Yelp Reviews Deep Scraper

Extract detailed reviews from any Yelp business page. Goes far beyond basic business listing scrapers — this actor focuses on deep review extraction with full text, star ratings, reviewer profiles, photos, votes, tips, and owner responses.

What it scrapes

Per Review

Field	Description
text	Full review text (no truncation)
rating	Star rating (1-5)
date	Review publication date (YYYY-MM-DD)
reviewerName	Reviewer display name
reviewerLocation	Reviewer's city/state
reviewerUrl	Link to reviewer's Yelp profile
reviewerFriends	Number of friends
reviewerReviews	Total reviews by this reviewer
reviewerPhotos	Total photos by this reviewer
reviewerElite	Whether the reviewer has Elite status
useful	"Useful" vote count
funny	"Funny" vote count
cool	"Cool" vote count
photos	Array of photo URLs attached to the review
ownerResponse	Business owner's reply text
ownerResponseDate	Date of owner response
previousReview	Previous version if the review was updated
checkIn	Number of check-ins mentioned

Per Business

Field	Description
businessName	Business name
overallRating	Overall star rating
totalReviews	Total number of reviews
priceRange	Price level ($, $$, $$$, $$$$)
categories	Business categories
address	Full address
phone	Phone number
website	External website URL
hours	Operating hours
neighborhood	Neighborhood name
latitude / longitude	GPS coordinates
claimedStatus	Whether the business is claimed
yearEstablished	Year the business was established
photoCount	Total photos on the business page

Tips

Field	Description
text	Tip text
author	Who left the tip
date	When the tip was posted
likes	Number of likes on the tip

Input options

Business URLs

Provide direct Yelp business page URLs for targeted review extraction:

{
  "businessUrls": [
    "https://www.yelp.com/biz/gary-danko-san-francisco",
    "https://www.yelp.com/biz/tartine-bakery-san-francisco"
  ],
  "maxReviews": 500
}

Search-based discovery

Search for businesses by keyword and location, then scrape reviews from all results:

{
  "searchTerms": ["best pizza", "italian restaurants"],
  "location": "New York, NY",
  "maxReviews": 200,
  "sortBy": "date_desc"
}

Combined approach

Mix both methods — provide specific URLs plus search terms:

{
  "businessUrls": ["https://www.yelp.com/biz/gary-danko-san-francisco"],
  "searchTerms": ["fine dining"],
  "location": "San Francisco, CA",
  "maxReviews": 1000,
  "sortBy": "relevance_desc"
}

Sort options

Value	Description
relevance_desc	Most relevant (Yelp default)
date_desc	Newest first
date_asc	Oldest first
rating_desc	Highest rated first
rating_asc	Lowest rated first
elites_desc	Elite reviewers first

Use cases

• Reputation monitoring — Track what customers say about your business or competitors
• Sentiment analysis — Analyze review text and ratings for trends over time
• Competitor research — Compare review volumes, ratings, and common complaints
• Local SEO — Understand which businesses dominate local search and why
• Market research — Identify underserved niches based on review feedback
• Lead generation — Find businesses with poor reviews (potential clients for services)
• Academic research — Study consumer behavior and review patterns

Proxy recommendation

Yelp aggressively blocks automated access. For reliable results:

• Small runs (< 100 reviews): Datacenter proxies may work
• Medium runs (100-1,000 reviews): Residential proxies recommended
• Large runs (1,000+ reviews): Residential proxies required

Configure proxy in the input:

{
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Output example

Review record

{
  "type": "review",
  "businessName": "Gary Danko",
  "businessUrl": "https://www.yelp.com/biz/gary-danko-san-francisco",
  "businessRating": 4.5,
  "businessTotalReviews": 5287,
  "reviewId": "abc123xyz",
  "text": "Absolutely phenomenal dining experience. The glazed oysters were divine and the lobster bisque was the best I've ever had. Service was impeccable — our waiter anticipated every need. The prix fixe menu is well worth it.",
  "rating": 5,
  "date": "2024-10-15",
  "reviewerName": "Sarah M.",
  "reviewerLocation": "San Francisco, CA",
  "reviewerUrl": "https://www.yelp.com/user_details?userid=xyz123",
  "reviewerFriends": 245,
  "reviewerReviews": 89,
  "reviewerPhotos": 312,
  "reviewerElite": true,
  "useful": 12,
  "funny": 3,
  "cool": 8,
  "photos": [
    "https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/abc/o.jpg",
    "https://s3-media0.fl.yelpcdn.com/bphoto/def/o.jpg"
  ],
  "ownerResponse": "Thank you for the wonderful review, Sarah! We're thrilled you enjoyed the glazed oysters. Hope to see you again soon!",
  "ownerResponseDate": "2024-10-17",
  "previousReview": null,
  "checkIn": 3,
  "scrapedAt": "2026-03-02T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Business record

{
  "type": "business",
  "businessName": "Gary Danko",
  "overallRating": 4.5,
  "totalReviews": 5287,
  "priceRange": "$$$$",
  "categories": "French, American (New)",
  "address": "800 N Point St, San Francisco, CA 94109",
  "phone": "(415) 749-2060",
  "website": "https://www.garydanko.com",
  "hours": "Mon-Sun: 5:00 PM - 10:00 PM",
  "neighborhood": "Fisherman's Wharf",
  "latitude": 37.8059,
  "longitude": -122.4219,
  "claimedStatus": "Claimed",
  "yearEstablished": 1999,
  "photoCount": 3421,
  "highlightedReviews": ["One of the best dining experiences in SF"],
  "scrapedAt": "2026-03-02T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Pricing

This actor uses Pay Per Event pricing:

• $0.004 per review extracted
• $0.005 per business profile extracted

Example: Scraping 500 reviews from 5 businesses = (500 x $0.004) + (5 x $0.005) = $2.025

Technical details

• Engine: CheerioCrawler (fast, lightweight HTTP-based scraping)
• Extraction: Dual strategy — embedded JSON parsing + DOM selectors with multiple fallbacks
• Rate limiting: Built-in respectful throttling (15 requests/minute max)
• Deduplication: Reviews are deduplicated by ID and content hash
• Pagination: Automatic — crawls through all review pages until maxReviews reached
• Anti-bot: Rotates User-Agent strings and uses browser-like request headers

Limitations

• Yelp may filter or hide some reviews (Yelp's "recommended reviews" algorithm)
• Very old reviews may not be accessible through pagination
• CAPTCHA/blocks may interrupt large scraping runs without residential proxies
• Review text language depends on the reviewer (no auto-translation)

Support

Built by Sovereign AI. For issues, feature requests, or custom scraping needs, open an issue on the actor page.

Integration — Python

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_API_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("sovereigntaylor/yelp-reviews-scraper").call(run_input={
    "searchTerm": "yelp reviews",
    "maxResults": 50
})

for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(f"{item.get('title', item.get('name', 'N/A'))}")

Integration — JavaScript

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';
const client = new ApifyClient({ token: 'YOUR_API_TOKEN' });

const run = await client.actor('sovereigntaylor/yelp-reviews-scraper').call({
    searchTerm: 'yelp reviews',
    maxResults: 50
});

const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach(item => console.log(item.title || item.name || 'N/A'));