This forum is dedicated to connecting hosts with other hosts. Sign up to get the latest updates and news just for AirBnb hosts! Note that we are not affiliated with Airbnb - we are just passionate hosts!
I wanted to share a data point from a recent battle with Support regarding the “Bottom 10%” badge, because the answer I finally got from them is terrifying for any host.
The Context: I have been hosting for 7 years with a 4.84 lifetime rating. In September, I received one 1-star review (retaliation/revenge rating). Since that 1-star review, I have hosted 6 more groups. Every single one gave me 5 stars.
Despite 6 perfect reviews in a row, my listing is still flagged with the “Bottom 10%” badge, which has completely killed my impressions and bookings.
The Support Response: I pushed Support (Case Manager) for a concrete number: How many more 5-star reviews do I need to dilute this one bad rating and remove the badge?
Here is the exact quote from their reply:
“Based on how our system weighs recent feedback, you would likely need approximately 20 to 30 more consecutive 5-star reviews to sufficiently raise your overall average and clear that bottom 10% highlight.”
The Catch-22: They are admitting that a single bad review (even with a 7-year history of success) requires a “sentence” of 30 perfect stays to recover.
But here is the trap: How am I supposed to get 30 bookings when the listing has a “Bottom 10%” warning plastered on it? The badge stops the bookings, but I need bookings to remove the badge.
My Decision: I realized I am fighting a losing mathematical battle. I have decided to snooze/delete this listing because it is statistically impossible to recover before going bankrupt.
Has anyone actually managed to crawl out of the “Bottom 10%” hole, or is “Delete and Restart” the only real option once you get flagged?
I have the same exact situation. My situation is worse because I do almost entirely 2 to 3 month listings. I have tried to get the review removed and even though I spoke to support over 5 times before the review and they agreed she made false claims and even supplied false speed tests to airbnb which is wire fraud/attemped business service theft they are letting the review stand.
I reported her to try and have her removed too. Is it all listings or just reviews for the flagged listing which was my most rented and a guest favorite.
I have a total of 52 reviews for this listing over 12 years. It also says I am unreliable. I am a Community Leader and Airbnb still contacts me for pilot programs. May just go direct book with this listing.
This is baffling. I can see why Airbnb plaster ‘guest favourite’ etc etc onto listings in an effort to persuade guests to book, but on what planet is it in anyone’s interest, least of all Airbnb’s, to bother highlighting the ‘bottom’ 10%?
I think it has got to be better for you to create a brand new listing with zero reviews than persist with one that is basically flagged as ‘don’t even think about this one’, even if it has a string of 5 star reviews. No one looking is going to click through to see, unless they are just intrigued to see what constitutes such a truly terrible place…
It is not advisable to delete a listing and relist it anew. Airbnb bots are flagging and deleting what they identify as “duplicate listings”. Even hosts who recently bought a property which had been listed as an Airbnb, and which the former owners had already deleted, are running into this issue.
The part I truly don’t understand is the contradictory business logic behind the algorithm.
I am in Ubud, which is an incredibly competitive market with thousands of villas. Yet, the search algorithm consistently places my listing on the first page.
So, on one hand, their SEO algorithm decides my listing is high-quality enough to be the first thing a guest sees. But on the other hand, their “Quality” algorithm slaps a “Bottom 10%” badge on it to warn people not to book it.
It makes absolutely no sense. They are burning their own prime inventory. If the listing is truly “Bottom 10%,” why not just bury it on the last page? Instead, they give me premium placement just to show guests a “Don’t Book” sign. It feels like they are intentionally wasting impressions.
I pushed Support on this, and the Case Manager finally broke character and admitted the system is rigid. He wrote:
“I would feel exactly the same way in your shoes. It is genuinely disheartening that I cannot help you with this specific request due to our protocols. If there were any way I could go the extra mile to resolve this, I absolutely would, but we are limited by the current system.”
It proves that Airbnb doesn’t view us as partners; they view us as disposable data points. Booking.com and Agoda would never do this. They might rank you lower if you have a bad month, but they don’t publicly shame their own inventory with a “Do Not Buy” sticker.
The craziest part is that my rating is 4.84. In any other universe, that is Superhost territory. To label a 4.84 listing as “garbage” just because of one bad review shows their math is completely broken. Airbnb is the only platform willing to destroy a profitable business relationship over a simple calculation error.
You are totally correct. It makes no sense at all.
As for Airbnb being hosts’ “partner”, any host who thinks that is the case is quite naive. Aside from their first few years in business, when they were reportedly engaged with and helpful to hosts, there hasn’t been an attitude of partnership for at least a decade. All they are interested in is their profits.
