Our city is Los Angeles. I zoomed in on the map and our listing does not come up. I called customer service and they said our listing comes up in searches and some other stuff I couldn’t understand because they were obviously located overseas to minimize Airbnb’s cost and maximize their profit margin. Please advise. thanks!
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There’s a lot of nuances when it comes to finding your listing in search. Last week I tried to find my listing, searching incognito, for open dates, even inputting all the right filters, and it wasn’t coming up. I asked here if other hosts could check for me, they did, and said it came up for them.
Also, do you use Instant Book? If you do, and you have the requirement set for guests to have no negative reviews, when you search incognito, your listing won’t be shown.
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That was it, thanks! Not sure if that’s going to help get more bookings, but…
I have IB on but I can find my listing in the incognito window always. Was I fooled by the incognito window? It’s been a while since I haven’t got any bookings, I thought it was the slowest season, but last year at the same time I still got at least 1 book/week.
I had just read on another forum a host saying her listing wasn’t visible, and another host mentioned the IB when searching incognito thing, the host who couldn’t find her listing said, yes, that turned out to be why. So I was just passing that info on- beyond that, I don’t have any insight. If you are getting bookings, I wouldn’t worry about it much. It only seems to be an issue if the searcher isn’t signed in, or doesn’t meet your IB requirements.
And I don’t know where you are located, but maybe you can find your place incognito because there are fewer listings in your area than the hundreds of pages of LA listings.
RE incognito not showing up.
It’s funny that we ‘collectively’ know more than ABB CS.
To everyone: would this be another reason to use Request To Book instead of IB?
We’ve debated RTB/IB many times, I love RTB only and still get plenty of reservations. I don’t think it hurts my ‘ranking’ or search placement.
And RTB totally solves the double booking risk from airbnb when using multiple sites.
Basically I’m theorizing that with RTB on, listings will still be shown to ‘new’ airbnb users.
Then they try to book (must RTB) and you can vet them etc. (more exposure?)
wow this is a great tip I had no idea!
Also, do you use Instant Book? If you do, and you have the requirement set for guests to have no negative reviews, when you search incognito, your listing won’t be shown.
Airbnb, like all online businesses now, tracks one’s preferences, and what they click on. So listings don’t come up in the same order, or maybe not at all, for one person vs. another. I suspect that when guests are logged in and have a history with Airbnb, the algorithms are going to show them places that they would be more likely to book first, based on their past booking history.
I know for sure, because I have read guest posts detailing this, that a husband and wife, or two friends, can be searching for listings, each on their own laptop or phone, sitting at the same table, with one of the people having an Airbnb account and past bookings, the other being a new user, and they will not only see different listings first, they will be shown different prices on the same listing. The latter couldn’t happen unless the host used smart pricing. If they do, the smart pricing algos it seems can determine “Oh, this person has never booked an Airbnb before- let’s lure them in with a lower price than what we think the experienced user will go for.”
One guest told me she searched 5 times before my listing came up, and only when she kept upping the price slider until it was twice what I charge. So Airbnb was trying to get her to book more expensive places.
Likewise, if one is searching incognito, or is a signed-in new user, maybe Airbnb shows them more expensive places first, in hopes they will book there.
There’s probably other things they track that determines which listings surface higher. Like maybe where you are from, or your age, who knows.