Description:
We are looking for a basic, yet functional script that will parse specific information from Google Maps. Specifically, we looking to obtain the categories associated with individual business listings. See the Background section for a detailed explanation. NOTE that this is different from the suggested search Categories.
General Requirements:
This will require detailed analysis of javascript, compression, and encoding.
HTTP knowledge.
HTML parsing.
Background:
Google Maps (http://maps.google.com/) contains multiple business records. When querying Google Maps, multiple business listings are retrieved, each business listing that is editable will show the categories it is associated with. This script will extract these categories. A demonstration of this extraction is performed manually in the first 2:00 (two minutes) of the video at http://www.screencast.com/users/seoexpert/folders/Jing/media/181d04e9-a06b-4ddb-a6ac-3ef09dd11fe4
Technical Specification:
General: Write a script in any standard language (vbs, vb.net, iMacro or similar) that will parse Google Maps business listings for category data.
Input: search term (i.e. accountant in san diego)
Output: list of categories that are associated with each of the individual business listings in the page of results.