Scrape Google Maps' reviews

Usage

google_maps(
  client,
  name,
  place_id = NULL,
  base = "https://www.google.com/maps/search/?api=1&query=",
  sleep = 1,
  max_reviews = 100,
  result_id = 1,
  with_text = FALSE
)

Arguments

client: RSelenium client.
name: String with the name of the target place.
place_id: String with the unique ID of the target place, useful when more than one place has the same name.
base: String with the base URL for Google Maps website.
sleep: Integer with number of seconds to use as pause between actions on the web page.
max_reviews: Integer with the maximum number of reviews to scrape. The number of existing reviews will define the actual number of reviews returned.
result_id: Integer with the result position to use, only relevant when multiple matches for the given name are found.
with_text: Boolean value to indicate if the max_reviews should only account for those reviews with a comment.

Value

Tibble with the reviews extracted from Google Maps.

Examples

if (FALSE) {
# Create RSelenium session
rD <- RSelenium::rsDriver(browser = "firefox", port = 4544L, verbose = FALSE)
# Retrieve reviews for Sefton Park in Liverpool
sefton_park_reviews_tb <-
  scrappy::google_maps(
    client = rD$client,
    name = "Sefton Park",
    place_id = "ChIJrTCHJVkge0gRm1LWF0fSPgw",
    max_reviews = 20
  )

sefton_park_reviews_tb_with_text <-
  scrappy::google_maps(
    client = rD$client,
    name = "Sefton Park",
    place_id = "ChIJrTCHJVkge0gRm1LWF0fSPgw",
    max_reviews = 20,
    with_text = TRUE
  )
# Stop server
rD$server$stop()
}