Google Maps Search API: popular_times field

Questions
,
1

I’ve been using the Google Maps Search endpoint (/google-maps-search) to retrieve popular_times data for places, and it has been working reliably until recently.

As of the last few days, the popular_times field is no longer being returned in the API response for any place I query. The rest of the response (place name, address, etc.) comes back fine it’s specifically the popular_times array that is missing entirely.

Has something changed with how popular_times data is sourced or returned? Is this a known issue, or has there been a change to the API that requires a different parameter or endpoint to get this data?

1 Like
2

hello @frubesss,

Please take a look at the data dictionary. popular times, including live status (e.g. little busy ). Works only for individual searches (see learn more).

3

Hi, I am not being able to retrieve popular_times (highlighted in bold) data for a given place. Is there anything wrong with this metric?

{
“query”: “ChIJ3wa3kLdhLxMR7pTdCD59S-w”,
“name”: “Ristorante Crab”,
“postal_code”: “00184”,
“city”: “Rome”,
“state”: “Metropolitan City of Rome Capital”,
“state_code”: null,
“plus_code”: “8FHJVFQV+JM”,
“latitude”: 41.8890587,
“longitude”: 12.4941316,
“h3”: “891e8050cd3ffff”,
“time_zone”: “Europe/Rome”,
“popular_times”: null,
“website”: “http://www.ristorantecrab.com/”,
“phone”: “+39 06 7720 3636”,
“type”: “Seafood restaurant”,
}

Thanks

4

Hi, the popular_times field returns data only when Google Maps has that information available for the listing. Not all businesses have popular times displayed.

Could you check the Google Maps listing for Ristorante Crab (ChIJ3wa3kLdhLxMR7pTdCD59S-w) and see if the popular times bar chart shows up on the page? If Google doesn’t display it for that business, the field will return null.