DataForSEO Brain

Business Data API (Capability)

4 min read

Business Data API (Capability)

The Business Data API returns local-business and reputation data: Google My Business info, updates, reviews, and Q&A; Google Hotels; Trustpilot and Tripadvisor profiles and reviews; Pinterest pin counts; and a pre-indexed Business Listings database of Google Maps POIs. Sits under DataForSEO Brain → Concepts.

Overview

Business Data is DataForSEO’s local-SEO and reputation layer. It scrapes Google Business Profile details and reviews, hotel listings, and third-party review platforms, and it also exposes a pre-indexed Business Listings database for discovering points of interest by category and location. The review and GMB endpoints follow the Task lifecycle (some also offer Live); Pinterest and Business Listings are Live. It is the data behind local rank tracking, reputation monitoring, and market mapping of physical businesses. Endpoints live under /v3/business_data/{provider}/....

What it covers

  • Google: /v3/business_data/google/my_business_info/task_post (profile details), .../my_business_updates/task_post (posts), .../reviews/task_post and .../extended_reviews/task_post, .../questions_and_answers/task_post, .../hotel_searches/task_post, .../hotel_info/task_post.
  • Third-party reviews: /v3/business_data/trustpilot/search/task_post and .../trustpilot/reviews/task_post; /v3/business_data/tripadvisor/search/task_post and .../tripadvisor/reviews/task_post.
  • Live: /v3/business_data/social_media/pinterest/live (pin counts per URL); the social_media group also exposes facebook/live and reddit/live (same targets pattern, per-URL billing). Plus /v3/business_data/business_listings/search/live (Maps POIs by category) and /v3/business_data/business_listings/categories_aggregation/live (aggregated category stats).

Key parameters / inputs

fieldnotes
keywordbusiness search term or CID identifier
place_id / cidGoogle place and client identifiers (GMB info, Q&A)
location_code / location_name / location_coordinatelocation identifier; coordinate is “lat,lng,radius” (radius 1-100000 km) for Business Listings
language_coderesult language
categoriesarray of business categories (Business Listings, max 10)
check_in / check_out / currency / adultshotel search parameters
depth / sort_byreview count and ordering
targetsup to 10 absolute URLs (Pinterest)
filters / order_by / limit / offset_tokenBusiness Listings: max 8 filters, max 3 sort rules, limit up to 1000

Response / what you get back

GMB and review endpoints return title, a rating object (rating.value), address, phone, work_time, place_id, cid, category, and per-review review_text, profile_name, profile_image_url, owner_answer, timestamp, plus rating_distribution and reviews_count. Trustpilot adds domain, url, rating.votes_count, verified, and responses; Tripadvisor adds url_path, price_rate, is_sponsored, date_of_visit, and review_id. Hotels return hotel_identifier, stars, is_paid, a location object with coordinates, prices.price/prices.currency, amenities, and overview_images. Business Listings returns POI fields like description, url, popular_times, attributes, place_topics, contact_info, and services; Categories Aggregation returns top_categories, top_countries, count, and top_attributes. Pinterest returns page_url and pins_count.

Cost & method notes

  • Task endpoints charge at POST and allow free retrieval within 30 days; Live endpoints (Pinterest, Business Listings, Categories Aggregation) charge per request. See cap-task-vs-live-execution and cap-queue-priority-cost-model.
  • Business Listings is a pre-indexed POI database, so it is cheap: the cost log shows /v3/business_data/business_listings/search/live at $0.0103 per request, well below the cost of live GMB or review scrapes.
  • For real-time profile or review changes, use the live GMB/review scrapers rather than the indexed Business Listings.

When to use / how it fits

Business Data drives play-local-seo-tracking (Maps/Local Finder ranks plus Business Profile and reviews per location) and the reputation side of play-content-strategy-brief. Reviews here pair with sentiment from cap-content-analysis-api, and Business Listings complements Maps SERP data in cap-serp-google-verticals. Route jobs via dec-which-api-for-which-job.

Gotchas / limits

  • Task results expire after 30 days; resubmit to refresh.
  • Business Listings is pre-indexed, not live; if you need current profile state, use the GMB scrapers.
  • 2000 calls/min, max 100 tasks per Task POST (1 for Live); hotels require check-in/check-out dates.
  • Pinterest and Business Listings bill per URL/request; batch carefully to control spend.
  • Business Listings location_coordinate is a “lat,lng,radius” triple in kilometres (radius 1 to 100,000 km), so a single call sweeps a geographic circle rather than a named place.
  • GMB lookups accept either a place_id or a cid; the two are distinct Google identifiers and are not interchangeable across all endpoints.
  • extended_reviews returns deeper review detail (including original_review_text and owner_timestamp) than the standard reviews endpoint, at a correspondingly higher cost.
  • Trustpilot and Tripadvisor are separate providers with their own identifiers and review schemas, so cross-platform reputation work means reconciling three different review shapes (Google, Trustpilot, Tripadvisor).

Sources

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