DEV Community

Cover image for Scrape Google Events Results with Python
SerpApi profile image Artur Chukhrai
Artur Chukhrai for SerpApi

Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at serpapi.com

Scrape Google Events Results with Python

#webscraping #tutorial #python #programming

What will be scraped

wwbs-google-events

Full Code

If you don't need explanation, have a look at full code example in the online IDE.

import time, json
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from parsel import Selector


def scroll_page(url):
    service = Service(ChromeDriverManager().install())

    options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
    options.add_argument('--headless')
    options.add_argument('--lang=en')
    options.add_argument('user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.0.0 Safari/537.36')
    options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')

    driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=options)
    driver.get(url)

    old_height = driver.execute_script("""
        function getHeight() {
            return document.querySelector('.UbEfxe').scrollHeight;
        }
        return getHeight();
    """)

    while True:
        driver.execute_script('document.querySelector(".UbEfxe").scrollTo(0, document.querySelector(".UbEfxe").scrollHeight);')
        time.sleep(1)

        new_height = driver.execute_script("""
            function getHeight() {
                return document.querySelector('.UbEfxe').scrollHeight;
            }
            return getHeight();
        """)

        if new_height == old_height:
            break

        old_height = new_height

    selector = Selector(driver.page_source)
    driver.quit()

    return selector


def scrape_google_events(selector):
    data = []

    for event in selector.css('.scm-c'):
        title = event.css('.dEuIWb::text').get()
        date_start = f"{event.css('.FTUoSb::text').get()} {event.css('.omoMNe::text').get()}"
        date_when = event.css('.Gkoz3::text').get()
        address = [part.css('::text').get() for part in event.css('.ov85De span')]
        link = event.css('.zTH3xc::attr(href)').get()
        location_image = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.lu_vs::attr(data-bsrc)').get()
        location_link = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.ozQmAd::attr(data-url)').get()
        description = event.css('.PVlUWc::text').get()
        ticket_info = [
            {
                'source': ticket.css('::attr(data-domain)').get(),
                'link': ticket.css('.SKIyM::attr(href)').get(),
                'link_type': ticket.css('.uaYYHd::text').get(),
            }
            for ticket in event.css('.RLN0we[jsname="CzizI"] div[data-domain]')
        ]
        venue_name = event.css('.RVclrc::text').get()
        venue_rating = float(event.css('.UIHjI::text').get()) if event.css('.UIHjI::text').get() else None
        venue_reviews = int(event.css('.z5jxId::text').get().replace(',', '').split()[0]) if event.css('.z5jxId::text').get() else None
        venue_link = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.pzNwRe a::attr(href)').get() if event.css('.pzNwRe a::attr(href)').get() else None

        data.append({
            'title': title,
            'date':{
                'start_date': date_start,
                'when': date_when
            },
            'address': address,
            'link': link,
            'event_location_map': {
                'image': location_image,
                'link': location_link
            },
            'description': description,
            'ticket_info': ticket_info,
            'venue': {
                'name': venue_name,
                'rating': venue_rating,
                'reviews': venue_reviews,
                'link': venue_link
            }
        })

    return data


def main():
    params = {
        'q': 'Events in Austin',    # search query
        'ibp': 'htl;events',        # Google Events page
        'hl': 'en',                 # language 
        'gl': 'US'                  # country of the search
    }

    URL = f'https://www.google.com/search?q={params["q"]}&ibp={params["ibp"]}&hl={params["hl"]}&gl={params["gl"]}'

    result = scroll_page(URL)
    google_events = scrape_google_events(result)

    print(json.dumps(google_events, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Preparation

Install libraries:

pip install parsel selenium webdriver webdriver_manager
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Reduce the chance of being blocked

Make sure you're using request headers user-agent to act as a "real" user visit. Because default requests user-agent is python-requests and websites understand that it's most likely a script that sends a request. Check what's your user-agent.

There's a how to reduce the chance of being blocked while web scraping blog post that can get you familiar with basic and more advanced approaches.

Code Explanation

Import libraries:

import time, json
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.chrome.service import Service
from webdriver_manager.chrome import ChromeDriverManager
from parsel import Selector
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
Library Purpose
json to convert extracted data to a JSON object.
time to work with time in Python.
webdriver to drive a browser natively, as a user would, either locally or on a remote machine using the Selenium server.
Service to manage the starting and stopping of the ChromeDriver.
Selector XML/HTML parser that have full XPath and CSS selectors support.

