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This topic has been dropped in a couple threads
This is just a reminder you may wish to check your title so it appears as Airbnb rolls out search changes starting today
https://www.airbnb.com/resources/hosting-homes/a/new-guidelines-for-writing-your-listing-title-533
It’s looks like another step towards becoming primarily an app based platform.
And if you wanted to see how it’s going to look on the app, they are back on the website and it they appear to be using the truncated ones on the website too, Like: Title…
I left my title long but moved the words around to make sure that the more important would be seen. We have a large fenced yard and are dog-friendly and I had the word “yard” previously at the end of the title because of the way people scan (the first and last are seen most often). But for the update, I put “yard” before the 32nd character and it’s worked.
Titles are the least of the problems. No hosts are reporting normal views or bookings on two sites that I follow.
These are not people that are complaining for fun, a lot of the hosts are desperate that they’re in this position out of the blue with no explanation.
Surely with this dramatic loss of business Airbnb is going to have to make more changes. They have shareholders to report to.
I’ve just spent an hour having to rewrite all my photo captions which they kindly turned into gobledy-gook. And put my photos back in the order I originally had them.
Here’s a totally harebrained thought I just had, suppose Chesky is totally sick of Air and his roll? He decided to totally shake up Air with the craziest changes without explanations or help for hosts in navigating this world.
Hosts bookings are dropping off all around the world. Air throws little fixes at hosts without correcting the real problems making it awkward for guests and hosts alike to use the site.
Strangely Air starts loosing money big time which allows Chesky to declare bankruptcy and bye bye Air.
Just a fantasy explanation. I haven’t seen any statements for why this could be going on in reality.
@kcc Shareholders are probably bailing.
Airbnb’s stocks have dropped almost 24% in the past month/48% in the YTD.
Stock prices are a complicated way to look at how a company is doing. First quarter earnings were better than expected. But this fiasco, if it is a fiasco, won’t be reflected earnings until at least the 3rd quarter. But at least now Airbnb has to be transparent about these things which they did not prior to going public.
I don’t know if they are losing business or just moving business. If it’s the former then I’d expect them to go back to marketing properties the way they previously did.
@kcc I know squat about how stocks work and that’s the first time I looked to see what they were doing.
I read that when they fired all the employees 2 years ago that they gave them stock in the company.
Interesting theory, but I can’t imagine it has any truth to it.
Chesky is a design major, a billionaire, and full of himself. They didn’t test this, they didn’t consult with hosts, it’s just an extension of the ongoing disrespect for hosts in changing things they arrogantly assume one-sidely are good ideas. Just like revamping our hosting pages every so often, resulting in hosts wasting hours of time trying to find where things have moved to, or what they have, without any rhyme or reason, decided to rename something.
Keep in mind that Chesky and co. are millennials. While there are plenty of wonderful people of that age demographic, one of the prevalent characteristics of that demographic is a tendency to think they know better than people with far more experience than them. They love empty phrases like “we’re listening”, and “we hear you”, but their actions are the exact opposite. If they do in fact listen, they dismiss what they hear in favor of their own ideas, which they hold in high regard.
Millenials also tend to have a really hard time ever admitting they made a mistake and apologizing.
I have three daughters, the youngest of which is in the millenial demographic. Although all three girls were raised by me, her attitudes are very much like I described, and quite different than her sisters’.
@muddy Believe me, I didn’t expect anyone to agree with me. Thought I’d throw it out there since I’ve seen no other explanations.
This whole thing is much worse than spending time on the site trying to figure out where they’ve moved something.
This potentially involves a lot of money down the tubes for Air and hosts.
This is not a normal operation even for someone that knows it all.
Yes, of course it’s much worse than revamping our hosting pages- that was just an example of plowing ahead with something without consultation with the people who will be affected by it, and adequate testing.
Expedia stocks have done the same.
I suspect Chesky is not the first CEO to think they’ve discovered something wonderful and steered their company in that direction, later to find out they are wrong. The “work from someone else’s home” is a niche market compared to the general travel and vacation market, but he thinks (thought?) it’s the next seismic shift in the travel market.
And there is nothing wrong with a CEO looking at market trends and predictions and adapting their company to better cater to what they see as the wave of the future, whether it turns out to be true or not. But those innovations should be added to the platform, not drive a complete sweeping change that assumes that customers are not still interested in being able to use the platform as they always did.
Our longer name and photo order and caption stands on my pc.
He also won’t be the first to be ridiculed and doubted and later turned out to be right. God I wish I had those shares of AMZN I bought and sold multiple times in the 2000’s because I didn’t believe in Jeff Bezos. I can’t stand Eldon Muskmelon now and that’s a good sign that he’s going to keep doing fine.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, obviously I woudn’t be farting around here on this forum if I did. What I do know is that plenty of people have been predicting the demise of Airbnb since it started. When they are finally right we’ll never hear the end of it.
Just checked my listing - the title is back and the captions under the photos work on the desktop view. One the cell phone view most of the captions can’t be read. There is “read more” highlighted but I can’t click on it. It could be because I can’t upgrade the app - my phone is running on an old version of Android. I haven’t updated it in a while.
I just checked mine and the others around me and it still just says “condo in Kihei”, others are “apartment in Kihei” and “townhouse in Kihei”.
No change yet in Maui.
Sadly, while they told us they were putting names back, they put them under the generics and lightened the typeface (similar to how they diminish the guest phone number.
They win, we lose…
So your bookings also fell off the cliff?