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Local SEO Google map image I created for a blog post on local marketing, by Henry Perks, Unsplash
Map data are increasingly important in the Internet era, generating business value and helping decision-making. Such data are widely used in industries, for example, a catering company can decide where to open a new restaurant by analyzing map data and competitors nearby.
Like the article Top 20 Web Crawling Tools to Scrape the Websites Quickly, here we selected 5 best Google Maps crawlers in 2019 and wrote reviews on features of the best crawlers out there. There are different kinds of methods to create Google Maps crawlers. Try the following methods and create your own crawler to get the data you need!
1. Places API of Google Maps Platform
Yes, Google Maps Platform provides Places API for developers! It’s one of the best ways to gather places data from Google Maps, and developers are able to get up-to-date information about millions of locations using HTTP requests via the API.
Before using Places API, you should set up an account and create your own API key. The Places API is not free and uses a pay-as-you-go pricing model. Nevertheless, the data fields provided are limited by the Places API, and thus you may not get all the data you need.
