Web Scraping Chrome extension: Google Maps Scraping with MrScraper

A web scraping Chrome extension like MrScraper’s can help you find Google Maps selectors. You can use them to set up a workflow, run a scraper, and review data. You can also export the collected data.

What is Web Scraping?

Web scraping is a method used to extract large amounts of data from websites quickly and efficiently. Instead of manually copying and pasting information, scraping automates the process, allowing users to gather data at scale. This helps businesses collect public web data. It can include competitor data. It can include customer reviews. It can include business locations. It can include other public information.

Why Use Web Scraping?

The benefits of web scraping are manifold:

1. Efficiency: Automated data extraction saves time and resources.
2. Scalability: Scraping tools can handle large volumes of data across multiple pages or websites.
3. Accuracy: Properly configured scrapers reduce human error, ensuring consistent data collection.
4. Cost-Effective: Compared to manual data collection or purchasing datasets, scraping is often more affordable.

With the rising demand for location services and geographic data, scraping Google Maps is now essential. Many businesses use it, including marketing, logistics, and real estate.

A Step-by-Step Guide Using Mrscraper

Step 1: Sign Up for MrScraper

First, sign up for an account on MrScraper. You can choose from various subscription plans based on your scraping needs. Once you have an account, you can access the dashboard, where all scraping activities are managed.

Step 2: Create the scraper

Open the scrapers menu and select Manual Scraper. To build a web scraping Chrome extension workflow for Google Maps, enter a URL using the google.com/maps/search/ pattern in the Default entry URLs field, replacing with your search terms.

Step 3: Create the workflow

Before you create the workflow, You must first know the steps on how to view the information on the Google Maps page. As shown in the image above, we must add a click workflow to accept the Google Consent page. This is needed because we may see that page before the Google Maps page.

To scrape data, find the data selector using DevTools Inspect Element. You can also use the Chrome Extension MrScraper to find the selector more easily.

First, you need to find the selector for each google maps place data. As in the example in the picture, the selector for each place is .Nv2PK which we will later fill into the selector in the workflow.

For the container selector, you need to set the scraper workflow type to "Collection (list of sub-items)". As in the image above.

The second is to determine what data fields we will take from each of these places. For example place name, rating, address, etc.

The third is to find a selector for each data field that we want to search for. and here are the CSS selectors that I have found:

1. Name: .qBF1Pd
2. Rating star: .MW4etd
3. Rating total: .UY7F9
4. Price: .AJB7ye > span:last-child [role="img"]
5. Type: .W4Efsd > .W4Efsd:first-child > span:first-child
6. Address: .W4Efsd > .W4Efsd:first-child > span:last-child > span:last-child
7. Info: .W4Efsd > .W4Efsd:last-child
8. Url: a
9. Image: img

Add all those data fields and their selectors into the items collection. Once the workflow has been added, it is time to save it.

Web Scraping Chrome Extension Selectors

A web scraping Chrome extension makes visual selector identification faster, but selector quality still matters.

const cards = document.querySelectorAll('.Nv2PK');
const rows = [...cards].map(card => ({
  name: card.querySelector('.qBF1Pd')?.textContent.trim(),
  rating: card.querySelector('.MW4etd')?.textContent.trim()
}));
console.table(rows);

This scoped approach is more resilient than copying a long selector from one element. If the console shows empty values or a wrong card count, check your selection again. Choose a stable class or attribute that all target elements share.

Step 4: Run the Scraper

To run the scraper, go to the sidebar and click the Scrapers menu, then click Run on the scraper you just created. To see the progress of the scraper run, go to the Runs menu then wait until the status changes to succeed.

Step 5: Review and Export the Data

After the scraping task is complete, review the extracted data in the MrScraper dashboard. You can export data in many formats, like CSV or Excel. This makes it easy to use in your systems. You can also analyze it later.

Step 6: Ensure Compliance with Google’s Terms of Service

It’s important to note that while scraping can provide valuable insights, you should always ensure compliance with Google’s terms of service and legal regulations. MrScraper includes features that support responsible scraping, like rate limiting and IP rotation. These help avoid overloading Google’s servers or breaking their policies.

For advanced scraping techniques and tools, check our earlier blog post titled "Top 5 Email Scrapers to Boost Your Sales."

Conclusion

By following these steps, you can scrape Google Maps data with MrScraper. This helps you gather useful insights for your business. Whether you're gathering competitor data, building a location-based service, or analyzing geographical trends, MrScraper provides a reliable and efficient solution for your web scraping needs.

Make sure you stay updated with our latest blogs. Learn more about how MrScraper can help boost your business. Use data-driven decisions to guide your next steps

What We Learned

A web scraping Chrome extension helps test selectors and check a page workflow. But repeatable data collection needs a documented process.

A web scraping Chrome extension can speed up inspection, but human review and compliance checks are still needed.

Start the Google Maps scraping workflow

Use the MrScraper quickstart resources to follow the setup, workflow, run, review, export, and compliance steps in this guide.

Get Started