How to crawl Googlemaps from VBA Excel? - excel

Question

As a real beginner in coding, I am looking for some help around here !
I would like to extract data from GoogleMaps: let's say, Zip code, from a company input in a cell in excel, through VBA.
As I started coding, I met difficulties at the string level as I can't target the accurate tag (here, I think, but thats the point, span) and effectively extract the zip code on the address line on Googlemaps HTML page :
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
If Target.Row = Range("nom").Row And _
Target.Column = Range("nom").Column Then
Dim GM As New InternetExplorer
GM.Visible = True
GM.navigate "https://www.google.fr/maps/#43.3082377,5.4259519,17z?q=" & Range("nom").Value
Do
DoEvents
Loop Until GM.readyState = READYSTATE_COMPLETE
Dim doc As HTMLDocument
Set doc = GM.document
Dim sSPAN As String
sSPAN = Trim(doc.getElementsByTagName("span")(4).innerText)
MsgBox sSPAN
End If
End Sub
Line 13 displays the following errors :
Run Titre Error 91 : object variable or with block variable not set
as I can't select the accurate block.
Following this, I have two questions:
Is it effectively possible to extract data from Google Maps ? (Through VBA or an opensource Google API, extracting from Google sheet (10000-lines excel)
Has someone ever facde this kind of difficulty ? How can I select the accurate block on Googlemaps HTML page?

Answer 1

This is not how I would go about it and API is definitely preferable though not via GoogleMaps unless you are building an application where you can also embed the required map.
You need a proper page load wait, a wait for the element to be present, quit the application at the end, and use a different selector strategy. You also want to implement some logic to extract the post code from address (I am not sure what view you were getting. I used a test value of Enterome):
Option Explicit
Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
Dim t As Date, gm As New InternetExplorer
Const MAX_WAIT_SEC As Long = 10
If Target.Row = Range("nom").Row And Target.Column = Range("nom").Column Then
gm.Visible = True
gm.navigate "https://www.google.fr/maps/#43.3082377,5.4259519,17z?q=" & Range("nom").Value
While gm.Busy Or gm.readyState <> 4: DoEvents: Wend
Dim elem As Object
t = Timer
Do
On Error Resume Next
Set elem = gm.document.querySelector(".section-info-text")
On Error GoTo 0
If Timer - t > MAX_WAIT_SEC Then Exit Do
Loop While elem Is Nothing
If Not elem Is Nothing Then
MsgBox Trim$(elem.innerText)
'Implement logic to extract post code
End If
gm.Quit
End If
End Sub