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 Go and the Scavio API. By the end, you will have a working Go script that fetches real-time Google Reviews data and parses the results.
Prerequisites
- Go installed on your machine
- A Scavio API key (free tier includes 500 credits/month — no credit card required)
Step 1: Install Dependencies
net/http is built into Go, so there is nothing to install.
# net/http is in Go's standard library — no installation neededStep 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.
package main
import (
"bytes"
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"io"
"net/http"
)
func main() {
apiKey := "your_scavio_api_key"
body, _ := json.Marshal(map[string]interface{}{
"query": query,
"tbs": "",
})
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search", bytes.NewBuffer(body))
req.Header.Set("x-api-key", apiKey)
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
client := &http.Client{}
resp, err := client.Do(req)
if err != nil {
panic(err)
}
defer resp.Body.Close()
result, _ := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
var data map[string]interface{}
json.Unmarshal(result, &data)
formatted, _ := json.MarshalIndent(data, "", " ")
fmt.Println(string(formatted))
}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 Go code can access any field directly.
Step 4: Full Working Example
Here is a complete, runnable Go script that searches Google Reviews and prints the results:
package main
import (
"bytes"
"encoding/json"
"fmt"
"io"
"net/http"
"os"
)
// SearchGoogleReviews queries Google Reviews via Scavio and returns structured results.
func SearchGoogleReviews(query string) (map[string]interface{}, error) {
apiKey := os.Getenv("SCAVIO_API_KEY")
body, err := json.Marshal(map[string]interface{}{
"query": query,
"tbs": "",
})
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.scavio.dev/api/v1/search", bytes.NewBuffer(body))
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
req.Header.Set("x-api-key", apiKey)
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
resp, err := (&http.Client{}).Do(req)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
defer resp.Body.Close()
result, err := io.ReadAll(resp.Body)
if err != nil {
return nil, err
}
var data map[string]interface{}
if err := json.Unmarshal(result, &data); err != nil {
return nil, err
}
return data, nil
}
func main() {
results, err := SearchGoogleReviews("Blue Bottle Coffee San Francisco reviews")
if err != nil {
fmt.Fprintf(os.Stderr, "Error: %v\n", err)
os.Exit(1)
}
formatted, _ := json.MarshalIndent(results, "", " ")
fmt.Println(string(formatted))
}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.