How to Find Local Competitors on Google Maps

Local competitor research often starts with a simple Google Maps search: “dentist near me”, “flower shop in istanbul”, “coffee shop in brooklyn”, or “pilates studio in berlin”. The problem is that manual research does not scale when you need structured competitor data across many categories, cities, or neighborhoods.

Pullbay’s Google Maps API lets you search places by keyword and collect structured business listing data such as name, address, website, phone, rating, review count, categories, opening hours, Google Maps URL, and FID.

This guide shows how to find local competitors on Google Maps using Pullbay.

The Competitor Research Workflow

A simple local competitor workflow looks like this:

1. Search Google Maps by business category and location

2. Collect structured place results

3. Deduplicate places by fid or placeId

4. Compare rating, review count, categories, address, website, and phone

5. Optionally fetch full place details by fid

6. Optionally fetch reviews by Google Maps place URL

Endpoint

GET https://api.pullbay.com/google-maps/place/search

Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY

Basic Competitor Search

import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
BASE_URL = "https://api.pullbay.com"

headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"
}

params = {
    "query": "flower shop in istanbul",
    "countryCode": "tr",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "maxItems": 50
}

response = requests.get(
    f"{BASE_URL}/google-maps/place/search",
    headers=headers,
    params=params
)

response.raise_for_status()
data = response.json()
competitors = data.get("data", [])

for place in competitors:
    print({
        "name": place.get("title"),
        "address": place.get("address"),
        "rating": place.get("totalScore"),
        "reviews": place.get("reviewsCount"),
        "website": place.get("website"),
        "phone": place.get("phone"),
        "categories": place.get("categories"),
        "fid": place.get("fid"),
        "maps_url": place.get("url")
    })

Search Multiple Categories or Areas

For broader competitor research, loop through multiple search queries.

import requests

API_KEY = "YOUR_API_KEY"
BASE_URL = "https://api.pullbay.com"

headers = {
    "Authorization": f"Bearer {API_KEY}"
}

queries = [
    "flower shop in istanbul",
    "online flower delivery istanbul",
    "florist in kadikoy",
    "florist in besiktas"
]

seen_fids = set()
competitors = []

for query in queries:
    params = {
        "query": query,
        "countryCode": "tr",
        "languageCode": "en",
        "maxItems": 50
    }

    response = requests.get(
        f"{BASE_URL}/google-maps/place/search",
        headers=headers,
        params=params
    )

    response.raise_for_status()
    data = response.json()

    for place in data.get("data", []):
        fid = place.get("fid")
        if fid and fid not in seen_fids:
            seen_fids.add(fid)
            competitors.append({
                "query": query,
                "title": place.get("title"),
                "address": place.get("address"),
                "city": place.get("city"),
                "rating": place.get("totalScore"),
                "reviews": place.get("reviewsCount"),
                "website": place.get("website"),
                "phone": place.get("phone"),
                "categories": place.get("categories"),
                "fid": fid,
                "url": place.get("url")
            })

print(f"Unique competitors found: {len(competitors)}")

When to use this

Use this approach when you want to map competitors across multiple search terms, neighborhoods, or service categories.

Optional: Bias Competitor Search Toward a Map Viewport

If your research is focused on a specific map area, use latitude, longitude, and zoom.

params = {
    "query": "dentist",
    "countryCode": "us",
    "languageCode": "en",
    "latitude": "40.730610",
    "longitude": "-73.935242",
    "zoom": "13",
    "maxItems": 100
}

These parameters bias the search toward the provided viewport.

Save Competitor Results to CSV

import csv

with open("google_maps_competitors.csv", "w", newline="", encoding="utf-8") as file:
    writer = csv.DictWriter(
        file,
        fieldnames=[
            "query",
            "title",
            "address",
            "city",
            "rating",
            "reviews",
            "website",
            "phone",
            "categories",
            "fid",
            "url"
        ]
    )

    writer.writeheader()

    for competitor in competitors:
        row = competitor.copy()
        row["categories"] = ", ".join(row.get("categories") or [])
        writer.writerow(row)

print("Saved competitors to google_maps_competitors.csv")

What to Compare

Once you have competitor data, you can compare:

Field	Why It Matters
totalScore	Shows average customer rating
reviewsCount	Shows review volume
categories	Shows how the business is categorized
website	Helps identify businesses with or without a website
phone	Useful for lead enrichment or contact research
address	Useful for local market mapping
location	Useful for plotting places on your own map
openingHours	Useful for comparing availability

Important Identifier Rules

Pullbay’s Google Maps endpoints use different identifiers:

• Use fid to fetch full place details with /google-maps/place/{fid}

• Use url as placeUrl to fetch reviews with /google-maps/place/reviews

Do not pass an FID to the reviews endpoint. Reviews require the full Google Maps place URL.

Credit Considerations

Every response includes:

pricing.creditsCharged

Credit cost is dynamic. Store this value if you want to track usage per query.

Troubleshooting

Problem	Possible Cause	Fix
Duplicate businesses	Same place appears across multiple queries	Deduplicate with fid or placeId
Missing website or phone	Field may be unavailable for that place	Treat nullable fields as optional
400 Bad request	Invalid parameter or incompatible pagination parameters	Do not use offset and maxItems together
402 Insufficient credits	Not enough Pullbay credits	Check account credits
404 Not found	Place or review set not found	Try another query or place URL

Next Steps

After building your local competitor list, you can:

• Fetch full place details by fid

• Fetch customer reviews using each place’s Google Maps url

• Store competitors in SQLite, Postgres, BigQuery, or your BI workflow

• Repeat the same queries over time to monitor changes