How to scrape Google Maps for Free [2024 Edition]

Sasha Bouloudnine●

January 19, 2024

●

17 min read

Contents

Which data points will we scrape from Google Maps?

Why not use the Google Maps Official API?

Is it legal to scrape Google Maps data?

Why extract data from Google Maps?

Step-by-step tutorial

How much does it cost?

Google Maps limits display per URL. How to go further?

FAQ

Conclusion

Looking to scrape data from Google Maps but you don’t want to copy-paste for hours?

In this article, I’ll show you a simple method in 4 easy steps:

Go to Google Maps Scraper
Indicate the URL you want to scrape
Click Start ▶️
Download the results

Without writing a single line of code. With emails included. For free.

Let’s deep dive in.

Which data points will we scrape from Google Maps?

Usual attributes

Our no-code cloud-based tool scrape automatically more than 35 attributes per establishment.

It does include mainly general information — and contact information such as phone number:

Name
Lat
Lng
Postal address
Score
Reviews count
Phone
Website
Description
Point Of Interests (POI)

…

Email address

Plus, if the website is available, we can visit the website, and collect email addresses.

It works in 2 steps.

First, we collect the website collected on Google Maps.

Second, we collect the email addresses present on the website.

🍷

Be careful, the scraper featured here does not collect Google Maps Reviews. If you need it, check our powerful Google Maps Reviews scraper.

Why not use the Google Maps Official API?

If I type google maps api in Google, it does appear 2 things:

It does exist
It is maintained by Google itself

In these conditions, why not use the official Google Maps API?

Well, for 6 main reasons:

You need to know how to code
It is (really) hard to understand
You get only 60 results per search
You are arbitrarily rate limited
It is (atrociously) expensive
Key attributes are missing

Let’s deep dive in.

You need to know how to code

An API stands for application programming interface. In other words, it is a service that you can interact with with a piece of code.

Simply said, you need to know how to code to use Google Maps API.

Of course you can ask ChatGPT to write a piece of code in Python for instance:

But you need at least basic coding knowledge to run the script and play around.

And to say the least the official Google Maps API is not the most easy to use.

It is (really) hard to understand

Google is one of the companies with the most market value worldwide. It does represent +4% of all S&P500 stock market. Or 1.78 trillion dollars or total market capitalization in December 2023.

However, their API is extremely hard to deal with.

You have to deal with intricate product offers and several layers of pricing.

For instance, for the Google Maps API only, you need to deal with 4 families of products.

Let's restrict to what interests us here, Places. You need then to deal with 10 subproducts, and for each 1 to 3 pricing plans. In total, 17 pricing plans.

Hard to play, hard to master.

You get only 60 results per search

You read it right.

You can scrape only 60 results per search query.

For example, let’s say you need to collect all restaurants in Austin, Texas. It’s said to be home to 6000+ restaurants in total, according to Eater Austin%20There%20are%20about%201%2C000,times%20greater%20at%20approximately%206%2C000.).

In that situation, how to achieve a complete web scraping? Yes, you get it. You’re screwed.

You are arbitrarily rate limited

In addition to being limited per request, you are speed limited.

As any API service, you are limited to a certain number of daily requests. Google Maps API limit is 1000 requests per day without identity verification.

Tight.

Keys attributes are missing

Let’s be honest. The result for Google Maps API is clean and well structured.

You retrieve all important attributes, with proper categorization and indentation. If the API access is complicated, the result is easy to deal with.

For example, at location level, you get a nice multi-layers structure:

However, the main issue is that core contact attributes are missing.

Email, social media links such as Facebook or Instagram: all of this is missing. Although it is critical from a B2B lead generation perspective.

In other words, if you need to generate leads from Google Maps, do not use the Google Maps API.

You miss some attributes and all is lost. And if only it was cheap enough…

It is (atrociously) expensive

With our no-code automation, it will cost you €50 to scrape approximately 50,000 results.

Or €1 per 1000 results.

What is the price with the official Google Maps API?

Well, I’ll spare you the complicated computations (they are really).

But basically speaking we will need to use 2 services, with basic pricing:

Search places nearby a given location (2500 requests)
Get details of each place (50000 requests)

In total, we will have to pay (be ready)... $914.

Even when taking into account the free $200 monthly offer, it will cost you €647 per month. Or €13 per 1000 results. \

In other words, the official Google API is 12x more expensive than our Google Maps data scraper.

🤯

With restrictive hypotheses. And missing core attributes.

Unless you are a seasoned developer with cross-API needs, do not use the official Google Maps API.

Is it legal to scrape Google Maps data?

OK Google API is unusable. Is it however legal to collect data through non official scraping tools?

You can legitimately ask yourself, as Arief Salafudin bravely did here:

To answer briefly:

It is against the Google Terms Of Service (TOS)
But it is absolutely legal
You risk nothing

Let’s deep dive in.

It is against the Google Terms Of Service (TOS)

If you scroll slightly down, you will notice that Google simply does not allow bulk data scraping.

Cfanatic, Diamond Product Expert (!) at Google, says it clearly: "no".

