# Review Monitor — Google Review Alerts (`moganes/review-monitor`) Actor

Monitor any business's Google reviews on a schedule. Every run reports new reviews, rating movement and fresh complaints with an alert level you can route to email or Slack. For reputation management, agencies tracking client locations, and competitor watching.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/moganes/review-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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#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

## 🔔 Review Monitor — Google Review Alerts

**Know the moment a bad review lands.** Point it at any business — yours or a competitor's — put it on a schedule, and every run reports exactly what changed: new reviews, rating movement, fresh complaints, with an alert level you can route to email or Slack.

No Google API key. No subscription software. ~$0.10 per check — monitoring a location daily costs about $3/month, versus $100–400/month for reputation-monitoring suites.

### How it works

1. **First run** records a baseline snapshot of the newest reviews
2. **Every following run** compares against the snapshot and reports the delta:
   - `alertLevel` — `none` / `info` (new reviews) / `warning` (a new negative, or rating slipping) / `critical` (3+ new negatives or a sharp drop)
   - The new reviews themselves, negatives quoted in full
   - Rating before → after

### Set-and-forget in 2 minutes

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

### Who uses this

- **Agencies** — monitor every client location (and their competitors) for a few dollars a month each; forward `warning`/`critical` reports automatically
- **Owners & managers** — respond to bad reviews within hours, not weeks; Google rewards fast responses
- **Competitive intel** — get notified when a competitor starts taking damage (or fixes their act)

### Input

| Field | Description |
| --- | --- |
| **Business** | Name + city (e.g. `Blue Fern Coffee, Manchester`) or a Google Maps URL |
| **Country hint** | Optional 2-letter code (`gb`, `us`) to pin ambiguous names |
| **Snapshot depth** | How many newest reviews to check per run (default 100) |

### Output

- Dataset item: the delta (alert level, counts, rating movement, new reviews as data)
- `report.md`: a shareable human-readable delta report

### FAQ

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

**What counts as "negative"?** 1–2 star reviews.

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

**Want deeper analysis?** Pair it with [Review Insights](https://apify.com/moganes/review-insights) — full customer-intelligence reports on the same data: praised themes, complaint drivers, and what to fix first.

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

# Actor input Schema

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

Google Maps URL of the business, or its name and city (e.g. "Blue Fern Coffee, Manchester").

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

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

## `maxReviews` (type: `integer`):

How many of the newest reviews to check each run. New reviews beyond this window will be missed, so size it above the business's typical review volume between runs.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "placeQuery": "Joe and the Juice, Manchester",
  "maxReviews": 100
}
```

# 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/review-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/review-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/review-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,moganes/review-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/d687HECssBZc1s0UI/builds/f1GH7Uaa4jSUOcnXm/openapi.json