📝 Google Maps Reviews Scraper - Apify Actor

LICENSE

Extract Google Maps reviews with ease - A powerful Apify actor that scrapes reviews from Google Maps listings using Place IDs or URLs. Perfect for market research, sentiment analysis, and business intelligence.

🚀 Features

• 🔍 Multiple Input Methods: Use Google Maps Place IDs or URLs directly
• 📊 Rich Data Extraction: Get comprehensive review data including ratings, text, photos, and metadata
• 🔒 Privacy Compliant: Optional personal data exclusion for GDPR compliance
• ⚡ High Performance: Efficient scraping with progress tracking and error handling
• 🔄 Flexible Sorting: Sort by relevance, newest, highest, or lowest ratings
• 📈 Scalable: Handle multiple Place IDs/URLs in a single run
• 🎯 Customizable Limits: Set review limits from 1 to 99,999 per listing

📋 Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
Place ID(s)	Array	Either Place ID or URL	Google Maps Place ID(s) to scrape (e.g., 0x0:0x2fc6687f46f682d5)
URL(s)	Array	Either Place ID or URL	Google Maps URL(s) - Place IDs will be automatically extracted
maxReviews	Integer	✅ Required	Maximum reviews per listing (1-99,999, default: 10)
sorting	String	Optional	Sort method: relevant, newest, highest, lowest
includePersonalData	Boolean	Optional	Include user names, IDs, and photos (default: true)

📊 Output Data

Each review record contains:

Core Review Data

• rank: Review position in results
• rating: Star rating (1-5)
• review: Full review text
• timestamp: Human-readable date/time
• photos: Array of photo URLs
• review_language: Language code (e.g., "en")
• review_source: Source platform

User Information (when enabled)

• user_name: Reviewer's name
• user_id: Unique user identifier
• profile_photo: User's profile picture URL
• total_reviews: User's total review count

🎯 Use Cases

Business Intelligence

• Competitor Analysis: Monitor competitor reviews and ratings
• Market Research: Understand customer sentiment across locations
• Brand Monitoring: Track your business reputation
• Product Research: Analyze customer feedback for product improvements

Data Analysis

• Sentiment Analysis: Process review text for sentiment insights
• Trend Analysis: Track rating changes over time
• Geographic Analysis: Compare performance across locations
• Customer Insights: Understand customer preferences and pain points

SEO & Marketing

• Content Research: Find trending topics and keywords
• Local SEO: Analyze local business performance
• Review Management: Monitor and respond to customer feedback
• Market Positioning: Understand your market position

🚀 Quick Start

1. Using Google Maps Place IDs

{
  "gid": ["0x0:0x2fc6687f46f682d5"],
  "maxReviews": 100,
  "sorting": "newest",
  "includePersonalData": true
}

2. Using Google Maps URLs

{
  "url": ["https://maps.google.com/place/..."],
  "maxReviews": 50,
  "sorting": "highest",
  "includePersonalData": false
}

3. Multiple Inputs

{
  "gid": ["0x0:0x2fc6687f46f682d5", "0x0:0x1234567890abcdef"],
  "url": ["https://maps.google.com/place/..."],
  "maxReviews": 25,
  "sorting": "relevant"
}

🔧 Advanced Usage

Privacy-Compliant Scraping

For GDPR compliance or privacy-sensitive applications:

{
  "gid": ["0x0:0x2fc6687f46f682d5"],
  "maxReviews": 1000,
  "includePersonalData": false
}

This will replace personal information with [REDACTED] placeholders.

