Trying to get business name based on address using find_place

This is just an example of one of locations I'm having trouble with. I'm taking the place_id from the return to try and get more fields, but When you actually put in the place_id that it returns it gives government building nearby instead of the gas station. I've tried the other functions and limiting the types to more specifics, but that doesn't help.

import requests

url = " https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?      address=203%20N%20Commerce%20ST%20Geneva%20AL&key=MY_KEY"

payload={}
headers = {}

response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data=payload)

print(response.text)

I'm expecting this to give me the gas station location and not some other place. This place_id seems to be wrong "place_id" : "ChIJCekaM2pGkogRwX3FIx8vFN8"

Geocoding the Address of a Place will return a Place ID of the ADDRESS not the PLACE

Since you are querying the address 203 N Commerce St Geneva, AL using the geocoder tool, ofcourse it would return the place ID of THAT SPECIFIC ADDRESS. The Geocoding API does not take ambiguous queries and it returns specific results from specific queries. So this explains why the Place ID: ChIJCekaM2pGkogRwX3FIx8vFN8 returns the address you queried instead of the Gas station name that you are looking for.

So to solve this, you need to specifically geocode the Place Name you want to get the Place ID. After querying the address you mentioned, I found out that the Gas Station Name is Geneva Citgo. So you could use that and it should look like this:

import requests

url = " https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?address=Geneva Citgo&key=API_KEY"

payload = {}
headers = {}

response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data=payload)

print(response.text)

With this, you will have ChIJp15WymtGkogRayP4w572um0 which is the exact Place ID of the gas station mentioned.

And please do note that Geocoding should not be used in finding a place.

Now to answer your main question...

How to get business name based on address using find_place?

As discussed above, since the address 203 N Commerce St Geneva, AL have its own Place ID, when you do a find_place query it will return the address itself. To solve this, you need to specifically mention what you're looking for. In this case, GAS STATIONS. So when you do find_place query, you must specifically mention that you are looking for it, for example in this format: The_place_you_are_looking_for + address. The FindPlaceFromText endpoint is meant for "navigational" search only: queries that have a clear intent to find one place.

Therefore, your code should look like this:

import requests
url = "https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/place/findplacefromtext/json?input=gas station in 203 N Commerce St Geneva AL&inputtype=textquery&fields=formatted_address%2Cname%2Crating%2Copening_hours%2Cgeometry&key=API_KEY"

payload = {}
headers = {}

response = requests.request("GET", url, headers=headers, data=payload)

print(response.text)

Take note that the query specifically says what I want in this form: gas station in 203 N Commerce St Geneva AL. And with this, it will return the Place Name of the gas station that you are looking for which is Geneva Citgo. (Up to you what fields you want to include though).

Ref to Find Place documentation for more information.

You can also use Text Search since the documentation specifically says:
>"A Text Search returns information about a set of places based on a string — for example "pizza in New York" or "shoe stores near Ottawa" or "123 Main Street". The service responds with a list of places matching the text string and any location bias that has been set."

Ref to Text Search documentation for more information.

Hope this helps! Feel free to comment if this solves your issue or not.