The Ultimate Guide to Scraping Google Maps Data with Bright Data‘s SERP API

As one of the most popular online mapping services, Google Maps is an essential tool for businesses looking to connect with local customers. With over 1 billion monthly active users and information on more than 200 million places worldwide, Google Maps provides a wealth of valuable data that can help inform your marketing strategy, competitive research, and more.

While Google offers an official Maps API, it has significant limitations for data scraping, including strict rate limits, high costs, and access to only basic place details. Luckily, there‘s a better way to extract the Google Maps intel you need.

In this guide, we‘ll walk you through how to use the Bright Data SERP API to easily scrape rich Google Maps data at scale. Whether you‘re looking to monitor competitor reviews, build location databases, or gain local market insights, the SERP API can help you access the info you need without hitting roadblocks. Let‘s dive in!

Why Scrape Google Maps Data?

Before we get into the technical details, let‘s explore some of the key reasons you might want to scrape data from Google Maps in the first place:

Competitor Research – Keep tabs on how your business stacks up by monitoring competitors‘ ratings, review count, popular times, and more. Scraping Google Maps data can help benchmark your performance and identify opportunities to stand out.

Lead Generation – Uncover new prospects by scraping Google Maps results for target keywords. For example, a catering company could scrape local listings for "wedding venues" to build a fresh outreach list.

Location Analysis – Considering expanding your business? Use Google Maps scraping to assess different markets, understand local demand, and scope out the competitive landscape before investing in a new location.

Reputation Monitoring – Stay on top of your online reputation by tracking your business‘s Google reviews. Scrape your GMB listing regularly to promptly respond to feedback, report inappropriate content, and measure customer sentiment over time.

Data Enrichment – Enhance your existing business database with hard-to-find details like phone numbers, hours, popular visit times, ratings, reviews and more. Combining Google Maps data with your internal records can unlock powerful insights to guide strategy.

The applications for Google Maps data are virtually endless. But to put that data to work, you first need an efficient way to retrieve it. That‘s where the SERP API comes in.

Bright Data SERP API vs. Google Maps API

To access Google Maps data programmatically, Google offers an official Maps API. So why use the SERP API instead? While the Maps API is fine for basic place lookups and embedding dynamic maps in apps, it has some notable drawbacks for large-scale data extraction:

Rate Limits – Google sets a default limit of 1 request per second, per API key. Quotas can be increased but approvals are not guaranteed.

Pricing – Heavy usage of the Google Maps API can get expensive fast. Pricing starts at $7 per 1000 requests, with discounts for high volume.

Limited Data – The Maps API only returns basic place details like name, address, hours, and coordinates. No access to richer data like reviews, ratings, or popular visit times.

Complexity – Retrieving data via the Maps API requires complex authenticated requests and parsing through verbose place detail objects.

In comparison, Bright Data‘s SERP API offers a simpler, more flexible solution for Maps scraping:

No Rate Limits – Request data as quickly as you need it with no query per second caps holding you back. The SERP API only limits the number of total requests based on your plan.

Affordable Pricing – SERP API plans start at just $2 per 1000 requests. Plus, you get a free monthly allowance of 50K requests when you sign up.

Comprehensive Data – Access the full spectrum of Google Maps data points, including reviews, ratings, popular times, and more. The SERP API returns data in an easy-to-parse JSON format.

Ease of Use – Retrieving data is as simple as sending a GET request to the API endpoint. No complex authentication flows or parsing required.

With these benefits in mind, let‘s walk through how to get started with the SERP API and integrate it into your apps.

Step-by-Step SERP API Integration

Integrating the SERP API into your codebase is a straightforward process. In this tutorial, we‘ll use Node.js, but the basic steps can be adapted for any language. Here‘s how to get up and running:

Step 1: Sign Up for the SERP API

First, you‘ll need to create a free Bright Data account and subscribe to the SERP API. Head over to the Bright Data dashboard and click "Start Free Trial." Enter your details to register, then navigate to the Proxy Products page. Find the SERP API card and hit "Get Started."

Choose a name for your SERP API instance and specify whether you want to receive search results with or without ads. For this example, leave "Ads mode" set to Off and "Asynchronous request" unchecked. Click "Add" to create your instance.

You‘ll now see your unique API credentials, including:

• Proxy host
• Port number
• Username
• Password

Take note of these details as you‘ll need them to authenticate your requests. You can also test your new credentials directly from this page using the sample cURL command.

Step 2: Install the Request Module

Back in your Node.js environment, create a new project directory and install the request-promise module. This will allow you to easily make HTTP requests to the SERP API:

mkdir maps-scraper
cd maps-scraper 
npm init
npm install request-promise

Step 3: Set Up Your Script

Create a new file called index.js and add the following code:

const request = require(‘request-promise‘);

const username = ‘YOUR_USERNAME‘;    
const password = ‘YOUR_PASSWORD‘;
const host = ‘YOUR_HOST‘        
const port = ‘YOUR_PORT‘;          
const session_id = (1000000 * Math.random())|0;
const super_proxy = ‘http://‘+username+‘-session-‘+session_id+‘:‘+password+‘@‘+ host + ‘:‘+port;

async function searchMaps(keyword) {
    // Search Google Maps
    const mapOptions = {
        url: ‘https://www.google.com/maps/search/‘ + keyword.replace(‘ ‘, ‘+‘) + ‘/?gl=us&lum_json=1‘,
        proxy: super_proxy,
    };

    let mapResult;
    try {
        mapResult = await request(mapOptions); 
    } catch(e) {
        throw e
    }

    const mapResultJson = JSON.parse(mapResult);

    // Get Place ID of first result
    if (!mapResultJson.organic || mapResultJson.organic.length == 0) {
        throw ‘No results‘;
    }

    const placeId = mapResultJson.organic[0].fid;
    console.log(‘Found place ID: ‘ + placeId);

    // Get reviews
    const reviewOptions = {
      url: ‘https://www.google.com/reviews?fid=‘ + placeId + ‘&lum_json=1‘,
      proxy: super_proxy,
    };

    let reviewResult;
    try {
        reviewResult = await request(reviewOptions); 
    } catch (e) {
        throw e
    }

    return JSON.parse(reviewResult);
}

const keyword = process.argv[2];

searchMaps(keyword)
.then(response => {
    console.log(response);
})
.catch(e => {
    console.error(e);
    process.exit(-1);
});

Make sure to replace the credential placeholders with your actual SERP API username, password, host, and port.

