Scrape Google Local Place from organic search with Python
Tags: python, webscraping, tutorial, datascience
Published: 2021-07-15 05:20:48

Contents: intro, why bother reading, what will be scraped, imports, process, code, links, outro.

### Intro
This blog post is a continuation of Google's web scraping series. Here you'll see how to scrape Local Place Results from organic search results using Python with `beautifulsoup`, `requests`, `lxml` libraries. An alternative API solution will be shown.

*Note: This blog post assumes that you know the basics understanding of web scraping using `bs4`, `requests`/`regex`/`css` selectors.*


### Why bother reading?
You can do:
- place analysis in the local area(s).
- compare analysis of the same place in different areas.
- analysis of user feedback (rating, reviews).
- compare one place to a competitor place in Google results, who appears on the page and try to understand why.
- create a dataset for analysis.



### What will be scraped
![image](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/wwh7pc8czvhmyke4vi7i.png)



### Imports
```python
import requests, lxml
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from serpapi import GoogleSearch
```

### Process

Selecting `CSS` selectors to extract **container** with all data, **title, address, phone** (if there), **open hours, place options, website, directions link** to Google Maps.

[SelectorGadget](https://selectorgadget.com/) extension were used in the illustrated GIF.
<img width="100%" style="width:100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/8Lm4dx8zsd7VPMFgOL/giphy.gif">


**Extract phone numbers correctly**

To extract phone numbers no matter what language and country is used, e.g. German, Japanese, French, Italian, Arabic, etc. I used `regex` which you can see in action on [regex101](https://regex101.com/r/cwLdY8/1). 

It also could be done with `xpath` but `beautifulsoup` doesn't support `xpath` directly and using [lxml.etree](https://lxml.de/tutorial.html) that supports `xpath` I didn't want either (*Examples from [Ian Hopkinson on GitHub](https://gist.github.com/IanHopkinson/ad45831a2fb73f537a79)).* I found really difficult or impossible to make it work with `CSS` selectors, so `regex` was used instead. 
 

Firstly, a GIF illustration for a bit of familiarization.

<img width="100%" style="width:100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/j69D9KolEHs7EOzJw0/giphy.gif">


Secondly, it's because of this (*French language/country was used*):
![image](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/hbiihtht9d4rr21y10ed.png) 
 

![image](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/r1r248726gdh8a00no8j.png)


Thirdly, now you see that sometimes `<span>` with a class `lqhpac`  have <mark>**2** or **3**</mark> `<div>` elements inside it and **only the <mark>phone numbers</mark>** need to be extracted. That's why regular expression comes into play.
 
*A quick note: this issue doesn't occur at all if you're using `hl=en&gl=us` and this step could be skipped if you don't need data other than English.*

**Solution** 

The solution is incredibly simple yet does what is supposed to:
1. locates ` · ` symbol that always appears.
2. creates a [capture group](https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html#regular-expression-syntax) for the phone numbers and use `.*` which selects everything afterward.
3. the final regular expression will look like this: ` · ?(.*)`

*The screenshot below shows what is being captured with regular expression. Notice how the phone numbers differ and are still being captured.*
![image](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/h1xobs3txysnuji121oa.png)
 
  
 

*You can learn about regular expressions on [regexone](https://regexone.com/), can't recommend it enough, such a great place to learn `regex`.*

