Very strange scenario for me today. I listed in April and enjoyed a fairly busy summer, considering summer in New Orleans is usually very slow. I’ve noticed a slowdown in bookings and went to check myself in the listings. Nothing. I used the same filters I always use to find my place (instant book, number of guests, neighborhood, dates that are open on calendar) and it just isn’t there. I looked on a private browser. Nothing. Had a friend check. Nothing. So I call air. The customer service rep tells me it is showing up on the first page of listings for my area, so I ask her what exactly did she search and she tells me " Your address." I was gobsmacked so I asked her again and she said “I typed in your street name.” I said, well that only works if you know where I am already. That is a completely unrealistic way to search. If I’m looking for accommodation, I’m going to search by city or neighborhood, not by specific street names. So she put me on hold and came back a few minutes later to tell me that they are still trying to figure out the problem. Has anyone else had problems with their listing disappearing lately? Wondering if there has been a glitch. Just though this was a really odd first reaction on their part.
Well I thought I was invisible because I could not find my listing. Turns out the “accepts instant book” filter was hiding my listing from me, because logged out/incognito I don’t meet my own requirements for IB (host recommendations on prior trips) so the listing will not display for me.
@LoneStar, That seems like a bug. You should need to be logged-in to search, only to book.
It isn’t a bug, it is a feature.
I’ve been in software engineering for 30 years. Never heard that before 
Seriously, though, if it really is a feature, it’s not a good one.
It filters out guests who don’t meet instant book requirements as designed. If I remove the instant book filter, the property shows up. I cannot book my own property by IB (even if I were a stranger) because I personally have never stayed in an Airbnb. So I don’t meet my own IB requirements.
This is absolutely the case and has been detailed in the Airbnb blog. If you have set your requirements as needing guests who have reviews, for example, then your listing won’t be shown in incognito searches because ‘you’, the ‘incognito you’. don’t have any reviews.
BTW i worked with software engineers for 18 months, guess where I learned that phrase lol.
Strange, as it definitely does not hide listings of hosts that require a verified government ID.
I will try searching without filter and also ask a few other people to double check, but why wouldn’t the customer service rep mentioned something like that? Odd that I’ve used the same search criteria before and had no problem pulling it up. Thanks for the tips. Going to go tinker some more.
They didn’t mention it to me either. He just ran various searches himself and sent me scren shots showing that I was first in the search ranking at that time. I figured out why he could see it and I couldn’t on my own, afterward.
Ok. I continued to search with just number of guests, area of town and dates that were available before I went to bed last night. Nothing. Woke up this morning and suddenly am on the front page. No idea what was going on, but the problem seems fixed. So strange.