How To Use Google Places API In Python 

You're welcome!

same issue !!!

That's a little challenging because there is no "real way" to list all the existing branches of an existing establishment using this API. You're best bet is to just do a general search of the establishment over a large area. For example search for "McDonalds" in a particular geographic location. The drawback is you might be required to do multiple requests depending on the number of establishments that might exist. Also, I've seen issues related to naming conventions. For example, I'm not sure if "CVS", and "CVS Pharamcy" would necessarily be returned in a search for "CVS".

@@SigmaCoding please I'm having problems making requests. I get ssl certificate verification failed.

same question i have

It's probably a two step process involving two different APIs: 1. use the Geolocation API to get your current location 2. pass the current location to the Places API. I might be wrong though. I'm new to the whole API process. 🙃Maybe there's a more direct way of accessing your current location and using it in your Places call.

Thanks for the sub!

Glad you liked Christian, and thanks for subscribing!

You made too many requests for the day. You can only make so many requests per day, so you have to wait till it resets or provide your credit card info to Google to get more free requests.

From what I've read the distance matrix API should take either a pair of coordinates or an address either one should work fine. All it's supposed to do is convert a raw address string into a pair of lon/lat coordinates. What exactly are you passing through to the distance matrix API?

@@SigmaCoding I am passing through the starting position which is a list of postcodes that I am running through, the destination which is a fixed train station (this is what I want to change so that instead of it being a fixed station, it becomes to nearest station with respect to the starting positions postcode) and the mode of transport which I have set to walking. I have got it to return the distance in Kilometres.

It's probably the zip codes if I have to guess. I don't believe you can pass through a zip code as an a point of origin, it has to be an address or lat/lon coordinate. If I was in your position do a Google place query where you search for train stations based on the origin address. Once you have that data set, measure the distance using the address for each train station relative to each origin address and then just rank them. Hopefully that makes sense.

There are multiple ways to approach this problem, but I'll explain what I think will be the most straightforward approach. It sounds like you already have a latitude and longitude coordinate you want to search. That's good because what that means is you can use the "Nearby Search" endpoint to conduct your search. *HOWEVER, KEEP IN MIND THIS IS NOT A FREE API!* Google seems to have now made this a paid API, so you'll want to keep that in mind when you make requests. All you need to do is request the endpoint, specify the location parameter (the lat/long coordinates), and the radius parameter (max is 5000 meters). The response will give you a list of places and their coordinates. Now you have the location you searched and all the nearby places with their coordinates. The rest is just math. You can calculate the distance from the origin to the destination using the distance formula or use another API to do it for you. The API results will probably be more accurate, so I would try to find a free one that can offer you that service. You could use the Google Distance Matrix API, but this also not a free API so you'll need to keep that in mind.

I didn't see any category that would be that specific in the documentation. developers.google.com/places/web-service/supported_types If I were you, I would do a text search since it's a little more flexible. You could just do something like "Music Events in New York" for example. developers.google.com/places/web-service/search

I would utilize the songkick api

Yes, you can! Google provides a list of categories that they cover and it can be found here: developers.google.com/places/supported_types. In your case, you would want ['night_club', 'bar'].

@@SigmaCoding Is there a way to find business types? Such as 'E-commerce service' ?

Glad you enjoyed it!

@@SigmaCoding it was working great until i added place details, after that it became really slow and results in a timeout after one or two details what might be the problem??

@@SigmaCoding is there any other way i can parse the details

@@aryaanand759 You might have to add a pause between each request. If you hit the server with too many requests it'll kick you out. Usually, I just need to do a 1 to 2 second pause and it's fine.

@@SigmaCoding it is still really slow can I parse it through as an json object (i only neeed the name)

Hi Max, this is really easy to do thankfully. The only thing I want to make you aware of is that sometimes the JSON results can have missing keys. In other words, you go and fetch the details, and for whatever reason, that particular business may not have a phone number, so just keep that in mind. I have a file on GitHub, that will walk you through how to dump the results into an Excel file. Here is the link: github.com/areed1192/sigma_coding_youtube/tree/master/python/python-api You'll want the Google Maps API - Places API file and once inside go to the "Dumping Values in Excel" section

@@SigmaCoding Wow, thank you once again for this simpke but very helpful code!!! I don't get the keyword-search entirely. It seems, that if I search for a keyword, it does not show the same results (less) as when I search for something in google maps manually. An example keyword-phrase would be "architect Berlin" (Germany). Am I using the wrong api function? Is there something better than keyword?

@@maxhartmann8993 You might want to look into the Query Autocomplete endpoint, as this one will take phrases and do a best-guess query. Here is the link to the documentation: developers.google.com/places/web-service/query. Also, it's prevalent to get different/fewer results when doing keyword-phrase searches as this is something Google does this intentionally to make sure different businesses get an equal footing in the search query.

@@SigmaCoding Thank you once again for your help! I will check your other videos. You have great stuff here!

More than likely you should be fine, from what I've seen as long as you're not making a product with this data, then usually you're fine. Additionally, as long as you're not taking their dataset and making it public, you'll be fine. For example, if I scrape all the data and put it on my GitHub, I could get in trouble. Additionally, if I go an create a GoogleMap competitor with their data, then I would get in trouble. From my experience, Google cares once you get into the commercial aspect of it.

@@SigmaCoding thanks a lot for your response! Great content, I subscribed to the channel!