### Code
```python
import requests, lxml, re, json
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

headers = {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/70.0.3538.102 Safari/537.36 Edge/18.19582"
}

# phone extracting works with different countries, languages
params = {
    "q": "mcdonalds",
    "gl": "jp",
    "hl": "ja", # japanese
}

response = requests.get("https://www.google.com/search", headers=headers, params=params)
soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'lxml')

local_results = []

for result in soup.select('.VkpGBb'):
    title = result.select_one('.dbg0pd span').text
    try:
        website = result.select_one('.yYlJEf.L48Cpd')['href']
    except:
        website = None

    try:
        directions = f"https://www.google.com{result.select_one('.yYlJEf.VByer')['data-url']}"
    except:
        directions = None
        
    address_not_fixed = result.select_one('.lqhpac div').text
    # removes phone number from "address_not_fixed" variable
    # https://regex101.com/r/cwLdY8/1
    address = re.sub(r' · ?.*', '', address_not_fixed)
    phone = ''.join(re.findall(r' · ?(.*)', address_not_fixed))
    
    try:
        hours = result.select_one('.dXnVAb').previous_element
    except:
        hours = None

    try:
        options = result.select_one('.dXnVAb').text.split('·')
    except:
        options = None

    local_results.append({
        'title': title,
        'phone': phone,
        'address': address,
        'hours': hours,
        'options': options,
        'website': website,
        'directions': directions,
    })

print(json.dumps(local_results, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))


------------------------------------------
'''
# Japanese results:
  {
    "title": "マクドナルド 上田バイパス店",
    "phone": "0268-28-4551",
    "address": "長野県上田市",
    "hours": " ⋅ 営業開始: 6:00",
    "options": [
      "イートイン",
      "店先受取可",
      "宅配"
    ],
    "website": "https://map.mcdonalds.co.jp/map/20515",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//%E3%80%92386-0001+%E9%95%B7%E9%87%8E%E7%9C%8C%E4%B8%8A%E7%94%B0%E5%B8%82%E4%B8%8A%E7%94%B0+%E5%AD%97%E9%A6%AC%E9%A3%BC%E5%85%8D%EF%BC%91%EF%BC%98%EF%BC%94%EF%BC%90%EF%BC%8D%EF%BC%91+%E3%83%9E%E3%82%AF%E3%83%89%E3%83%8A%E3%83%AB%E3%83%89+%E4%B8%8A%E7%94%B0%E3%83%90%E3%82%A4%E3%83%91%E3%82%B9%E5%BA%97/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x601dbd18e95fda63:0x6e7cae08b9fb4c6c?sa=X&hl=ja&gl=jp"
  }


------------------------------------------


# Arabic results:
  {
    "title": "McDonald's",
    "phone": "",
    "address": "Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires Province",
    "hours": " ⋅ سوف يفتح في 7:00 ص",
    "options": [
      "الأكل داخل المكان",
      "خدمة الطلب أثناء القيادة",
      "التسليم بدون تلامس"
    ],
    "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.com.ar/",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's,+Brown+266,+B8000+Bah%C3%ADa+Blanca,+Provincia+de+Buenos+Aires/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x95edbcb37fd850d3:0x5223e03c35a5110d?sa=X&hl=ar&gl=ar"
  }


------------------------------------------

# Arabic results №2 (hl=ar (Arabic), gl=dz (Algeria))
  {
    "title": "McDonald's",
    "phone": "+212 669-599239",
    "address": "تطوان، المغرب",
    "hours": "مفتوح ⋅ سيتم إغلاقه في 10:00 م",
    "options": [
      "الأكل داخل المكان",
      "خدمة الطلب أثناء القيادة",
      "التسليم بدون تلامس"
    ],
    "website": "http://www.mcdonalds.ma/",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's%D8%8C+Avenue+9+Avril,+%D8%AA%D8%B7%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86+93000%D8%8C+%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%85%D8%BA%D8%B1%D8%A8%E2%80%AD/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0xd0b430da777d3cd:0x31a4be8cb9167e69?sa=X&hl=ar&gl=dz"
  }


------------------------------------------


# French results:
 {
    "title": "McDonald's",
    "phone": "04 70 28 00 16",
    "address": "Saint-Victor",
    "hours": "Ouvert ⋅ Ferme à 22:30",
    "options": [
      "Repas sur place",
      "Service de drive",
      "Livraison"
    ],
    "website": "http://www.restaurants.mcdonalds.fr/mcdonalds-saint-victor",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's,+Zone+Industrielle+de+la+Loue,+03410+Saint-Victor/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x47f0a77a2fb7e253:0x7c68ab4798e1655a?sa=X&hl=fr&gl=fr"
  }


------------------------------------------


# Russian results:
  {
    "title": "Макдоналдс",
    "phone": "8 (495) 103-38-85",
    "address": "Москва",
    "hours": "Открыто ⋅ Закроется в 00:30",
    "options": [
      "Еда в заведении",
      "Еда навынос",
      "Бесконтактная доставка"
    ],
    "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.ru/",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//%D0%9C%D0%B0%D0%BA%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B4%D1%81,+%D1%83%D0%BB.+%D0%9A%D0%B8%D0%B5%D0%B2%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B0%D1%8F,+2,+%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B2%D0%B0,+121059/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x46b54b0efab9de2f:0x2e3336864cc08e8f?sa=X&hl=ru&gl=ru"
  }


------------------------------------------


# German results:
  {
    "title": "McDonald's",
    "phone": "03622 900140",
    "address": "Laucha",
    "hours": "Geöffnet ⋅ Schließt um 00:00",
    "options": [
      "Speisen vor Ort",
      "Drive-in",
      "Kein Lieferdienst"
    ],
    "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.com/de/de-de/restaurant-suche.html/l/laucha/gewerbestrasse-1/549&cid=listing_0549",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's,+Gewerbestra%C3%9Fe+1,+99880+Laucha/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x47a480ee11b6e809:0x403e2aa4d3d85996?sa=X&hl=de&gl=de"
  }


------------------------------------------


# English results:
   {
    "title": "McDonald's",
    "phone": "(620) 251-3330",
    "address": "Coffeyville, KS",
    "hours": " ⋅ Opens 5AM",
    "options": [
      "Curbside pickup",
      "Delivery"
    ],
    "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/location/KS/COFFEYVILLE/302-W-11TH/4581.html?cid=RF:YXT:GMB::Clicks",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's,+302+W+11th+St,+Coffeyville,+KS+67337/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x87b784f6803e4c81:0xf5af9c9c89f19918?sa=X&hl=en&gl=us"
  }
'''
```

