# GBP Monitor — Google Business Profile Change Alerts (`moganes/gbp-monitor`) Actor

Watch a business's Google Business Profile on a schedule. Get alerted the moment its phone, website, category, address, or hours change — the way hijacks and competitor sabotage happen unnoticed.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/moganes/gbp-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Marat Oganesyan](https://apify.com/moganes) (community)
- **Categories:** Business, Marketing
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

$50.00 / 1,000 monitoring checks

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

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

## 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

## 🛡️ GBP Monitor — Google Business Profile Change Alerts

**Catch a hijack before it costs you customers.** Anyone can edit a Google Business Profile's public phone number, website, category, or hours — a competitor, a scammer, or a "SEO agency" running a listing-takeover scam. Most owners never notice until calls stop coming in. Point this at any business, put it on a schedule, and every run reports exactly what changed.

No Google API key. No subscription reputation suite. ~$0.05 per check — monitoring a location daily costs about $1.50/month.

### How it works

1. **First run** records a baseline snapshot of the profile's phone, website, category, address, and today's closing time.
2. **Every following run** compares against the snapshot and reports the delta:
   - `alertLevel` — `none` / `info` (address or hours shifted) / `warning` (phone, website, or category changed — the actual hijack vectors) / `critical` (2+ of those changed at once, the hijack pattern)
   - Before → after for every changed field
3. Hours build into a full weekly profile over time (each run records that day's closing time), so a shift on a specific weekday is caught even though Google only exposes "today's" hours per fetch.

### Set-and-forget in 2 minutes

1. Run once with the business name (baseline)
2. In Apify Console: **Schedules → Create schedule** → attach this actor → daily
3. Optional alerts: **Integrations** on this actor → add email or Slack → now a `warning`/`critical` delta pings you

### Who uses this

- **Owners & managers** — know immediately if a hijacker rerouted your phone number or website
- **Agencies** — monitor every client location for a few dollars a month each
- **Multi-location brands** — one scheduled task per location, no dashboard login required

### Input

| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| **Business** | Name + city (e.g. `Blue Fern Coffee, Manchester`). A pasted Maps URL isn't supported here — full profile fields require a name search. |
| **Country hint** | Optional 2-letter code (`gb`, `us`) to pin ambiguous names |

### Output

- Dataset item: the delta (alert level, changed fields with before/after)
- `report.md`: a shareable human-readable delta report

### FAQ

**Where does the data come from?** Publicly visible Google Maps business listing data, fetched live each run. Not affiliated with Google.

**Why can't I paste a Maps URL?** Fetching the full profile (phone/website/category/hours) requires Google's name-search response — a place-id-only lookup returns a much thinner payload that omits those fields. [Review Monitor](https://apify.com/moganes/review-monitor) accepts a URL because it only needs a place id for reviews.

**Can I monitor multiple locations?** Yes — create one scheduled task per location (each keeps its own baseline).

**Want review monitoring too?** Pair it with [Review Monitor](https://apify.com/moganes/review-monitor) (new reviews and rating drops) and [Review Insights](https://apify.com/moganes/review-insights) (full customer-intelligence reports).

**Something broken?** Open an issue on the Issues tab — monitored daily, fixes usually ship within a day.

# Actor input Schema

## `placeQuery` (type: `string`):

Business name and city, e.g. "Blue Fern Coffee, Manchester". A pasted Google Maps URL is NOT supported here — fetching full profile fields (phone/website/hours) requires a name search, unlike Review Monitor which only needs a place id.

## `country` (type: `string`):

2-letter country code to pin the search region when the business name is ambiguous, e.g. "gb", "us", "de".

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "placeQuery": "Joe and the Juice, Manchester"
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `delta` (type: `string`):

No description

## `report` (type: `string`):

No description

# 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 = {
    "placeQuery": "Joe and the Juice, Manchester"
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("moganes/gbp-monitor").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 = { "placeQuery": "Joe and the Juice, Manchester" }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("moganes/gbp-monitor").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 '{
  "placeQuery": "Joe and the Juice, Manchester"
}' |
apify call moganes/gbp-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,moganes/gbp-monitor"
        }
    }
}

```

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/3ZMvHgvffKFQnXfBY/builds/aiNBMx7ZeRS1MTJPb/openapi.json