Just wow. This forum is really depressing. Between this, the whole “services” fiasco, and publishing our address on booking, it’s getting really old.
In the off season, we’ve been getting really nice results from Furnished Finder (we live near several hospitals) over the last few years. It’s getting very close to the point where we will just leave Airbnb and switch permanently to FF despite the overhead of reference checking and leases (but I have to admit that I appreciate being able to do reference checks).
I just spent hours auditing my market to see if I was crazy.
I searched hundreds of listings in my area (Ubud), specifically clicking on the ones with lower ratings than mine (4.7s, 4.6s). Guess what? Not a single one had the “Bottom 10%” badge.
So, a steady 4.6 listing is “fine,” but my 4.84 listing is “garbage” just because the drop happened recently? It confirms that this is purely a recency algorithm gone wrong. It punishes a “fall from grace” harder than it punishes consistent mediocrity.
That was the final straw for me.
By my math, this specific listing has generated over $100,000 USD in commissions for Airbnb over the years. I paid for their servers, their salaries, and their stock buybacks. And in return, they put a “Do Not Buy” sticker on my door because of one bad month.
I’m done. I am currently setting up my listing on Booking.com. I won’t lie—their backend is a complete nightmare, totally user-unfriendly, and feels like it was built in 1999. But I’d rather deal with a clunky interface than a “partner” who treats me like disposable garbage.
If you are relying 100% on Airbnb, you are building your house on a sinkhole. Get out before the algorithm swallows you too.
I feel your pain. I didn’t know about this “Bottom” badge. I have 5 years of consistent 5 star reviews and one 4 (despite a glowing review because the guest said “nothing is perfect”!!) means my rating is 4.99.
I’m a math stickler and understand this is ridiculous. The one 4 should be considered an anomaly and having earned twenty 5 star reviews since then, I should be a 5 star listing. I too have argued with support to no avail. What they’ve done to you is malpractice and makes me think “class action law suit”. It’s an atrocious rating system. It makes working with other platforms (which have their own issues!) more attractive.
You hit the nail on the head—it’s mathematically absurd. I was a 5-star host, then sat at 4.98 for 6 years. One single 1-star review dropped me straight into the bottom 10%. It absolutely feels like malpractice when an algorithm penalizes long-term consistency over one anomalous review.
I’ve been navigating the mess that is the Booking.com backend, and while the user interface is a total disaster, I found one feature that is an absolute game-changer: Country Rates.
It allows you to set specific discounts for guests based on their country. After years on Airbnb where you basically have to take whoever the algorithm sends your way, having this level of targeting is incredible. It’s the closest thing to a guest filter I’ve seen. If I could have targeted specific markets like this on Airbnb, hosting would have been so much easier
I think if you start a new listing under your own host profile, it’s fine. I saw a lot of hosts having duplicated listings. I don’t understand why they did that, though.
I think Airbnb is trying to weed out those listings that cause guests to never return to the platform and move to hotels. So they put a ‘Bottom 10%’ badge on them. But in your case, I think they’ve made a mistake, a 4.80+ listing cannot be on ‘Bottom 10%’.
I stumbled across this on AirBnB’s documentation (edited to show only the applicable information):
"Percentile ranking is based on a number of factors related to quality and reliability, including:
Quality-related incidents reported to Airbnb customer service
Bottom 10% is only displayed when places have received a prior quality-related communication from Airbnb"
If you haven’t received a quality-related communication from AirBnB, then you should call and complain. If you have, then maybe the 1-star review pushed you over the edge.
Yes, of course I got a quality-related communication, but the whole situation was completely backwards. It was all triggered by one nightmare guest who gave me 1 star in every single category as pure retaliation.
Here is the breakdown of what I did for her versus what she did to me: My water pump was off for exactly one hour. To be accommodating, I offered her a free standard Balinese massage to make up for the slight inconvenience. She took advantage of that and changed to most expensive massage available instead, which I paid.
But here is where she completely fucked me: She blatantly broke the house rules and smoked inside the villa. I reported her to Airbnb for the violation. The smoke smell was so bad that the very next guest who checked in reported it to customer service and canceled their entire reservation—double fucking me.
So, because she broke the rules, smoked inside, and caused the next guest to cancel, Airbnb’s algorithm logged those as ‘quality incidents’ against my account and slapped me with the Bottom 10% badge. The system literally punishes the host when a guest is the one causing the problems.
This whole thing is baffling to me. What was the 1 star across the board retaliation for? Just the broken water pump? I am a little puzzled. Awful guests do exist for sure, and smoking inside against the house rules is one of worst things to deal with on a fast turnaround but this whole fiasco seems beyond bizarre.