Top-level code environment

At the beginning of the function, parameters are defined for generating the URL. If you want to pass other parameters to the URL, you can do so using the params dictionary.

Next, the URL is passed to the scroll_page(URL) function to scroll the page and get all data. The result that this function returns is passed to the scrape_google_events(result) function to extract the necessary data. The explanation of these functions will be in the corresponding headings below.

This code uses the generally accepted rule of using the __name__ == "__main__" construct:

def main():
    params = {
        'q': 'Events in Austin',    # search query
        'ibp': 'htl;events',        # Google Events page
        'hl': 'en',                 # language 
        'gl': 'US'                  # country of the search
    }

    URL = f'https://www.google.com/search?q={params["q"]}&ibp={params["ibp"]}&hl={params["hl"]}&gl={params["gl"]}'

    result = scroll_page(URL)
    google_events = scrape_google_events(result)

    print(json.dumps(google_events, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

This check will only be performed if the user has run this file. If the user imports this file into another, then the check will not work.

You can watch the video Python Tutorial: if name == 'main' for more details.

Scroll page

The function takes the URL and returns a full HTML structure.

First, let's understand how pagination works on the Google Events page. Data does not load immediately. If the user needs more data, they will simply scroll through the section where the list of events is presented and site download a small package of data. Accordingly, to get all the data, you need to scroll to the end of the list of events.

In this case, selenium library is used, which allows you to simulate user actions in the browser. For selenium to work, you need to use ChromeDriver, which can be downloaded manually or using code. In our case, the second method is used. To control the start and stop of ChromeDriver, you need to use Service which will install browser binaries under the hood:

service = Service(ChromeDriverManager().install())
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You should also add options to work correctly:

options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
options.add_argument('--headless')
options.add_argument('--lang=en')
options.add_argument('user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.0.0 Safari/537.36')
options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
Chrome options Explanation
--headless to run Chrome in headless mode.
--lang=en to set the browser language to English.
user-agent to act as a "real" user request from the browser by passing it to request headers. Check what's your user-agent.
--no-sandbox to make chromedriver work properly on different machines.

Now we can start webdriver and pass the url to the get() method.

driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=options)
driver.get(url)
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The page scrolling algorithm looks like this:

  1. Find out the initial page height and write the result to the old_height variable.
  2. Scroll the page using the script and wait 1 second for the data to load.
  3. Find out the new page height and write the result to the new_height variable.
  4. If the variables new_height and old_height are equal, then we complete the algorithm, otherwise we write the value of the variable new_height to the variable old_height and return to step 2.

Getting the page height and scroll is done by pasting the JavaScript code into the execute_script() method.

old_height = driver.execute_script("""
    function getHeight() {
        return document.querySelector('.UbEfxe').scrollHeight;
    }
    return getHeight();
""")

while True:
    driver.execute_script('document.querySelector(".UbEfxe").scrollTo(0, document.querySelector(".UbEfxe").scrollHeight);')
    time.sleep(1)

    new_height = driver.execute_script("""
        function getHeight() {
            return document.querySelector('.UbEfxe').scrollHeight;
        }
        return getHeight();
    """)

    if new_height == old_height:
        break

    old_height = new_height
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Now we need to process HTML using from Parsel package, in which we pass the HTML structure with all the data that was received after scrolling the page. This is necessary to successfully retrieve data in the next function. After all the operations are done, stop the driver:

selector = Selector(driver.page_source)
driver.quit()
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The function looks like this:

def scroll_page(url):
    service = Service(ChromeDriverManager().install())

    options = webdriver.ChromeOptions()
    options.add_argument('--headless')
    options.add_argument('--lang=en')
    options.add_argument('user-agent=Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/104.0.0.0 Safari/537.36')
    options.add_argument('--no-sandbox')

    driver = webdriver.Chrome(service=service, options=options)
    driver.get(url)

    old_height = driver.execute_script("""
        function getHeight() {
            return document.querySelector('.UbEfxe').scrollHeight;
        }
        return getHeight();
    """)

    while True:
        driver.execute_script('document.querySelector(".UbEfxe").scrollTo(0, document.querySelector(".UbEfxe").scrollHeight);')
        time.sleep(1)

        new_height = driver.execute_script("""
            function getHeight() {
                return document.querySelector('.UbEfxe').scrollHeight;
            }
            return getHeight();
        """)

        if new_height == old_height:
            break

        old_height = new_height

    selector = Selector(driver.page_source)
    driver.quit()

    return selector
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

In the gif below, I demonstrate how this function works:

google-events

Scrape Google Events

This function takes a full HTML structure and returns a list with the extracted data.

