When we first started short term rentals we used both Airbnb and VRBO. By far we had more rentals from the VRBO site. We added a second rental in 2021 and it was around that time that I noticed our rentals began shifting more towards the Airbnb site. Now, by far, most of our rentals come from the Airbnb site and very little from VRBO. We use “power ups” on VRBO and that still doesn’t seem to help much. Our overall rating for both rentals combined is 4.8 with many rentals behind us. When we search the VRBO site for our rentals our two are several pages deep before we see them. Any thoughts on this? Has anyone else experienced this same thing?
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My house is on both and I have premier/super host status on both. Check your property as if you were going to book. VRBO shows the total price in bold and Airbnb shows the nightly rate in bold and the total in small type so at first glance, it looks like my home costs twice as much on VRBO. So that may be part of the reason. I also used to pop up first on both sites when you put 4 guests in but now I’m at the bottom because there’s a lot more competition. There were only 2 str properties in my area when I started. Now there are lots. When I put 6 guests in I’m back at the top. If your place is larger perhaps that is the reason for being at the bottom of the list. Check your pricing on both sites and Try putting in more guests and see if you’re back on top. When there are fewer guests the smaller properties come up first.
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Yes, we have.
Airbnb has been much more effective in generating bookings for us than has VRBO.
We like VRBO. The Host for which I am co-Host prefers VRBO. She believes that the VRBO guests are more responsible guests and very much likes the damage protection they offer, and their non-interference (generally) in guest relationships.
But VRBO has just not generated much business for us in the last three years, with this year being the least.
I don’t blame VRBO, just think Airbnb has been more effective at marketing.
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I have only used Airbnb but perhaps their algorithm is similar to VRBO. I have noticed that the placement of my listing varies almost daily. The following are my observations in regards to my listing:
- If new listings appear, then mine drops.
- If my calendar is mostly booked, my listing shows up in the third or fourth page:
- If I cancel, even though it was penalty free, my listing drops to the fourth page.
- If I have many guests not leaving any reviews, that also affects the placement of my listing.
- Also, I have noticed that when I increase my price that too causes my listing to drop to the next page.
I imagine that there might be more new listings in your area and that’s causing your listing to drop to the third or fourth page.
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Vrbo is currently converting their platform to be consistent with Expedia (their parent company). There are numerous reports of listings disappearing, then reappearing during this transition time. Some owners have had to call to get their listing to reappear. One of my neighbor’s listing can’t be found except by typing in the number, but then it doesn’t show availability.
I’m curious - what do you mean by “several pages deep”? I didn’t see pages on the app, and on my desktop (using Chrome) Vrbo is only showing 50 listings and one “page” no matter how many listings there are in an area.
I have only 7 books on VRBO. More than 90% of my total books on both platforms came from Airbnb. Even all my VRBO guests gave me 5 stars reviews, I still don’t see any promising on VRBO. 
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