I received a 1 star review in March because a guest was unhappy about the actions of another guest and my rating dropped to 4.6. Despite receiving several 5 star reviews since, my overall rating has not gone up again. Airbnb says it is a known bug and a fault has been logged but nothing has happened since. Anyone else had this issue?
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Part of your issue has to do with the mathematics of averaging and rounding of numbers. It can take more than just a couple perfect scores to bring an average score up, and it could take six months…
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When you look at the detail # with a second digit after 4.6 - do they not change at all after more 5 stars?
How many total reviews are you at?
Thanks. It’s been 5 months so far
Hi Jefferson. I am at 64 reviews. I’ve had 11 5-stars since the 1 star but have also had two 3 stars and one 4 star since the one star. I don’t know if it makes any difference but I have 3 listings for the one property as we used to rent out each room (room 1, room 2) separately or the whole unit with the calenders linked. The one star i got was for room 1. But I snoozed the separate rooms because of Covid so now only rent the whole unit. I am wondering as I can’t get any good stars for room 1 while it is snoozed, whether this will affect my overall rating never increasing. Room 1 is at 4.5, room 2 is 4.8, entire apartment is 4.6. Overall rating is 4.6.
I honestly wouldn’t worry about it. Hosts get very stressed about their ratings but guests rarely pay attention to them. And for the few who do, they’d see 4.6 as being perfectly okay.
I’ve bought things from Amazon, for example, that have been three stars or even less because someone else’s opinion is good to know but might not be the same as mine.
I’ve had guests give me a variety of reasons for choosing us but there are two that have never been mentioned - the superhost thing and the star rating.
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I have just had another five star review and my rating has not moved on by 0.01 (from 4.81 to 4.82) as it has for the last six five star reviews in a row.
And I don’t understand why my pending superhost rating is at 4.9 and my profile rating is 4.81.On enquiry i was told that the rating now aggregates every three reviews.
I,m baffled!!
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This could easily be due to rounding.
Each listing on your profile has it’s own rating which is averaged over the lifetime of the listing.
Your Superhost rating is averaged over all of your listings for only the past year.
Remember that the Superhost rating shown on your progress page between quarterly assessments is only a trend. The only thing that actually counts are the reviews over the past year when you reach the next assessment.
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What is the “Overall rating” ? Do you mean what shows on your “Performance” page?
Thank for the prompt reply Brian_R70 that makes sense now that you have explained the reasons to me, and better than AirBnB earlier today many thanks again.
@DanO You’ll pretty much get way better and clearer explanations from other hosts than you ever will from Airbnb 
. They’re the masters of making simple things as convoluted and unclear as possible.
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Yes Muddy, I’m starting to realise that now, thank god for this forum.
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I am still wondering if the fact that 2 of my listings are snoozed will affect my overall rating no matter how many 5 stars I get from my remaining listing. Since writing my remaining listing has gone from 4.6 to 4.7, but my overall rating has not changed since it dropped to that in March caused by a 1 star review on one of the snoozed listings.
So Mels, I had copied this a long time ago:
A single 4-star rating, you need 4 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8
A single 3-star rating, you need 9 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8
A single 2-star rating, you need 14 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8
A single 1-star rating, you need 19 perfect 5-star ratings to average 4.8
And in your case, you mentioned a few more ratings of less than 5-stars. And yes, de-listing does not deduct those ratings from your totals. Wishful thinking …
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I don’t trust it because the score happily moves down when the scenario is reversed. I have just had this happen to me. And I’ve been watching the last few reviews to see how it impacts the score. I had a 4.91, and someone gave me 4 stars which instantly shot me down to 4.88. Then the next guest gave me 5 stars and the score didn’t move. Today I just got another 5 star review and it’s still at 4.88. This is bogus.
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My understanding is that it can take 10 5 star reviews to move it by .1 …… really unfair that a 4 star review is so heavily weighted
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Every review should be weighted the same. I can’t possibly understand why it would make sense for Airbnb to make the 5 star reviews less weight. So strange.
Probably not. No reviews have more or less weight. It’s just how averaging and rounding works.
How many reviews do you have? See if it fits this:
In your case, you had a 4.91, then you got one 4-star review, which brought you down to 4.88, then you got one 5 star review and you stayed at 4.88. With just that amount of info, it should be the case that when you had the 4.91, you had between 25 and 30 total reviews.
Caution: nerds only beyond this point.
Here’s the math:
When you had a 4.91, you had between 25 and 30 reviews, then you got one 4-star review, shown as 4.00, which gave you something between 26 and 31 total reviews. Here you can see all 6 cases that can give you a 4.88.
((4.91 * 25) + 4.00) / 26 = 4.875 (rounds up to 4.88)
((4.91 * 26) + 4.00) / 27 = 4.876296 (rounds up to 4.88)
((4.91 * 27) + 4.00) / 28 = 4.8775 (rounds up to 4.88)
((4.91 * 28) + 4.00) / 29 = 4.878621 (rounds up to 4.88)
((4.91 * 29) + 4.00) / 30 = 4.879667 (rounds up to 4.88)
((4.91 * 30) * 4.00) / 31 = 4.880645 (rounds down to 4.88)
Then you got one more 5-star review, shown as 5.00, which gave you something between 27 and 32 total reviews, and you can see that all 6 cases still give you a 4.88.
((4.91 * 25) + 4.00 + 5.00) / 27 = 4.87963 (rounds up to 4.88)
((4.91 * 26) + 4.00 + 5.00) / 28 = 4.880714 (rounds down to 4.88)
((4.91 * 27) + 4.00 + 5.00) / 29 = 4.881724 (rounds down to 4.88)
((4.91 * 28) + 4.00 + 5.00) / 23 = 4.882667 (rounds down to 4.88)
((4.91 * 29) + 4.00 + 5.00) / 21 = 4.883548 (rounds down to 4.88)
((4.91 * 30) * 4.00 + 5.00) / 32 = 4.884375 (rounds down to 4.88)
If you had less than 24 or more than 30 reviews to start, then the average after both the 4-star and 5-star review would not round to 4.88.
Of course, if all this isn’t nerdy enough, it assumes your rating was exactly 4.91, but that is unlikely. In reality your rating was somewhere between 4.905000 and 4.914999 which Airbnb rounded to 4.91. When you consider rounding, you could have had as few as 22 or as many as 38 reviews at the start. 
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Not Strange, that’s the way they manage the hosts….how much harder are you working at improving the guests experience so you can improve the score again. It is all carrot and stick and they know the stick hurts!
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@Cmcconnell – It’s your perogative to not trust something. But not believing demonstrated mathematics is just… wrong.
However. It is was it is. You don’t have to like it but your only other choice is to leave.
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