Hello Fellow Hosts, I’m facing a concerning problem that I’m hoping you will possibly offer me useful insight. I’m in Miami and my unit has dropped the number of views from the 1,000s to zero.
I have tried daily changes such as updating photos, changing the description, blocking and unblocking dates, reducing and increasing per night rates, snoozing my listing for a few hours, and so on.
In the past week, after having almost a month of zero views, these are the numbers:
15 Total page views – 201 Total first-page search impressions
I have called Airbnb, and they claim there is nothing wrong that is causing the issue; in fact, they say there is no issue.
What do you think is going on? Your guidance will be much appreciated, thank you.
You may not like to hear this, but I’ve been seeing a lot of posts from Florida hosts saying the same thing, and I’d partly chalk it up to your governor’s horrid right-wing policies. Not to mention Rick Scott put out a video basically saying liberals and anyone else his right wing govt. deems undesireable (gay, trans, etc) aren’t welcome in Florida.
I think a lot of people are choosing to spend their money elsewhere, rather than support the economy there.
In other words, through no fault of your own, you may be experiencing a boycott.
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@muddy thank you for your response; I appreciate it. Alas, my guests are usually impervious to politics; they are mostly in town to visit kids in college, stay with newborn grandkids who live in the neighborhood, undergo plastic surgery, or are in town looking for a new home in the area. They are usually not worried about political matters. I think it’s a technical issue and it may be what I just read about how the unit has been “categorized” (not by me but by Airbnb).
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We own a [modest] condo in Florida (inherited from my wife’s mother). and – even with free accommodation – I have no interest in going. It’s not just deSantis… it’s knowing that more than half the locals I meet while visiting think both deSantis and Trump are just fine.
No thanks!
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Have you done an incognito search to see where you are on the pages?
Also good to try various combinations of filters.
Hopefully you are not unknowingly suspended….
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@Debthecat Deb, I’m a Superhost and I was not suspended, but you are right, I need to go incognito and search for myself; thank you for suggesting it.
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I am a Superhost as well…
New hosts get pushed to the front and they seem to be cycling through other listings.
When I search my area incognito -I find my listing behind listings that are 90 minutes away……no sense to it. I would be unimpressed as a guest trying to find a place and being shown these unsuitable listings!
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@Debthecat Deb, you have made a good point, however, I’ve been hosting for 5-plus years and never had such few views. While some people may consider the politics of Florida, my guests tend to have very specific reasons to be traveling to my area, regardless of politics. Considering the massive number of people who have moved to FL, I doubt most are considering the state’s politics when they move here…
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I can assure you they are. Many liberals are pulling up stakes and leaving Florida, pretty much only right-wingers would move there now, unless they are forced to for their jobs. And university faculty are leaving in droves, since they are now being dictated to about what they can teach.
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Have you tried using Airbnb’s Promo pricing tool and using the 20% reduction so you get all options on promotions.
If you aren’t sure what I’m talking about, I would be happy to show you. Send me a message with your email address and good times to chat in front of your computer and I would be happy to show you how to set up.
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@Debthecat Deb, I understand your point, but my neighbors (in the same building) have not experienced the sudden and puzzling lack of views, so the politics variable would not apply to my apartment if my neighbors’ apartments would not have been similarly affected. Do you disagree?
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@MissMiami Are you listed under special categories?
If so, there’s a thread on this site where hosts had fewer views/bookings and then had the catagories removed.
See “Removing all categories can fix search results” thread
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The politics of the area affects who and why people book, for sure - in ways that are not easily corroborated. For example, everything from your furnishings to your description, however ‘bland’, will telegraph your values. For example, high quality art signals ‘liberal’ as well as ‘sophisticated’ to some folks, and that can make some folks uncomfortable, especially those who think that art and education is dangerous. It is not too much of a stretch to think that, all things being equal, these subliminal cues can make folks sway.
The NAACP has issued a travel advisory about Florida; the banning of books is embraced by the governor; the government has decided that their #1 tourist driver, Disney, should be punished because it is about equality. Do not think that this has not changed the makeup of your visitng population.
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I am trying the “delete all categories” route. I will update on the Removing all categories can fix search results problems thread if there are any changes in views or bookings. Business is VERY sparse these days…
@gypsy Yes, I have read the interesting thread on the categories, and I will attempt to eliminate the misguided “categories”.
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I am trying to eliminate all categories as I think that guests just are not using that function, and if they do, it will severely narrow their search. Which may in theory be a good thing, but the negative in bookings we have been experiencing compared to years past…
As much as liked some of them, I’m hoping for a good result<><> Good Luck to you!
I talked with a Cs agent and again said I want all of them removed. However there is a AI bot in there that tries to re-put them on… geeez, it is a crazy lopsided battle if there ever was one!
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The way the category concept was implemented is just totally flawed, probably mainly because they let an AI bot decide on which categories to put listings in. Then, when hosts saw they weren’t in categories they belonged in, or in categories that didn’t fit their listing, they were told to keep playing with their listing wording and photos to try to get the bot to pick an appropriate category. What an insane waste of everyone’s time.
I can see where a guest who wants to book a cabin in the woods, for instance, would find the “cabin” category useful, but not when tons of the cabins don’t appear there, or places that don’t really fit that description do.
And all those out-there categories like “castles”- I seriously doubt that more than a handful of guests would click on that for any other reason than just being curious to see them, not with the intent of actually booking one.
Airbnb knows damn well their bright idea has been hurting hosts. They just can’t ever admit they came up with a bad idea.
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