Declaring the data list where the extracted data will be added:

data = []
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

To extract the necessary data, you need to find the selector where they are located. In our case, this is the .scm-c selector, which contains all events. You need to iterate each event in the loop:

for event in selector.css('.scm-c'):
    # data extraction will be here
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Data such as title, date_when, link, description and venue_name are easily retrieved:

title = event.css('.dEuIWb::text').get()
date_when = event.css('.Gkoz3::text').get()
link = event.css('.zTH3xc::attr(href)').get()
description = event.css('.PVlUWc::text').get()
venue_name = event.css('.RVclrc::text').get()
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

When location_image and location_link are retrieved, only part of the link is returned as a result. So you need to add https://www.google.com to form a full link:

location_image = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.lu_vs::attr(data-bsrc)').get()
location_link = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.ozQmAd::attr(data-url)').get()
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Extracting date_start differs from the previous ones in that you need to extract the day and month separately:

date_start = f"{event.css('.FTUoSb::text').get()} {event.css('.omoMNe::text').get()}"
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The address and ticket_info lists contain multiple elements in their selector, so they are extracted using list comprehensions. I want to draw your attention to the fact that dictionaries with all the necessary data are added to ticket_info:

address = [part.css('::text').get() for part in event.css('.ov85De span')]
ticket_info = [
    {
        'source': ticket.css('::attr(data-domain)').get(),
        'link': ticket.css('.SKIyM::attr(href)').get(),
        'link_type': ticket.css('.uaYYHd::text').get(),
    }
    for ticket in event.css('.RLN0we[jsname="CzizI"] div[data-domain]')
]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Data such as venue_rating, venue_reviews and venue_link may not be present in every event. Therefore, when extracting them, a ternary operator was used:

venue_rating = float(event.css('.UIHjI::text').get()) if event.css('.UIHjI::text').get() else None
venue_reviews = int(event.css('.z5jxId::text').get().replace(',', '').split()[0]) if event.css('.z5jxId::text').get() else None
venue_link = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.pzNwRe a::attr(href)').get() if event.css('.pzNwRe a::attr(href)').get() else None
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

After extracting all the data, a dictionary is formed, which is subsequently appended to the data list:

data.append({
    'title': title,
    'date':{
        'start_date': date_start,
        'when': date_when
    },
    'address': address,
    'link': link,
    'event_location_map': {
        'image': location_image,
        'link': location_link
    },
    'description': description,
    'ticket_info': ticket_info,
    'venue': {
        'name': venue_name,
        'rating': venue_rating,
        'reviews': venue_reviews,
        'link': venue_link
    }
})
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The complete function to scrape all data would look like this:

def scrape_google_events(selector):
    data = []

    for event in selector.css('.scm-c'):
        title = event.css('.dEuIWb::text').get()
        date_start = f"{event.css('.FTUoSb::text').get()} {event.css('.omoMNe::text').get()}"
        date_when = event.css('.Gkoz3::text').get()
        address = [part.css('::text').get() for part in event.css('.ov85De span')]
        link = event.css('.zTH3xc::attr(href)').get()
        location_image = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.lu_vs::attr(data-bsrc)').get()
        location_link = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.ozQmAd::attr(data-url)').get()
        description = event.css('.PVlUWc::text').get()
        ticket_info = [
            {
                'source': ticket.css('::attr(data-domain)').get(),
                'link': ticket.css('.SKIyM::attr(href)').get(),
                'link_type': ticket.css('.uaYYHd::text').get(),
            }
            for ticket in event.css('.RLN0we[jsname="CzizI"] div[data-domain]')
        ]
        venue_name = event.css('.RVclrc::text').get()
        venue_rating = float(event.css('.UIHjI::text').get()) if event.css('.UIHjI::text').get() else None
        venue_reviews = int(event.css('.z5jxId::text').get().replace(',', '').split()[0]) if event.css('.z5jxId::text').get() else None
        venue_link = 'https://www.google.com' + event.css('.pzNwRe a::attr(href)').get() if event.css('.pzNwRe a::attr(href)').get() else None

        data.append({
            'title': title,
            'date':{
                'start_date': date_start,
                'when': date_when
            },
            'address': address,
            'link': link,
            'event_location_map': {
                'image': location_image,
                'link': location_link
            },
            'description': description,
            'ticket_info': ticket_info,
            'venue': {
                'name': venue_name,
                'rating': venue_rating,
                'reviews': venue_reviews,
                'link': venue_link
            }
        })

    return data
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode
Code Explanation
css() to access elements by the passed selector.
::text or ::attr(<attribute>) to extract textual or attribute data from the node.
get() to actually extract the textual data.