It really depends on the data you have. For example, if you're pulling everything, including photos, reviews, and other information that could have multiple values, then do not put it in a data frame as one big blob. Trying to "flatten" that dictionary and make it a normalized data set that fits into a data frame will give you millions upon millions of rows. The only reason I know this is because I did it once in PowerQuery and was blown away on how many rows there were. What I recommend you do is split the information into different tables. For example, hours go in one table, photos in one table, reviews in another table. Again it really depends on what data you're trying to store in a data frame.

@@SigmaCoding Hello I am facing the same issue. As i am going as per your codes the generated dictionary has "results" as a key and value is the entire request so not able to flatten or open that part please help with this

You have a couple of options for looping through lat/lng coordinates. Option 1: Giant String, separated by a " | " (Pipe Character) Example 1: '60.170880,24.942795|60.170879,24.942796|60.170877,24.942796' Option 2: List of Strings of Coordinates separated by a " , " (Comma Character) Example 2: [ '60.170880,24.942795', '60.170879,24.942796', '60.170877,24.942796' ] Option 3: List of Tuples of Coordinates separated by a " , " (Comma Character) Example 3: [ ('60.170880' , '24.942795') , ('60.170879' , '24.942796') ] Option 4: List of Dictionaries of Coordinates where you specify the "lat" and "lng" key. Example 4: [ {"lat": 60.170880, "lng": 24.942795} , {"lat": 60.170879, "lng": 24.942796} ]

@@SigmaCoding Hiii i m am pretty new to python can please give a code for this? please its a request

That's a very interesting question did you install this in the environment that your running the Python Script from?

Are you using the "TextSearch" endpoint? Here is an example of the URL you need to build: "maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/textsearch/json?query=pizza+in+san+diego"

@@SigmaCoding Thanks! I was able to solve that error! You da man!

@@SigmaCoding Hey I have another question; is there a limit of 3 tokens for up to 60 results? i couldnt seem to get more than 60 results at a time. Thanks!

@@ShnauzerR Are you trying to use 3 different API tokens in the same script? Be careful Google might not allow that type of behavior with their API. I'm not sure though.

He imports a python file that he made as a module, in that file he saved the key. The file has a function called get_my_key that returns the key

I'm sort of confused with what you're asking. Are you asking if it's possible to return photos from a specific location?

That's because the GoogleMapsAPIKey module is a separate Python Script, that I created to store my credentials. All you need to do is put your credentials in the Script instead of importing them.

100%, but I will warn you that you'll have to use multiple endpoints to achieve this. The Google Places API will allow you "search" for a business with the information you have. In your case, I would start with the "TextSearch" endpoint and see how accurate the results are. The "TextSearch" query will return the "PlaceID," which is what you want. With the "PlaceID," you can make your second request to the "PlaceDetails" endpoint and get further details on the place. BE WARNED, the Places API is now charging for most of the details related to a place. For example, you said you want hours and reviews, all of that is now no longer free, so you would have to pay to get it.

​@@SigmaCoding I believe we get a $200 monthly credit towards the cost of different calls we make through the Places API. That's on top of the one time $300 credit we get when we first sign up for a google developer account. I might be wrong though. I'm new to the whole API process and I'm still struggling with making a simple call. 🙃Great video, by the way. Very nice teaching style.

@@BiancaAguglia Hey Bianca, you're absolutely correct individuals who are a first time sign up get access to free credits they can use. For most projects it more than enough. It's usually if you want to make this a recurring process is where things usually can cost some money. In the bigger scope of it all, it's honestly not that bad, but it's still a cost. Glad you liked the video! :)

You pretty much have it. Here is how I would approach it: # create a list to help with pagnation place_result_list = [] # Do a simple nearby search where we specify the location # in lat/lon format, along with a radius measured in meters places_result = gmaps.places_nearby(location='-33.8670522,151.1957362', radius = 40000, open_now =False , type = 'pet_store') # append the results to the master list. place_result_list.append(places_result) # as long as there is a next page token keep making requests. # make sure to pause it, and append the results to the master list. while 'next_page_token' in places_result.keys(): time.sleep(3) places_result = gmaps.places_nearby(page_token = places_result['next_page_token']) place_result_list.append(places_result) pprint.pprint(places_result)

You mean like an audio guide of the area? I don't think Google offers anything like that.

Keep in mind that it is a personal python file I wrote, all it does is import a function that grabs my API key. In your case, you can just put your API key in the main python file unless you plan to share it with someone. In that case, you need to store it in a secure source and import it from that source.

With the help gsm gps system

What do you mean by sending a message?

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try to run the script during the video more frequently.

The daily quote resets every 24 hours, so it's based on the last request you made. It sounds like you've made too many requests and Google is basically cutting you off until the next pull. If you want more requests, you'll have to add a Credit Card on file so that you can make more requests.

@@SigmaCoding No sir..i just made only one request ...after that it was showing me this error

@@bharatrajsingh2182 What does your request look like? Do you have the code?

@@SigmaCoding yes import googlemaps import json import pprint import xlsxwriter import time # Define the API Key. API_KEY = 'my_key' # Define the Client gmaps = googlemaps.Client(key = API_KEY) # Do a simple nearby search where we specify the location # in lat/lon format, along with a radius measured in meters places_result = gmaps.places_nearby(location='27.2038,77.5011', radius = 40000, open_now =False , type = 'restaurant') pprint.pprint(places_result)

@@bharatrajsingh2182 same problem. It doesn't provide above 1 request.