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What it does

The Search Google Maps tool finds businesses and places on Google Maps and returns structured details including a place_id (required for fetching reviews), address, phone, website, rating, review count, GPS coordinates, categories, and hours. Perfect for local research, lead generation, competitor scanning, and due diligence.

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Key features

  • Search by business name, category, or natural-language query
  • Returns a Google place_id that can be passed to Get Business Reviews
  • Rating, review count, website, phone, and hours in one call
  • Geographic biasing via text location or GPS coordinates
  • Pagination for exploring broader result sets

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Parameters

ParameterTypeRequiredDescription
querystringYesThe Google Maps search query (e.g., "coffee shop in Austin, TX", "Franklin Barbecue")
locationstringNoText location to bias results (e.g., "Austin, TX") — appended to the query if not already present. Also accepts GPS coordinates in Google Maps format @lat,lng[,zoom] (e.g., "@30.267,-97.743,14z")
glstringNoTwo-letter country code for geolocation (e.g., "us", "gb")
hlstringNoLanguage code for the response (e.g., "en", "es"). Default: "en"
pageintegerNoPage number for pagination (default 1)
limitintegerNoMaximum results to return (default 10, max 20)

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Common use cases

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Find a specific business

query: "Franklin Barbecue Austin TX"
Returns the business with its place_id, rating, address, phone, and website.

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Local competitor scan

query: "HVAC contractors"
location: "Tampa, FL"
limit: 20
Pulls up to 20 local competitors with rating and review counts.

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Lead-gen enrichment

query: "marketing agency in Denver"
Returns agencies with websites and contact info for outreach lists.

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Pair with reviews

  1. Run search_google_maps to find the business
  2. Pass the returned place_id to get_business_reviews for full review detail

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What you get back

Each place includes:
  • place_id — Google’s stable identifier, required for get_business_reviews
  • title — business/place name
  • address, phone, website, domain
  • rating (0–5), reviews_count, reviews_link
  • gps_coordinates — { latitude, longitude }
  • type, types — Google Maps categories
  • hours, open_state, price, thumbnail

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Best practices

  • Include the location directly in the query for more reliable matching (e.g., "coffee shop in Austin, TX" works better than query + location for unambiguous cases)
  • Use gl when you specifically need country-scoped results
  • Save the place_id — it’s stable and lets you skip the lookup step next time

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Troubleshooting

“No results found”
  • Try broader query terms
  • Add location context (city, state, country)
  • Remove overly specific modifiers
“Wrong business returned”
  • For common or ambiguous names, add the city and state
  • Capture the place_id of the correct result and reuse it in downstream calls