Another rare case of my disagreeing with Jaquo. I do think they have an effect and Pierre from smartbnb said it has an effect…on search ranking. That’s why one of the things the paid programs do is update your calendar every day. The logical reason it is a small part of search ranking is because Airbnb rewards active hosts. The busier you are the busier you will be. If you are changing pictures, prices, description that signals the machine that you are actively attempting to work your business. I if you set up a profile and then don’t touch it it signals that you aren’t very interested. There are, no doubt, people who don’t even log onto their account. That said, higher search ranking doesn’t guarantee bookings.
Anecdotally I think Airbnb rotates hosts up and down, perhaps even hiding a listing a few days and then reappearing it to give more active hosts a shot at getting a few bookings. This is a thing I’m guessing about based on posts here and my own experience when I was a smartbnb subscriber. I was usually in the top ten in search but then some days would show as having a big X meaning my listing wasn’t appearing for some searches at all. Then after a couple of days the x would go away. As southendbootboy says above, it is often reported that it’s very slow and bookings will come in bunches. A sudden reappearance at the top of the search ranks is one possible explanation.
Also it’s hard to compare year over year because the competition increases each year. If you can be patient and take last minute bookings you will find that the cheaper places get booked first and then you will eventually get bookings. We have had many panic posts here about exactly what you describe and then it turns out the month filled in nicely.
Finally a comment about blocking off time. I am one of those who experienced this first hand. I’ve blocked off chunks in two different years and in both cases there was a clear decline in the number of bookings. If I blocked off 6 weeks it seems it took about a month to 6 weeks before business was back to the prior levels. This fall I have blocked off big chunks again. Most of my calendar is blocked because I’m holding it for a direct booking client. However he isn’t here most Saturdays and a few other days sprinkled here and there. Given my prior experience I didn’t expect to get bookings for my open days but I have them available anyway. To my surprise I’m having good luck so I’m clearly up there in search for available dates. So I’m undecided on the effect of blocking.
I concur with others that it’s scary to rely on Airbnb. There are many things that can happen that are outside of your control. There are even hosts who claim their listings were shut down for “no reason.” I’m sure they aren’t telling us the reason but they are outraged anyway. I tried to collect a list of potential threats a couple of years ago.