Googling your own listing

I haven’t done this for ages so just tried. I have two listings, a studio apt and a double room in my house. The latter now only gets booked at peak times (we’re an all year round holiday resort and so competition is fierce now). The results varied whether I was searching on my app or online (always incognito). On the app none of my listings came up for my area at all, no matter what parameters I put in or not. On my pc, the studio came up but not the room. How on earth are you supposed to get any bookings or enquiries if your listing doesn’t show up anywhere? And why doesn’t it? There is a particular Airbnb in my area, they have 2 rooms and a studio. They always show up everywhere, any time, any search parameters - how does that work? It’s almost like they pay to be shown at the top of any search.

I have had issues finding my listings on airbnb since last fall. I have posted previous on this issue. The search changed, and the only way my listings come up is if you have zoomed so far into the map you can only see a 4 block radius. Since I list in a big city, this is a bit challenging. My bookings are down 75% since last fall. I have switched to instant book, and that helped a bit - I was down 90%, and now I am only down 75%. You would think airbnb would miss my money - wonder why my booking are down - but they don’t seem to ask. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

You can’t rely on other people/organisations. Unfortunately when we sign on with Airbnb, we do not also get the right to be high in the website’s own searches or b) be seen in
google searches. Take matters into your own hands and promote your listings yourself via social media or even traditional media.

1 Like

My take is that there are now so many listings, so much competition it doesn’t ‘hurt’ them. I’m down a lot with my double room but my main listing is alive and well so that’s the most important to me.

Ain’t that the truth! I’m just curious how it’s possible for listings to be invisible when you zoom into your area on their maps. I promote separately anyway via facebook, twitter and instagram - what do you do? I finally succumbed to instant book with my studio but in reality, I don’t believe it’s made any difference as I was being booked 75% of the month anyway.

The same (although I don’t like FB very much). Also Flipboard and Pinterest are both very useful. Because I have my own sites, I promote articles that I’ve written about our listings - or articles about the area with our listings featured - which I find to be better than simply promoting the listings and linking straight to the Airbnb page. That way, I’m in control of the marketing aspect :wink:

1 Like

When stalking your own listing it is helpful to use Chrome in Incognito mode so your Airbnb cookies don’t influence the results.

As a host who also uses Airbnb for travel, I’ve been frustrated by their weird search settings. They’re definitely shuttling users towards particular listings and hiding others. What’s even weirder is that they are trying to get users to book in locations far from where the user searches. For example, I was trying to help someone find a place to stay on Airbnb in Sandy Springs, GA. Even though he searched with the exact address, the app kept showing them locations in the middle of Atlanta, which can be 20-40-60 minutes away from Sandy Springs, depending on the traffic. You have to go to the map, zoom very close into the location you want, and then search. I had a similar experience finding a place to stay in NYC. I searched for a specific address and it showed me places VERY far away. Since location is so important, this seems like a disservice both to the hosts who are overlooked and the disgruntled guests who may accidentally book very far from their preferred locations.

1 Like

Thanks, I always use incognito - think I said that in my post :slight_smile:

1 Like

I agree! I also travel a lot on Airbnb. It’s particularly annoying that you can’t search by suburb or neighborhoods.

For our business, we just maintain the highest possible customer service. ABB reads all your messages. If you are being audited for SH status, they will put, what I call, ‘marks’ on your profile that only they can see. I have used some Jedi mind tricks to get this info out of ABB. Their algorithms aren’t perfect so they actually use people who go in and adjust your statistics based on responses to customers, cancellations even if you had a good reason to cancel, and much more. It is mostly algorithm based though…

Our listings show up on Facebook now, through ABB advertising. We have an overwhelming number of 5 star reviews. Like 50x the number of all other ratings combined. Our response time is within 5 minutes. We are 97% 5 star, 100% all other metrics. So to answer your question, I guess that is what it takes.

I’m not a newbie at this. I think most of us on this forum are serious hosts who do their best and as such many of us have the same or very similar statistics as yours and behave with integrity. I do; no cancellations - ever, instant response, superhost, always courteous, bla blah blah. I think their algorithms vary depending on area, country and probably a host of other things we are unaware of. I don’t think for one moment one side fits all.

1 Like

@Glad my simple mind has got all confused, In the 1st post it sounds like you are searching for your listing on google and not on the airbnb website.
If you want it to appear on google for people to find direct contact info
Put your listing on google maps and bing maps, if I do a search on google using my listings title, on the left is all the paid for adverts by the big boys TA airbnb etc and on the right is just my map listing with direct contact info.

This is surprising to me! So many hosts, so few Airbnb employees! Can you teach me your Jedi mind tricks? (“This is not the superhost you are looking for.”)

1 Like

Like Google search, Airbnb algorithms are proprietary so we don’t know everything that goes into listing ranking. It sounds like you’re doing everything you can. New listings get a bump initially but being a Super Host, having Instant book, not cancelling, quick response time etc. is all supposed to help. I don’t know what else you can do. Maybe try tinkering with the wording, photos and calendar on your listing. Making changes to a website helps Google ranking maybe it will help with Airbnb.

1 Like

I guess Jedi mind tricks are just colorful language for playing dumb. It can be mind numbing, but I have ABB support staff walk me through things. I ask pointed questions all the time, and they give up information. This is how I learned about their algorithm. I also found that they read your messages, can put ‘marks’ on your superhost audit manually, as well as being able to remove penalties manually. A few minutes of sweet talking, and they sometimes remove a penalty. Try it, if you have any penalties.

I call and sweet talk anytime I need to cancel a reservation. Don’t ever do it online. I’ve had BAD experiences, too, but it really works for cancelling.

Yea I know exactly what you are saying. I do that as well now, but the 45 minute wait time… Last 3 times I have called ABB it has been wild. I just drive around with this ABB song on speaker phone waiting and waiting… It’s the only way for me to keep my rating up these days it seems.

I don’t want to come off as a lousy host. Our whole business model is focused on customer service, and we will get up out of bed in the middle of the night to please a guest. It’s just that some guests are sketchy, and will admit to having more guests than they indicate on their reservation. That’s just trouble, and I either bill them for more guests, or cancel them outright.

Why do some hosts like yourself, get punished in their ranking for no apparent reason? Yet, others, who are poor hosts, consistent rank high in the listings. Here’s an example. Not to pick on other hosts, but this listing has been near the top of search results for at least a year now. It’s obviously an illegal Airbnb since it says don’t talk to neighbors and by the lack of photos. No reviews except one where host cancelled. So no one has stayed there apparently. I can understand why by looking at it. Why does Airbnb not only allow but promote listings like this? It reflects badly on them as a company to showcase listings like this on the first page yet excellent hosts like yourself don’t show up in the listings.

1 Like

I just did an anonymous search for Northampton, one adult, no dates and this listing was not in the top 100. [I got bored after that.]

What search criteria are you using?