My Airbnb property does not appear online (we are superhosts)

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Pierre - I am still so confused :anguished:

The server generating the report doesn’t have any cookies from Airbnb…right??

So how is the report beneficial if the traveler does have cookies from Airbnb? And if Air is using pervasive cookies? I don’t even know if I am wording things correctly.

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This is an option offered in our Market component, after creating an account with us. The listing report was initially there to demonstrate Smartbnb is not some kind of evil site :wink:

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Get ready to dive.

“Pervasive cookies” are just cookies. There is no such things as “super-cookies”. Cookies are just strings of text stored on your browser. What is pervasive is the usage of cookies across the Web.

Any Airbnb user has cookies. You have cookies because you are logged in. That is how the server can check that you are logged in, and to which account. As a host, you are logged in, you have cookies. Airbnb guests have too. They can’t interact with you if they don’t have cookies.

You also have a ton of other cookies (on mine: 45 cookies in total) that can otherwise identify you, even if you are not logged in. Those cookies stay in place when you are logged out. Those are trackers.

The search results obtained by guests might be affected, up to a point, by their experience, history, etc… This is why you never have the raw search results when you are searching Airbnb. Even when you are not logged in.

In addition (and to my surprise), Airbnb also takes into account other variables, besides cookies. They are doing their best to stick to any possible history they might have on a user.

However, a new guest searching into your area (such as me) would not have any history with that area, and would be presented the “default” search results. If I am looking into Swaziland, and have never travelled on Airbnb ever, what would be the first search results? The “objective” first listing across all raw metrics. Not the “best” for me, the “best” of all. Best is not an indication of quality, but this is the most likely to be booked.

When we are running a report, or for our Market component, it is important to obtain the raw search results. It is not to replicate in which position every guest will see the search results (impossible to determine as it varies to a certain extent), but how most guests (and in particular, all new guests) will have a look at your area through their search results.

This is how it is beneficial: get the best view from the system to know how to game it with the greater effect.

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64

Thanks for the response.

I guess my understanding of “pervasive cookies” is that sites like HA are known to only show certain properties to a potential traveler, and not all available properties. The reason is that so HA can purposely “spread the wealth” and please multiple owners.

It makes sense that a site will NOT show your property if you already have a healthy booked calendar. That is why now on HA site owners cannot figure out (refuse to accept) that ALL search results are presently manipulated. HA calls it “Best Match” - I call it “spread the wealth program.” When you allow the market to dictate which properties are the most appealing…it doesn’t allow the listing site to maximize profits.

In order to keep hosts happy (even riff raff hosts) the site has to deliver a certain number of bookings on an individual level. That’s why in the past (with HA) owners who had the best maintained properties - always booked calendars for years, every year etc. - they all of a sudden saw their inquiries plummet. Now when people search in their area sometimes crappy properties with hardly any good reviews are shown first. Those “great” properties were hogging all of the bookings. Now the sites want to ration them out.

I guess what I mean about “pervasive” cookies, is a site purposely hiding your property, and purposely pushing other properties high - in order to achieve bookings spread out more evenly across the board.

Like I said…no idea what terminology I am taking about - but this is happening with the sites. They just like to call it a “glitch.”

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I once in a while check my area on VRBO. There are only less than 25 properties located in my actual town. On one day I can search and will be shown 100 properties, and on another day will be shown 538 properties. This is intentional and not because they have tracked my history of booking. They MUST know that I have no desire to book a property one hour away from the destination I typed into the search bar.

But I do know that 250 properties are listed ahead of me, and I am hidden because I do not use HA payment system…therefore they make less money off of me. It is all about the money, not the traveler experience. Doesn’t this all involve cookies? Or what is that??

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Thanks for the comprehensive explanation. Since I am not (yet?) familiar with HomeAway, I have no idea how search results are presented there. I agree that “the HA way” is not optimal, but is tied to their business: they have to deliver when a host has paid HA.

To the best of my knowledge, and in spite of the current topic whose initial subject was listings disappearing, this behaviour doesn’t seem to be the case with Airbnb. Although there is a “cycle” (listings come to the top and then go down), each listing can be found at some position in search results.

I hope I would quickly notice if something fishy is going on.

IP geolocation, no cookies involved. How do you think I know in which currency I should give the reports on Smartbnb? :wink:

I have serious doubts about a system so complex that it would foresee the case of bookings within an hour drive. This level of sophistication would be impossible to maintain over the long run, especially in the case of a global corp.

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I’m not sure I am following. Are you referring to HA manipulating search results? If so, if they have more supply than demand - then they assume a person will eventually book one of the places. At least if that is what their statistics show.

I had one guest (he was a property manager) and told me he just couldn’t find anything on VRBO that truly stuck out at him. He wanted a unique place to stay blah blah blah. Finally he went to Trip Advisor and saw my listing…contacted me directly, and I booked him for the week with a check in hand. He said he was shown so many places and had almost given up. Funny thing is that he was never presented my place on the platform I pay to present me.