### Using [Google Local Pack API](https://serpapi.com/local-pack)
SerpApi is a paid API with a free trial of 5,000 searches.

I would say that the difference is that iterating over rich, structured `JSON` is better than coding everything from scratch, and you don't need to use `regex` to find specific data, it's already there ʕ•́ᴥ•̀ʔ

```python
import json
from serpapi import GoogleSearch

params = {
  "api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
  "engine": "google",
  "q": "mcdonalds",
  "gl": "us", 
  "hl": "en" 
}

search = GoogleSearch(params)
results = search.get_dict()

for result in results['local_results']['places']:
    print(json.dumps(result, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))

-------------------------
'''
# English result:
{
  "position": 1,
  "title": "McDonald's",
  "place_id": "18096022638459706144",
  "lsig": "AB86z5UHvsX5Pdo5ua4vplcxlXYG",
  "place_id_search": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?device=desktop&engine=google&gl=us&google_domain=google.com&hl=en&lsig=AB86z5UHvsX5Pdo5ua4vplcxlXYG&ludocid=18096022638459706144&q=mcdonalds&tbm=lcl",
  "rating": "A",
  "links": {
    "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/location/VA/RICHMOND/7527-STAPLES-MILL-RD/3735.html?cid=RF:YXT:GMB::Clicks",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's,+7527+Staples+Mill+Rd,+Richmond,+VA+23228/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x89b115b9ff1b78cd:0xfb21fcb67cd15b20?sa=X&hl=en&gl=us"
  },
  "phone": "(804) 266-8600",
  "address": "Richmond, VA",
  "hours": "Closed ⋅ Opens 5:30AM",
  "gps_coordinates": {
    "latitude": 37.618504,
    "longitude": -77.49884
  }
}

-------------------------

# Arabic results:
{
  "position": 1,
  "title": "McDonald's",
  "place_id": "2793317375272005807",
  "lsig": "AB86z5XgEbNCVDhyL9L0Vp7aqSA4",
  "place_id_search": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?device=desktop&engine=google&gl=us&google_domain=google.com&hl=ar&lsig=AB86z5XgEbNCVDhyL9L0Vp7aqSA4&ludocid=2793317375272005807&q=mcdonalds&tbm=lcl",
  "rating": "A",
  "links": {
    "website": "https://www.mcdonalds.com/us/en-us/location/WA/SPOKANE/1617-NORTH-HAMILTON-STREET/36304.html?cid=RF:YXT:GMB::Clicks",
    "directions": "https://www.google.com/maps/dir//McDonald's,+1617+N+Hamilton+St,+Spokane,+WA+99202/data=!4m6!4m5!1m1!4e2!1m2!1m1!1s0x549e18c208497f9b:0x26c3db5a6a03b0af?sa=X&hl=ar&gl=us"
  },
  "phone": "(509) 484-8641",
  "address": "1617 N Hamilton St",
  "hours": "مغلق ⋅ سوف يفتح في 6:00 ص",
  "gps_coordinates": {
    "latitude": 47.672504,
    "longitude": -117.39688
  }
}
'''
```


### Links
[Code in the online IDE](https://replit.com/@DimitryZub1/Scrape-Google-Organic-Local-Place-Results-python#main.py) • [Google Local Pack API](https://serpapi.com/local-pack) 


### Outro
If you have any questions or something isn't working correctly or you want to write something else, feel free to drop a comment in the comment section or via Twitter at [@serp_api](https://twitter.com/serp_api).

Yours, 
Dimitry, and the rest of SerpApi Team.