Large-Scale Scraping

For comprehensive data collection:

{
  "gid": ["0x0:0x2fc6687f46f682d5"],
  "maxReviews": 99999,
  "sorting": "newest"
}

Sorting Options

• relevant: Most relevant reviews (default)
• newest: Latest reviews first
• highest: Highest rated reviews first
• lowest: Lowest rated reviews first

📈 Performance & Limits

• Processing Speed: ~100-500 reviews per minute
• Concurrent Requests: Optimized for Apify platform
• Error Handling: Automatic retries with exponential backoff
• Progress Tracking: Real-time progress updates
• Memory Efficient: Streams data to avoid memory issues

🔍 Finding Google Maps Place IDs

Method 1: From URL

1. Open Google Maps
2. Search for a business
3. Copy the URL
4. The Place ID is in the URL path (e.g., 0x89c25d065dde934f:0x1233b8bb69c049e8)

Method 2: Using Place ID

1. Use Place ID

📊 Output Formats

Apify Dataset

• Format: JSON records
• Export: CSV, JSON, Excel, XML formats

Sample Output Record

{
    "rank": 2,
    "rating": 4,
    "review": "The burger was great served medium. The fries were delicious too. Perfect serving size. I wish the pickle was thinly sliced to easily add to the burger though.\n\nI love creme brûlée so I was very disappointed when mine came out very poorly. The consistency was all wrong.\n\nOther than that, the atmosphere was great.",
    "photos": [
      "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/geougc-cs/AB3l90AIUgXvyFrhBAmPi0qKOCLv0t-tStVoARoDouQ1NxXi6jZlrCmJJLsrtWKeCboqp2Gp0PyYQE7RIf6SN0MvPwHsfIotDKYszwll-NMTpd0TI359ETNVM8pNlplhuI7CUxGIG1TUwRwK-VE",
      "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/geougc-cs/AB3l90BBi2cDSuzS1aspVxePBP__gele0Me2jqj0TWDwlZGff4kEPEglzrclexED8hCO8OckO13Vaj8r_D0BwPCIExq6vTy7X3HnJmWxlpAMPjc6TpyF7IaT4siM6NWtY699jbmWVyYjuYKBDpU"
    ],
    "time": "2025-08-02 21:54:01",
    "review_language": "en",
    "review_source": "Google",
    "review_likes": 0,
    "review_url": "https://www.google.com/maps/reviews/data=!4m8!14m7!1m6!2m5!1sCi9DQUlRQUNvZENodHljRjlvT2psTVRIaHlTVFp6VldkblFtMUxSeTFZVWxOdFlWRRAB!2m1!1s0x0:0x2fc6687f46f682d5!3m1!1s2@1:CAIQACodChtycF9oOjlMTHhySTZzVWdnQm1LRy1YUlNtYVE|0cYcZXqDoqZ|?hl=en",
    "placeId": "0x89c259a1ec5f5573:0x2fc6687f46f682d5",
    "user_total_reviews": 52,
    "scraped_at": 1755027683.4377072,
    "user_id": "109613240555692913673",
    "user_name": "Siphiwe Muze",
    "profile_photo": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/ALV-UjXTsZIaxLBtGc-0nlPjyNSqxWzIyPEuRYTp_JKf5XRtDUUjD0wB=s120-c-rp-mo-ba4-br100"
  },

🔒 Privacy & Compliance

GDPR Compliance

• Personal Data Control: Optional inclusion/exclusion of personal data
• Data Minimization: Only collect necessary information
• Transparency: Clear data processing information
• User Rights: Respect user privacy preferences

Data Security

• Secure Transmission: HTTPS encryption
• No Data Storage: Actor doesn't store data permanently
• API Security: Secure API key handling
• Access Control: Apify platform security

🆘 Troubleshooting

Common Issues

"Schema validation failed"

• Ensure all required fields are provided
• Check data types match expected schema
• Verify Place ID format is correct

"No reviews found"

• Verify Place ID/URL is correct
• Check if business has reviews
• Try different sorting options

"API request failed"

• Check internet connection
• Verify API key is valid
• Wait and retry (rate limiting)

Error Messages

Error	Solution
No GID or URL provided	Provide either Place ID or URL in input
Invalid GID format	Check Place ID format (0x...:0x...)
API rate limit exceeded	Wait and retry later
Business not found	Verify Place ID/URL is correct

## 📈 Changelog

### v0.1.0 (2025-08-12)
- ✨ Initial release
- 🔍 Place ID and URL input support
- 📊 Rich review data extraction
- 🔒 Privacy compliance features
- ⚡ Performance optimizations
- 📈 Progress tracking and logging

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