How to Scrape Google Reviews with cURL

Google Reviews contains valuable data -- review text, star rating, reviewer profile, 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 50 credits on signup -- 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 profile, and more.

# Reviews are per place: get a data_id (or place_id) from POST /api/v2/google/maps/search
# first. Owner responses are not part of this response.
curl -X POST "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v2/google/maps/reviews" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer sk_live_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"data_id":"0x89c259869319e7af:0x54953953a5ede7bb","num":10,"sort_by":"newest"}'

Step 3: Example Response

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

{
  "search_parameters": { "engine": "google_maps_reviews", "data_id": "0x89c259869319e7af:0x54953953a5ede7bb", "num": 10 },
  "place_info": { "title": "Jives Media", "address": "800 6th Ave Ste 36C, New York, NY 10001", "rating": 4.9, "reviews": 199 },
  "reviews": [
    {
      "position": 1,
      "rating": 5,
      "date": "a year ago",
      "iso_date": "2025-06-11T00:00:00Z",
      "snippet": "We have been working with the Jives Media team for over a year now...",
      "likes": 0,
      "user": { "name": "P Gol", "link": "https://www.google.com/maps/contrib/100121084533228462911", "local_guide": true }
    }
  ],
  "pagination": { "next_page_token": "CAESY0NBRVFB..." },
  "response_time": 3720,
  "credits_used": 1,
  "credits_remaining": 4811
}

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
# Fetch Google Reviews data with the Scavio API.
# POST /api/v2/google/maps/reviews - rows come back under reviews.
# Reviews are per place: get a data_id (or place_id) from POST /api/v2/google/maps/search
# first. Owner responses are not part of this response.

SCAVIO_API_KEY="${SCAVIO_API_KEY:-sk_live_your_key}"
INPUT="${1:-0x89c259869319e7af:0x54953953a5ede7bb}"

curl -s -X POST "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v2/google/maps/reviews" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SCAVIO_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d "{\"data_id\":\"$INPUT\",\"num\":10,\"sort_by\":\"newest\"}" | 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. 50 credits on signup with no credit card required. Each search costs 1 credit.