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Is it possible to create a Kapow Robot that can search Google for the Operating hours of the Businesses from our list/database and update the timings if changes are made?

Please share if there are any other more efficient ways than the KAPOW robot that can be implemented with minimal effort and cost-effectiveness.

luator
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Vicky
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  • Your question is quite broad. Are you looking for technical advice on how to create a robot that updates business hours? Do you want to understand the process of changing business hours on Google or suggesting edits? Note that you can only change hours for business that you have claimed as being yours. For all other businesses, you can suggest edits. Also, I would not go for changing data on the web pages, but rather use Google's API for that (https://developers.google.com/my-business). They are quite good at detecting robots, and they don't like them. Kapow can make use the API, too. – Wolfgang Radl Mar 05 '18 at 08:11
  • Hi, Thanks for responding, Yes I am looking for a technical advice for creating a robot that fetches data from the google and updating the Business Operation hours on our List prefers a Kapow Robot for this purpose, Is this possible or Are there any other methods? – Vicky Mar 06 '18 at 09:06

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That's what the Google Places API is there for. While you could in theory just open Google Maps in a Load Page action, enter the query string and then parse the results, I would advise against it. Here's why:

  • The API will be faster, returning results in a structured manner (JSON)
  • Kapow has actions for calling RESTful services and parsing/modifying JSON
  • Google does not like robots parsing their pages, and most likely will lock you out (i.e. present you with Captchas sooner or later)

If you decide to go for the API, here's what you should do:

Wolfgang Radl
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