Kapow Robot - Extract business Operating hours from Google Search Results

Question

Is it possible to create a Kapow Robot that can search Google for the Operating hours of the Businesses from our list/database and update the timings if changes are made?

Please share if there are any other more efficient ways than the KAPOW robot that can be implemented with minimal effort and cost-effectiveness.

Answer 1

That's what the Google Places API is there for. While you could in theory just open Google Maps in a Load Page action, enter the query string and then parse the results, I would advise against it. Here's why:

• The API will be faster, returning results in a structured manner (JSON)
• Kapow has actions for calling RESTful services and parsing/modifying JSON
• Google does not like robots parsing their pages, and most likely will lock you out (i.e. present you with Captchas sooner or later)

If you decide to go for the API, here's what you should do:

• Get your API key first, see this page for details: https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/get-api-key. Note that the free plan allows for 1,000 requests within a 24-hours limit (https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/usage)
• Maintain the place ids for all the businesses you'd like to query regularly, and update your list.
• For each place, retrieve the details as described in the API documentation. The opening hours will be within the JSON response: https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/details
• Update your list. I'd recommend using a definite type in Kapow for that, and using the actions Store in Database and Query Database. In case you need the data elsewhere, you may create additional robots (e.g. for Excel files, sending data per email, et cetera).