Don't waste weeks on the Google Business API (Lessons from building SayWall)

I just hit a massive wall while building the Google Review importer for SayWall.

The goal is to let users import their Google Reviews in 1-click. The correct way would be to use the official Google Business Profile (GBP) API.

But the reality is that after waiting for a response, Google rejected the application because:

"A requestor’s email should be an owner/manager of a listing that has been verified for 60+ days."

Basically, if you don't have a 2 month old verified business there, you're locked out of the official API.

Then I looked under the hood of how the big players do it. Guess what? They don't use the official API for general imports either. The official API is meant for managing your own business, not for scraping public reviews from any URL.

If you're building a tool that needs public Google data, don't wait for Google's bureaucracy. Use a SERP API or a dedicated scraper like SerpApi or Outscraper.

• Pros: No 60-day waiting period, no OAuth headaches, and you can fetch reviews from any public Place ID.

• Cons: It costs a few cents.

TL;DR: Don't let big tech's API requirements slow down your shipping. There's almost always a faster, third-party way to get the data you need.

Back to building.