What does Google exactly say about it?

There is no specific mention of Google Maps. But if you explore the Spam policies for Google web search, scraping is against Google TOS.

Though, if you type google maps scraping on Google, you will be asked to test dozens of competing tools.

More surprising, Google authorizes the promotion of scraping services on Google Ads.

You can check this long list of criminal activities — according to Google — here. There is now mention of any scraping-related service.

Our own Google Ads account makes the case for us:

How to explain that Google does allow advertising of a product against its TOS?

But it is absolutely legal

As said by rockerBOO in this reddit thread, factual data is not under copyright.

What does it mean?

To keep it simple, it means data is publicly accessible online. This data does not belong to Google. Consequently, you can scrape it and share it as you wish.

The US Ninth Supreme Court, one of the highest US courts, did reaffirm it on April 15, 2022.

Scraping data that is publicly accessible on the internet is not a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, or CFAA, which governs what constitutes computer hacking under U.S. law.

You did understand it: data scraping on Google Maps is totally legal.

You risk nothing

To sum-up, scraping data is against Google TOS, but absolutely legal according to US laws. What does it imply if you try to scrape data yourself?

According to the TOS, Google can suspend your access to Google Services.

Thus, if you use a third-party service, you risk absolutely nothing.

And from our side, how do we prevent being banned?

Well, it is simple: we do not collect data being connected to any account. If there is no Google Account, there is no Google account suspension.

That’s it.

🦭

Why extract data from Google Maps?

We did identify 3 main use cases:

Lead generation
Competitors analysis
Subsegment App creation

Let’s check it out.

Lead generation

Main reason to scrape Google Maps is lead generation.

Indeed, on Google Maps, you can retrieve precious contact information, such as phones. And emails using our powerful Google Maps Search Export.

You can then:

Contact the business owners
Present your offer
Sell them the product

Arief Salafudin nailed it, in this Google sub thread on October 17, 2022.

☕

Competitors analysis

Second reason to scrape Google Maps is to gather competitors' information.

Indeed, you will find data points informing you on:

Market competition intensity
Competitors performance
Competitors positioning

Let’s say you own a nightclub in Austin, Texas. After all, why not?

First, you can identify fast market competition intensity.

The number of competitors and the geographical coordinates will tell you if you can settle in.

Second, you will be able to check competitors' performance.

With reviews count and business reviews score, determine which competitors are good. And which ones are about to be expelled off the market.

Endly, you can check your competitors' positioning in the market.

Do they have beers? Or a large cocktail offer?

We provide insightful information by gathering:

Business description
Points Of Interest (POI)

Have you identified a market need not fulfilled by the current offer? Build a solid business based on data-driven decisions.

Subsegment app

minzsasori asks on reddit if it is legal to scrape data and pull into its application.

But what does it mean exactly?

With a Google Maps data scraper, you can export all Google places of a subcategory. And build a Google Maps subsegment competing app.

For instance, bookamagician.com is a simple directory that gathers magicians online.

It is ranking first position on the keyword book a magician on Google in the US.

And it is said to generate $30K/year, with no or low maintenance.

With a solid Google Maps data scraping, you can extract all business listings to a CSV file. And build similar websites in competitive niches in seconds:

Clowns
Comedians
Caricature artists
Fire performers
Dancers

Step-by-step tutorial

In this section, let’s see how launch Lobstr Google Maps Search Export scraper. The most competitive scraper available today on the market.

In 4 easy steps:

Go to Google Maps Scraper
Indicate the URL you want to scrape
Click Start ▶️
Download the results

Let’s deep dive in.

Go to Google Maps Scraper

First, go to the app Dashboard page, and create a new Squid.

Once the window opens, type google in the search input field.

Several Google related scrapers do appear. Choose Google Maps Search Export: the chosen one.

As you can see, you can also scrape reviews from Google places, and scrape Google SERPs. Both scrapers are usable for free. Check it out!

Once you click on the button, it will create a Squid. Time to tell our scraper which list of businesses we want to scrape.

Indicate the URL you want to scrape

In this comprehensive guide, we will scrape all nightclubs from Austin, Texas. After all, we expect cool kids to pour in.

First, go on Google Maps, type the keyword you want to collect places from and press enter: here nightclub.

Then, copy the URL generated by your browser.

Get back to Lobstr.

Paste the URL in the input field (1), and click on Add (2) to add the origin URL you want to scrape listings from.

You should receive a success green notification! Click on Save & Exit to go to the next step.

You can also add several URLs at once from a CSV file, using our Upload file feature. Feel free to check the dedicated help article here.

Looking to target multiple cities or zip codes at once? No need to copy Google Maps links one by one.

With the area-wise targeting feature, you can add all zip codes to your tasks in just a few clicks:

Toggle the Use params button
Pick an activity or category from the dropdown menu
Select your targeted country
Specify states or provinces (admin 1 & admin 2)
Choose the cities and zip codes you want to target
Click Add task to complete your selection

Click Start ▶️

You may reach at that point the launch area.

Simply click on the big green Launch button.

The scraper is launched!