This script does the following:

1. Imports the request-promise module and sets up the SERP API authorization details.

2. Defines an async function searchMaps that takes a keyword argument. This function:

• Searches Google Maps for the specified keyword
• Parses the JSON response and extracts the Place ID of the first result
• Retrieves reviews for the place using its ID

3. Gets the search keyword from the command line arguments.

4. Calls searchMaps with the provided keyword and logs the review data.

Step 4: Run the Script

You can now execute your script from the command line, passing in your desired search keyword:

node index.js "restaurants new york"

If all goes well, you should see the Google Maps reviews data for the first result printed to your console:

{
  "reviews": [
    {
      "reviewer": {
        "display_name": "John Smith",
        "profile_photo_url": "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/a-/AOh14GgQZ..."
      },
      "rating": "5/5",
      "comment": "Best pizza in the city! The ingredients are always fresh and the crust is perfection.",
      "created": "3 months ago on Google",
      "star_rating": "5/5"
    },
    ...
  ]
}

And that‘s it! With just a few lines of code, you‘re able to programmatically retrieve comprehensive Google Maps data. The SERP API empowers you to easily integrate this valuable info into your own applications and workflows.

Understanding the Google Maps Data

So what exactly are you getting back from the SERP API? Let‘s break down the two key data objects:

Maps Search Results

The first request in the example script searches Google Maps for a given keyword. The response contains an array of matching places, with the following details for each:

• title – Name of the business or point of interest
• link – URL of the business‘s website
• address – Street address
• phone – Phone number
• category – List of categories describing the place (e.g. "Restaurant")
• tags – Amenity tags like "Has Wi-Fi" or "Wheelchair Accessible"
• description – Brief editorial summary of the place
• rating – Average review star rating
• reviews_cnt – Total number of reviews
• latitude/longitude – Coordinates of the location
• images – URLs of thumbnail, strip and cover photos
• fid (Place ID) – Unique identifier for the place, used to retrieve additional details like reviews

Having access to these core place details allows you to build comprehensive location databases to power your own apps and analyses. You can store this info to display rich place cards, enable location-based searches, analyze categories, and more.

Reviews

The second request retrieves review data for a specific place using its Place ID. This response contains an array of all reviews for the given location, with the following info each:

• reviewer name – Display name of the Google user who left the review
• reviewer photo – URL of the reviewer‘s Google profile photo
• rating – The star rating left by the reviewer
• comment – The full text of the review
• review_reply – Any owner response left to the review
• photos – URLs of user photos included with the review
• created – Timestamp of when the review was left

Reviews offer a wealth of insights into how customers perceive a business. By analyzing the ratings and content of reviews at scale, you can benchmark performance, detect trends, and identify improvement opportunities. Plus, review text can be aggregated for sentiment analysis to quantify customer opinions.

With the SERP API, this is just a small sample of the Google Maps data at your fingertips. You can retrieve details on popular visit times, extract data from relevant ads, scrape suggested searches, and much more. The flexibility of the API allows you to access only the specific info you need for your use case.

Put Google Maps Data to Work

Equipped with this potent Google Maps data, the opportunities are endless. Here are just a few ideas for how you can apply it to your business:

Optimize Your Online Presence – Monitor your Google Maps listing to ensure your info is accurate and up-to-date. Respond to reviews to show customers you value their feedback.

Assess the Competition – Analyze competitors‘ ratings, review counts, and customer feedback to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Use these insights to adapt your own strategy.

Enrich Your Own Data – Integrate Google Maps details into your internal databases and systems. Use it to validate existing records or supplement info you don‘t have.

Perform Location Research – Scope out potential markets by analyzing the density, ratings and types of businesses in the area. Gain visibility into local demand and competition.

Enable Reputation Management – Automatically notify your team whenever your business receives a new Google review. Centralize your review monitoring to promptly address concerns.

Support Business Decisions – Justify site selection by backing it up with local search data. Use popularity and demand signals from Maps to assess the viability of a new location.

Create Helpful Content – Enhance your own app‘s location-based features with rich details from Google Maps. Display business hours, reviews, photos and more to guide users‘ decisions.

The SERP API makes it easy to build these Google Maps-powered solutions in a matter of hours instead of weeks. By eliminating the bottlenecks of the official API, Bright Data empowers you to efficiently retrieve the data you need at the scale you require.

Conclusion

Google Maps is an indispensable resource for businesses seeking to understand and reach local customers. But to fully harness its power, you need a robust way to access the underlying data.

The Bright Data SERP API offers a best-in-class solution for scraping Google Maps at scale. With simple integration, flexible pricing, and access to the full spectrum of Maps data, it outperforms the limits of the official API.

As you‘ve seen in this guide, integrating the SERP API into your app is a straightforward process. In just a few steps, you can unlock valuable location insights to apply across your business. From competitor research to reputation management to data enrichment, the use cases are virtually limitless.

So what are you waiting for? Sign up for your free SERP API trial today and start putting Google Maps data to work for your business. The local insights you need are just an API call away.