Output:

[
  {
    "title": "Lit @ Haute Spot",
    "date": {
      "start_date": "8 Nov",
      "when": "Tue, Nov 8, 5 – 10 PM CST"
    },
    "address": [
      "Haute Spot Event Venue",
      "1501 E New Hope Dr, Cedar Park, TX"
    ],
    "link": "https://m.facebook.com/events/haute-spot/hoobastank-lit-tried-true-tour-w-alien-ant-farm-kris-roe-of-the-ataris-at-haute-/3231075087211137/",
    "event_location_map": {
      "image": "https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=Mi6idsSxpVUEprl-uYK-yKdNGzRAj_h_XnRilW9maYmoOx-D3KFQZQtRsuMJ7Crgf7ivGpAkEOk-4oo7z-CekWI8TiSUsWbQJ5bb2Td2OYPZ45b4S6s",
      "link": "https://www.google.com/maps/place//data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x865b2d2f76d2be53:0x9aee4d078a09a6cd?sa=X&hl=en&gl=USl"
    },
    "description": "INCOMING: Hoobstank & Lit will bring their Tried & True Tour to Haute Spot in Cedar Park, TX on Tuesday, Nov. 8! Alien Ant Farm & Kris Roe (of The Ataris) will open the show! Full concert schedule...",
    "ticket_info": [
      {
        "source": "Closeseats.com",
        "link": "https://www.closeseats.com/cedar-park/alternative/hoobastank-and-lit-tickets/5285105",
        "link_type": "TICKETS"
      },
      {
        "source": "Feefreeticket.com",
        "link": "https://www.feefreeticket.com/hoobastank-and-lit-haute-spot/5285105",
        "link_type": "TICKETS"
      },
      {
        "source": "Bigtowntickets.com",
        "link": "https://www.bigtowntickets.com/Events/Alternative-Tickets/Hoobastank-and-Lit-2022-11-08-18-00-00",
        "link_type": "TICKETS"
      },
      {
        "source": "Ticketsource.com",
        "link": "https://www.ticketsource.com/2135448/Hoobastank",
        "link_type": "TICKETS"
      },
      {
        "source": "Facebook",
        "link": "https://m.facebook.com/events/haute-spot/hoobastank-lit-tried-true-tour-w-alien-ant-farm-kris-roe-of-the-ataris-at-haute-/3231075087211137/",
        "link_type": "MORE INFO"
      }
    ],
    "venue": {
      "name": "Haute Spot Event Venue",
      "rating": 4.4,
      "reviews": 349,
      "link": "https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&gl=USl&q=Haute+Spot+Event+Venue&ludocid=11163945221074036429&ibp=gwp%3B0,7"
    }
  },
  ... other results
]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Using Google Events API from SerpApi

This section is to show the comparison between the DIY solution and our solution.

The main difference is that it's a quicker approach. Google Events API will bypass blocks from search engines and you don't have to create the parser from scratch and maintain it.

First, we need to install google-search-results:

pip install google-search-results
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Import the necessary libraries for work:

from serpapi import GoogleSearch
import os, json
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Next, we write a search query and the necessary parameters for making a request:

params = {
    # https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.getenv
    'api_key': os.getenv('API_KEY'),    # your serpapi api
    'q': 'Events in Austin',            # search query
    'engine': 'google_events',          # SerpApi search engine
    'hl': 'en',                         # language 
    'gl': 'us',                         # country of the search
    'start': 0                          # pagination
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Declaring the google_events_results list where the extracted data will be added:

google_events_results = []
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Since we want to extract all the data, we need to use the 'start' parameter, which is responsible for pagination.

