Count your competitors
Count Your Competitors in Any City with Maps Data
You're opening a practice, a shop or a franchise, or pitching one, and you need to know how many competitors a city has and how good they are. Collect every business of your kind there, ask the list how many, how they're rated and where they cluster, and put the numbers in your study.
Last checked against the extension on .
What you end up with
| Business Name | Category | Rating | Review Count | Website |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lone Star Dental Care | Dentist | 4.8 | 212 | lonestar.example |
| Bright Arbor Smiles | Cosmetic dentist | 4.9 | 154 | arbor.example |
| Cedar Loop Dental | Dental clinic | 4.6 | 61 | empty |
| Maple Row Dentistry | Dentist | 4.5 | 38 | maplerow.example |
The job
The count a market study needs, from the listings themselves
Before you sign a lease or write a pitch, you want to know what you're up against: how many dental practices a city has, how many are rated above 4.5, how many have no website, and which neighbourhoods are full. Maps shows all of it, one listing at a time.
Maps Scraper Pro turns the search into a list with a row per business, so the questions become counts. You ask them in plain words on the results page, and the answers come from the rows in front of you.
It's a count of Maps listings on one day, which is what most local studies work from. The page below says what that number does and doesn't tell you.
Step by step
From a city to a count in four steps
No settings to change. Contact details can stay on; for a count, you won't need the emails, so add "no emails" to the request for a quicker run.
Step 1: Collect every business of your kind in the city
Open the side panel, choose Chat and ask for the trade, the city and a number past what one search lists, such as "Find 500 dentists in Dallas, TX within 10 km". Chat searches the area around the place until it runs out of new businesses or reaches your number.
- One Maps search lists about 120 businesses; one chat request collects up to 1,000.
- For exact zip codes, run one Maps search per zip code and paste the links into Bulk instead.
Step 2: Ask the list the study's questions
Open the list on the results page and ask chat for the numbers: "how many rows", "count by Category", "what's the average Rating", "how many rows have Website". Each answer appears in chat, worked out from the rows the page shows.
Step 3: Narrow to a neighbourhood or a segment
Filter the list and ask again. "Only rows where Address contains Uptown" keeps one part of the city, "only rating 4.5 or more" keeps the leaders, and "only rows where Website is empty" keeps the ones with no site. The count after each filter is that segment's size.
Step 4: Compare cities, then download the file
Run the same search for a second city in the same chat and click the card that combines them. The new table's Location column tells the cities apart, so "count by Location" compares them in one answer. Then download Excel or CSV for the report.
The questions
The questions a market study asks, and what to type
Each question below is one message on the results page. Chat answers from the rows the page shows, so a filter changes the answer, and clearing it brings the whole list back.
| Question | Type this in chat | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
| How many competitors are there? | how many rows | The number of businesses in the list |
| What kinds are they? | count by Category | The five most common categories with their counts, and how many more there are |
| How established are they? | what's the average Review Count | The average, and how many rows it's from |
| How good are they? | what's the average Rating | The average rating of the businesses that have one |
| Who leads? | most reviewed first | The list sorted by Review Count, highest first |
| How many are online? | how many rows have Website | The count with a website, out of the total |
| Where do they cluster? | only rows where Address contains a neighbourhood | The rows in that part of the city; then ask how many rows |
Honest numbers
Reading the numbers honestly
The count is of Maps listings, not of businesses in a register. A business with no listing isn't in it, a chain counts once per branch, and a business that appears twice in a search is kept once because repeats are removed as the list is saved.
The ratings and counts are what Maps showed on the day. A browser that isn't signed in has sometimes been shown a limited view with no review counts, so if every Review Count is empty, open one business's Map URL and check that its count shows there.
Everything is a snapshot of one day. For a trend, run the same search again next quarter and compare the two lists, and for a whole city rather than a radius, listing every business in a city covers getting past one search's 120 and reaching every zip code.
Next
What the list is good for after the count
The same list is the start of other work. Sorting by rating and reviews puts the leaders first and finds the businesses with few reviews; finding businesses without a website turns the no-website count into a list of names.
If the study is for a client, the counts go in the deck and the list goes with it as an Excel file. If it's for your own opening, keep the list in History and rename it, so the follow-up run next quarter has something to compare against.
What it can't do
- It can't tell you revenue, foot traffic or demand. It counts listings and reads what they show: rating, review count, address, hours, phone and website.
- It doesn't collect review text, so sentiment stays out of the study. Each business comes with its rating and its number of reviews.
- It doesn't give a history. Every list is one day's snapshot; run the search again later and compare.
- It doesn't know that two listings are one company, except when their name and address match. A chain's branches each count.
- It counts what Maps lists, not every registered business. A city's open data lists the rest, without ratings or websites.
Questions
Things people ask before they start
How do I find out how many competitors are in my area?
Ask chat for the trade and the place with a number past 120, such as "Find 500 dentists in Dallas, TX", then "how many rows" on the results page. The answer is the number of listings the searches found.
Can I see which neighbourhood has the most?
Yes. Filter with "only rows where Address contains" and the neighbourhood's name, then ask "how many rows". Clear the filter and repeat for the next one.
How current are the numbers?
As current as the day you ran the search: the extension reads the listings live, and the list is saved with that date. Run it again for a newer count.
Can I track competitors over time?
By running the same search again and comparing two lists in a spreadsheet. The extension doesn't run on a schedule or keep a history for you.
Is it free for research like this?
Yes. Maps Scraper Pro is free, with no plan or credits, and chat's daily message limit is the only cap. A count for one city fits in a handful of messages.
Another way to use it
- Customers in your area
The local businesses you sell to, in one list you can call or email.
- Lead lists for clients
A niche, city by city, with emails, in a clean file you can hand over.
Turn your next Maps search into a lead list.
Install it, type the businesses and the city you want, and download the list.
Coming soon to the Chrome Web Store