🧠 Google Maps Places Scraper - API Based

This Apify actor retrieves verified business data exclusively through the Google Maps API. Search by keyword and location to collect structured business information including name, phone, address, website, ratings, reviews, and more. Perfect for B2B lead generation, market research, and business intelligence.

✅ Use Cases

• 📇 Generate local business leads with verified ratings
• 💬 Build contact lists for cold outreach campaigns
• 🏙️ Conduct market research by city and category
• 🧭 Perform competitive analysis in your niche
• 📊 Gather structured business intelligence

📥 Input Configuration

You can customize the actor using the following input fields:

{
    "searchStringsArray": ["software companies", "tech startups"],
    "locationQuery": "Bangalore, India",
    "maxCrawledPlacesPerSearch": 50,
    "skipClosedPlaces": true,
    "placeMinimumStars": "4.0",
    "language": "en"
}

🧾 Fields Explained

Field	Type	Description
searchStringsArray	array	Array of search terms (e.g., "restaurants", "software companies")
locationQuery	string	Geographic location to search in (e.g., "Bangalore, India")
maxCrawledPlacesPerSearch	number	Maximum number of places to retrieve per search query (1-500)
skipClosedPlaces	boolean	Whether to exclude closed places or those with no opening hours
placeMinimumStars	string	Minimum star rating for places (e.g., "4.0")
language	string	Language code for results (e.g., "en" for English)

📤 Output

The actor returns a dataset containing structured business records. Each record includes comprehensive details about the business, suitable for lead generation, analytics, and market research.

🧩 Sample Output

{
    "title": "Tech Park Bangalore",
    "categoryName": "Technology Company",
    "address": "123 Innovation Street, Bangalore, Karnataka 560001, India",
    "city": "Bangalore",
    "state": "Karnataka",
    "postalCode": "560001",
    "countryCode": "IN",
    "phone": "+91 80 4000 1000",
    "phoneUnformatted": "+918040001000",
    "website": "https://techpark.example.com",
    "totalScore": 4.7,
    "reviewsCount": 245,
    "location": {
        "lat": 12.9716,
        "lng": 77.5946
    },
    "placeId": "ChIJ_example_1",
    "openingHours": [
        {"day": "Monday", "hours": "9:00 AM - 6:00 PM"},
        {"day": "Tuesday", "hours": "9:00 AM - 6:00 PM"}
    ],
    "reviewsDistribution": {
        "oneStar": 5,
        "twoStar": 3,
        "threeStar": 10,
        "fourStar": 42,
        "fiveStar": 90
    }
}

📋 Output Fields

Field	Type	Description
title	string	Business name
categoryName	string	Business category/type
address	string	Complete business address
city	string	City name
state	string	State/Province
postalCode	string	Postal/ZIP code
countryCode	string	ISO country code (e.g., "IN")
phone	string	Formatted phone number
phoneUnformatted	string	Phone number without formatting
website	string	Business website URL
totalScore	number	Average rating (0-5)
reviewsCount	integer	Total number of reviews
location	object	Geographic coordinates (lat/lng)
placeId	string	Unique Google Places ID
openingHours	array	Business operating hours
reviewsDistribution	object	Count of reviews by star rating

🔍 Data Source

• ✓ Data fetched exclusively via Google Maps API (HTTP GET requests)
• ✓ No HTML scraping or DOM parsing
• ✓ Verified business information directly from Google Maps
• ✓ Automatic filtering and deduplication

🔒 Proxy Configuration

This actor uses standard HTTP headers with optional proxy support for:

• Avoiding IP-based rate limiting or bans
• Accessing location-specific data
• Ensuring stable data retrieval at scale

Configure proxy settings in Apify:

{
  "useApifyProxy": true,
  "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"],
  "apifyProxyCountry": "IN"
}

🚀 How to Use

1. Open the actor in Apify Console
2. Click "Try actor" or create a new task
3. Enter your search terms and location
4. Configure optional filters (minimum rating, closed places)
5. Run the actor
6. Download results in JSON, CSV, or Excel format

⚙️ Advanced Input Example

{
    "searchStringsArray": ["restaurants", "hotels", "cafes"],
    "locationQuery": "Mumbai, India",
    "maxCrawledPlacesPerSearch": 100,
    "skipClosedPlaces": true,
    "placeMinimumStars": "3.5",
    "language": "en"
}

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Apify SDK — actor orchestration and data handling
• Node.js 18+ — runtime environment with native fetch API
• Google Maps API — exclusive data source for business information

📊 Data Processing Features

• ✓ Automatic duplicate detection using Place IDs
• ✓ Filtering by minimum rating and open status
• ✓ Structured data parsing and normalization
• ✓ Comprehensive logging and error handling
• ✓ Schema validation for all output records

🔧 Local Development

Installation

$npm install

Running the Actor

$npm start

Validation

Validate all generated datasets against the schema:

$node validate-datasets.js

Code Quality

Format code:

$npm run format

Check linting:

$npm run lint

📂 Project Structure

.
├── .actor/                          # Actor configuration
│   ├── actor.json                  # Actor metadata
│   ├── input_schema.json           # Input parameters schema
│   ├── dataset_schema.json         # Output dataset schema
│   ├── input.json                  # Default input
│   ├── input-local.json            # Local development input
│   └── input-production.json       # Production input
├── src/
│   └── main.js                     # Main actor script
├── storage/
│   └── datasets/default/           # Generated datasets
├── package.json                    # Dependencies
├── validate-datasets.js            # Dataset validator
└── README.md                       # This file

🤝 Support

For issues, questions, or feature requests, please refer to the Apify documentation or contact support.