   npm install
   npx playwright install chromium
   ```
2. **Run local test**:
   ```bash
   npm run test:local
   ```
3. **Run full actor locally**:
   ```bash
   npm start
   ```

# Actor input Schema

## `jsonFile` (type: `string`):

Upload a JSON file with businesses (or provide a direct URL / local path to the JSON file).

## `maxDays` (type: `integer`):

Only consider reviews posted within this many days (e.g. 28 days).

## `minStars` (type: `integer`):

Lowest review rating to capture (e.g. 1 star).

## `maxStars` (type: `integer`):

Highest review rating to capture (e.g. 3 stars).

## `maxBusinesses` (type: `integer`):

Maximum businesses to process from the uploaded file. 0 means all.

## `maxReviewsPerBusiness` (type: `integer`):

Safety cap on the number of recent reviews to inspect for a single business.

## `maxConcurrency` (type: `integer`):

Number of parallel browser tabs to run concurrently (higher = much faster, e.g. 10-20).

## `proxyConfiguration` (type: `object`):

Select Apify Proxy (Residential recommended for Google Maps to avoid blocks).

## `apifyToken` (type: `string`):

Optional: Only needed if accessing private key-value stores or datasets from an external account or local run.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "maxDays": 28,
  "minStars": 1,
  "maxStars": 3,
  "maxBusinesses": 0,
  "maxReviewsPerBusiness": 25,
  "maxConcurrency": 10
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `filteredBusinesses` (type: `string`):

Dataset containing Google Maps businesses with 1-3 star reviews in the last 28 days

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("limitless_cricket/google-maps-low-reviews-filter").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("limitless_cricket/google-maps-low-reviews-filter").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call limitless_cricket/google-maps-low-reviews-filter --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,limitless_cricket/google-maps-low-reviews-filter"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/FZbyvxM1tIaQD3FzA/builds/vROqtNgT8fLZOygrc/openapi.json