How to Get More than 5 Reviews from the Google Places API

If you’re trying to retrieve Google reviews using the Google Places API, you’ve probably noticed that it returns only five reviews, even when a business has hundreds or thousands on Google.

This is a limitation of the Places API itself. It doesn’t support pagination for reviews, and making additional API requests or increasing your API quota won’t help you retrieve more than five.

However, that doesn’t mean you’re limited to using only five Google reviews on your website or in your application.

In this article, we’ll cover how you can use Proof Embed to display more than five Google reviews on your website, along with a few other methods for retrieving reviews beyond the Places API limit.

Method 1: Use Proof Embed to Display More Than 5 Google Reviews

You can use Proof Embed without working directly with the Google Places API.

Proof Embed lets you display Google reviews using customizable widgets. It also automatically syncs new reviews, so you don’t have to update them manually.

No Google Business Profile Connection Required

You don’t need to connect your Google Business Profile or give Proof Embed access to your Google account.

You can simply search for a business by name and select its Google listing to get started.

This also means you can access reviews from businesses you don’t own, which can be useful for tracking competitors or researching other businesses.

Choose From Different Review Widget Layouts

Proof Embed offers multiple widget layouts, including carousels, grids, lists, and sliders.

You can customize the appearance of your widget to match your website, including its colors, layout, and how the reviews are displayed.

Free Plan to Display Up to 15 Google Reviews

Proof Embed has a free plan that lets you display up to 15 Google reviews on your website, which is already more than the five reviews available through the Places API.

If you need to display more, the Pro plan supports unlimited reviews.

Your reviews also stay updated automatically, with weekly syncing on the free plan and daily syncing on Pro.

How to Add Google Reviews to Your Website With Proof Embed

You can set up a Google reviews widget in a few steps:

1. Create a free account: Sign up and search for the business whose reviews you want to display.
2. Customize your widget: Select a layout and adjust the appearance to match your website.
3. Embed the reviews: Copy the provided embed code and paste it into your website.

Proof Embed works with WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and other platforms that support HTML embeds.

Method 2: Use the Google Business Profile API

Unlike the Places API, the Business Profile API supports pagination and lets you retrieve up to 50 reviews per request.

You can make additional requests to retrieve the remaining reviews.

To access reviews through this API, you’ll need:

• Access to the business: You must own or have authorized management access to a verified Google Business Profile.
• API access: You need a Google Cloud project approved for the Google Business Profile APIs.
• OAuth authentication: You must authenticate using OAuth 2.0 to access the business’s review data.

Once you have API access, you can use the accounts.locations.reviews.list endpoint to retrieve reviews.

Here’s an example API request:

GET https://mybusiness.googleapis.com/v4/accounts/ACCOUNT_ID/locations/LOCATION_ID/reviews?pageSize=50

Replace ACCOUNT_ID and LOCATION_ID with your business’s details and authenticate the request using an OAuth access token.

The API returns up to 50 reviews per request. If more reviews are available, the response includes a nextPageToken, which you can pass as the pageToken parameter in your next request.

You can repeat this process until you’ve retrieved all available reviews.

You can find the complete request parameters and response details in Google’s official API documentation.

The main limitation is that you cannot use the Business Profile API to retrieve all reviews from competitors or other businesses you don’t have access to.

Method 3: Scrape Google Maps Reviews

Another way to retrieve more than five Google reviews is to scrape them directly from Google Maps.

You can use browser automation tools such as Puppeteer or Playwright to load a business’s Google Maps listing, scroll through the reviews, and extract details such as reviewer names, ratings, review text, and dates.

However, scraping has several limitations:

• Google Maps interface changes can break your scraper
• Large-scale extraction can be slow or unreliable
• Google restricts scraping and bulk extraction of Maps content under its terms of service

This approach also requires more ongoing maintenance than using an API or a review widget, so it’s generally less practical if your main goal is simply to display Google reviews on a website.

Display More Than 5 Google Reviews on Your Website

The Google Places API limits you to five reviews, but you can use the Google Business Profile API or scraping methods to retrieve additional reviews, depending on your requirements.

If your goal is simply to display more Google reviews on your website, Proof Embed offers an easier option without API setup or coding.

You can create a free account, choose a review widget, and add it to your website in a few steps.