How to Scrape Google Reviews with cURL

Google Reviews contains valuable data — review text, star rating, reviewer name, review date, and more. Scraping this data directly means dealing with anti-bot detection, CAPTCHAs, IP rotation, and constantly breaking selectors. The Scavio API handles all of that and returns clean, structured JSON from a single POST request.

This tutorial shows you how to scrape Google Reviews using cURL and the Scavio API. By the end, you will have a working cURL script that fetches real-time Google Reviews data and parses the results.

Prerequisites

• A terminal with cURL installed (pre-installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows 10+)
• A Scavio API key (free tier includes 500 credits/month — no credit card required)

Step 1: Install Dependencies

curl is built into cURL, so there is nothing to install.

# cURL is pre-installed on macOS, Linux, and Windows 10+

Step 2: Make Your First Google Reviews Search

Send a POST request to the Scavio Google Reviews API endpoint with your query. The API returns structured JSON with review text, star rating, reviewer name, and more.

curl -X POST "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: your_scavio_api_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"Blue Bottle Coffee San Francisco reviews","tbs":""}'

Step 3: Example Response

The API returns structured JSON. Here is an example response for a Google Reviews search:

{
  "search_metadata": { "status": "success" },
  "place_results": {
    "title": "Blue Bottle Coffee",
    "rating": 4.5,
    "reviews": 1820,
    "user_reviews": [
      {
        "rating": 5,
        "user": "Alex Chen",
        "date": "2 weeks ago",
        "snippet": "Best pour over in the Mission. Baristas always dial in a new single origin.",
        "owner_response": "Thanks Alex! See you next visit."
      }
    ]
  }
}

Every field is structured and typed — no HTML parsing, no CSS selectors, no regex extraction. Your cURL code can access any field directly.

Step 4: Full Working Example

Here is a complete, runnable cURL script that searches Google Reviews and prints the results:

#!/bin/bash
# Scrape Google Reviews search results using Scavio API.
# Returns structured JSON with review text, star rating, reviewer name, and more.

SCAVIO_API_KEY="${SCAVIO_API_KEY:-your_scavio_api_key}"
QUERY="${1:-Blue Bottle Coffee San Francisco reviews}"

curl -s -X POST "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $SCAVIO_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query":"Blue Bottle Coffee San Francisco reviews","tbs":""}' | python3 -m json.tool

Why Use Scavio Instead of Scraping Google Reviews Directly?

• No proxy management. Direct scraping requires rotating proxies to avoid IP bans. Scavio handles all of this server-side.
• No CAPTCHA solving. Google Reviews aggressively blocks automated requests. Scavio returns clean data every time.
• Structured JSON output. No HTML parsing or CSS selector maintenance. Get typed, consistent data from every request.
• Multi-platform in one API. Search Google, Amazon, YouTube, and Walmart from the same API key with the same authentication pattern.
• Free tier included. 500 credits/month with no credit card required. Each search costs 1 credit.