Let's implement an infinite loop that will increase the value of the 'start' parameter by 10 on each iteration. This will continue as long as there is something to extract:

while True:
    search = GoogleSearch(params)       # where data extraction happens on the SerpApi backend
    result_dict = search.get_dict()     # JSON -> Python dict

    if 'error' in result_dict:
        break

    # data extraction will be here

    params['start'] += 10
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

The data is retrieved quite simply, we just need to turn to the 'events_results' key.

for result in result_dict['events_results']:
    google_events_results.append(result)
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Example code to integrate:

from serpapi import GoogleSearch
import os, json

params = {
    # https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html#os.getenv
    'api_key': os.getenv('API_KEY'),    # your serpapi api
    'q': 'Events in Austin',            # search query
    'engine': 'google_events',          # SerpApi search engine
    'hl': 'en',                         # language 
    'gl': 'us',                         # country of the search
    'start': 0                          # pagination
}

google_events_results = []

while True:
    search = GoogleSearch(params)       # where data extraction happens on the SerpApi backend
    result_dict = search.get_dict()     # JSON -> Python dict

    if 'error' in result_dict:
        break

    for result in result_dict['events_results']:
        google_events_results.append(result)

    params['start'] += 10

print(json.dumps(google_events_results, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Output:

[
  {
    "title": "Lit @ Haute Spot",
    "date": {
      "start_date": "Nov 8",
      "when": "Tue, Nov 8, 5 – 10 PM CST"
    },
    "address": [
      "Haute Spot Event Venue, 1501 E New Hope Dr",
      "Cedar Park, TX"
    ],
    "link": "https://m.facebook.com/events/haute-spot/hoobastank-lit-tried-true-tour-w-alien-ant-farm-kris-roe-of-the-ataris-at-haute-/3231075087211137/",
    "event_location_map": {
      "image": "https://www.google.com/maps/vt/data=Mi6idsSxpVUEprl-uYK-yKdNGzRAj_h_XnRilW9maYmoOx-D3KFQZQtRsuMJ7Crgf7ivGpAkEOk-4oo7z-CekWI8TiSUsWbQJ5bb2Td2OYPZ45b4S6s",
      "link": "https://www.google.com/maps/place//data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x865b2d2f76d2be53:0x9aee4d078a09a6cd?sa=X",
      "serpapi_link": "https://serpapi.com/search.json?data=%214m2%213m1%211s0x865b2d2f76d2be53%3A0x9aee4d078a09a6cd&engine=google_maps&google_domain=google.com&hl=en&q=Events+in+Austin&start=0&type=place"
    },
    "description": "INCOMING: Hoobstank & Lit will bring their Tried & True Tour to Haute Spot in Cedar Park, TX on Tuesday, Nov. 8! Alien Ant Farm & Kris Roe (of The Ataris) will open the show! Full concert schedule...",
    "ticket_info": [
      {
        "source": "Closeseats.com",
        "link": "https://www.closeseats.com/cedar-park/alternative/hoobastank-and-lit-tickets/5285105",
        "link_type": "tickets"
      },
      {
        "source": "Feefreeticket.com",
        "link": "https://www.feefreeticket.com/hoobastank-and-lit-haute-spot/5285105",
        "link_type": "tickets"
      },
      {
        "source": "Bigtowntickets.com",
        "link": "https://www.bigtowntickets.com/Events/Alternative-Tickets/Hoobastank-and-Lit-2022-11-08-18-00-00",
        "link_type": "tickets"
      },
      {
        "source": "Ticketsource.com",
        "link": "https://www.ticketsource.com/2135448/Hoobastank",
        "link_type": "tickets"
      },
      {
        "source": "Facebook",
        "link": "https://m.facebook.com/events/haute-spot/hoobastank-lit-tried-true-tour-w-alien-ant-farm-kris-roe-of-the-ataris-at-haute-/3231075087211137/",
        "link_type": "more info"
      }
    ],
    "venue": {
      "name": "Haute Spot Event Venue",
      "rating": 4.4,
      "reviews": 349,
      "link": "https://www.google.com/search?q=Haute+Spot+Event+Venue&ludocid=11163945221074036429&ibp=gwp%3B0,7"
    },
    "thumbnail": "https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTYdxz7IF7Vmp9CMyaqElXJbl7oqMaSSTrtGaXFa4U&s",
    "image": "https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRTjb5umquoSVIOAaLDN06mjBdTz-6OzVCACDu43lSXmA&s=10"
  },
  ... other results
]
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Join us on Twitter | YouTube

Add a Feature Request💫 or a Bug🐞

Top comments (0)

Read next

hax profile image

TryHackMe API Wizard Breach Walkthrough

haXarubiX -

hyperkai profile image

BCEWithLogitsLoss in PyTorch

Super Kai (Kazuya Ito) -

lithephp profile image

How Lithe Makes Web Application Development in PHP Faster with Less Code

Lithe -

garciadiazjaime profile image

React + AWS Cognito: Email Authentication Setup Guide (First Part)

Jaime -