In the Live area just below, you will see the web pages being scraped. And, cherry on the cake, the emails being scraped on the business website. In real time.

Download the results

After 3 minutes and 28 seconds, the scraper did collect 92 unique Austin nightclubs. Crazy good!

Simply click on the Download button to export the data.

You will get a proper, exhaustive and structured dataset in CSV format. With all the data. Phone and emails of each business listing included.

Do you wanna convert CSV to Excel? Feel free to check our dedicated help article, available here.

Congrats!

🪩

If you want to access your data through API, it’s possible. Feel free to check your API key in the profile section. And the whole documentation is accessible here.

And it did cost you literally $0. You did collect all these places for free. Let’s precise it further.

How much does it cost?

Pricing is clear, competitive and simple.

€0 per month with 3000 leads per day
€50 per month with 30000 leads per day
€250 per month with 300000 leads per day

You did read properly: you can scrape up to 3000 leads per day, business emails included, for free.

The most competitive price out there.

Do you want to check precisely which plan you need considering your lead flow needs? Feel free to check the price simulator directly accessible from the product page.

Google Maps limits display per URL. How to go further?

Google Maps displays max 200 results per Search URL.

It is possibly for two reasons:

Ease User Experience (UX)
LImit data gathering

For instance, if you search nightclub around the Austin region, you will find max 90-100 clubs. How to get all nightclubs in the USA?

How do you collect all the nightclubs of a whole country?

Basically, you need to create as many search URLs as you get locations. And you can do it in two ways:

Use our Lobstr 1-click tool
Use lat/lng and spreadsheet

Let’s deep dive in.

Use our Lobstr 1-click tool

Access our Google Maps Search URLs generator here.

Once on the page:

Add your keyword e.g. nightclub
Pick your country e.g. USA
Click on Generate

Internally, we have gathered the 500 largest cities of each country. It will generate a list of 500 search URLs, 1 per city. Simply download it, and upload the list in the scraper.

To upload a list of URLs in a scraper, please check our dedicated help article available here.

But what if you need to target a specific location? For instance, all nightclubs in Arkansas?

Use lat/lng and spreadsheet

We will do manually what our tool does in 1 click. Be careful, it allows you to target a specific region, but it is (way!) longer. We will do in 2 steps:

Gather all lat/lng of the region
Generate all URLs with a Google Spreadsheet

Be ready.

Gather all lat/lng of the region

First, let’s gather all coordinates of Texas.

The best source for latitude and longitude is opendatasoft. It is an open source database with a large range of publicly accessible datasets.

The Geonames - All Cities with a population > 1000 provides a list of all cities worldwide. With at least 1000 people living in. You can access it here.

If you check on the card, you will see they provide thousands of geolocation, only for the Texas region. Awesome!

To restrict to Arkansas, we will limit research to two parameters:

Country name EN: United States (US)
Text Search: AR i.e. Arkansas

You can check in the table: an absolutely awesome list of cities from the region.

Then, click on Export tab, and export the data to CSV:

It’s looking absolutely gorgeous, isn’t it?

Generate all URLs with a Google Spreadsheet

Our initial Google Search URL was this one:

https://www.google.com/maps/search/nightclubs/@30.336143,-97.8089683,12z

You can see there are 3 arguments:

Keyword
Latitude
Longitude

First, we open the spreadsheet with all the latitudes and longitudes we have just downloaded.

In the last column, add a column keyword, and add the keyword you want to search: here nightclub.

Copy-past to the bottom.

Endly, in column V, we will use an Excel formula to concatenate text. \

The formula is the following one:


f

="https://www.google.com/maps/search/"&U2&"/@"&S2&","&T2&",12z"

It will automatically pick the 3 elements — lat, lng, and keyword — and generate 1 search URL per line.

Feel free to access the complete spreadsheet here. Fantastic!

Simply export the file to CSV, and upload the bunch of tasks into the scraper. Extract Google Maps data at scale, with a focus on region. Collect all Google places.

FAQ

Can I use AI to scrape Google Maps?

No, AI cannot be used to scrape data directly from any website. However, if you are a developer, you can use it to generate the code from the HTML structure.

Be careful, ChatGPT is not easy to deal with.

Can I scrape Google Place IDs?

Yes, Google Maps Search Export lets you extract many elements during data extraction. Including a unique Google place ID.

Can I code my own Google Maps scraper?

Yes, absolutely! However, Google Maps requests are not easy to identify nor to deal with. Also, we recommend using a chrome headless browser, such as selenium webdriver.

Once you have loaded the HTML, you can parse data with libraries such as beautifulsoup.

Be careful, you will face many challenges:

Long development time
Unstable selectors and xPath
Slow scraping speed
Use of your own computer's resources
IP ban
No email nor any advanced data points

You can use any language. But we recommend to use popular languages such as JavaScript or Python. You will find more resources online, and better AI-powered advice.

If you want to get quick to the point, feel free to use this Python github repository.

The scraping is slow and does consume your own resources. But with 327 stars, and 92 commits since release, it’s a solid way to quickly get hands on.

Feel free to check this source file, to understand how the scraper is built.