[Google Maps API] Inconsistent results searching with phone number

[alexbarron]

A customer reported a difference in how our Google Maps API handles phone number searches compared to actual Google Maps.

You can search Google Maps with a phone number and you can get the business associated with that number.

For example searching for +44 1223 870791, finds the Royal Oak pub.

https://www.google.com/maps/search/%2B44+1223+870791/@51.8619833,0.1396743,7z?hl=en

However, the same search in our Google Maps API returns no results.

Playground

I confirmed the same behavior with other numbers in other countries such as +39 06 581 2260.

Playground

Interestingly, this number +44 1279 836303 in our Google Maps API returned many results of businesses with phone numbers beginning with +44 1279, but the actual business with this number was in position 13. See Harvest Moon on the screenshot below.

Playground

Intercom

[aciddjus]

Interestingly, this number +44 1279 836303 in our Google Maps API returned many results of businesses with phone numbers beginning with +44 1279, but the actual business with this number was in position 13. See Harvest Moon on the screenshot below.

Thank you, @alexbarron. Can you please post the Inspect link for this searach?

[alexbarron]

Of course, here's the Inspect link. Thank you for looking into this.

[aciddjus]

I was able to get results locally with only one of our proxy providers, with a success rate of about 10%.

[alexbarron]

I was able to get results locally with only one of our proxy providers, with a success rate of about 10%.

That makes sense actually. The customer who reported this got lucky with a phone number and managed to get the right result once through our API. I couldn't reproduce it on my end with the same exact params.