Making reviews more relevant and useful for our community

Airbnb
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Making reviews more relevant and useful for our community

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Many of you rely on reviews to grow your business—they highlight your amazing hospitality. They’re also a helpful way to get specific feedback on what you’re doing well as a host and where you can improve. But there are times when you feel like a review may be misleading or irrelevant to future guests, and we know that can be painful both personally and professionally.

 

It’s tricky. Guests and hosts need to be able to share what they feel is important about their experience, so we don’t want to limit what people can and can’t say on the platform. However, it’s also essential that reviews reflect a guest’s stay and that they provide useful information to future hosts and guests. As part of our ongoing journey to get this balance right, here are some of the changes we’re making:

Introducing our updated Review Policy

With our updated Review Policy—effective December 11, 2019—we’ve addressed two types of reviews that we know can be frustrating: irrelevant reviews and biased reviews. The updated policy clarifies our expectations and ensures our customer support agents are equipped to remove these types of reviews.

 

By updating our policy to cover irrelevant and biased reviews, we’re strengthening our commitment to building a community of trust. These review updates build upon our existing Content Policy (which outlines the kind of content that is never allowed on Airbnb) and our new Guest Standards Policy, which will introduce a system for tracking bad guests. Under our updated Review Policy, guests and hosts who repeatedly leave certain kinds of biased reviews may be removed from the platform.

 

Let’s look at irrelevant reviews and biased reviews in a little more detail:

 

Reviews that are irrelevant

This policy covers situations where a review contains information that’s irrelevant to you as a host or your listing—and isn’t useful to future guests.

 

Here are a few examples:

  • A guest accidentally leaves a review on your profile that was meant for another host
  • A guest never checks into your space (for a documented reason unrelated to you as the host or your listing) and leaves an irrelevant review about their experience. For example, a guest never shows up, due to a canceled flight, but leaves you a review that complains about a dirty couch.

Under the updated policy, both of those reviews would be removed because they contain only irrelevant info.

 

There are also times when a guest comments on issues outside of your control, or unrelated to the service you provided. Those types of reviews may be removed if they only contain irrelevant content that isn’t useful to future guests. Here are a few examples of irrelevant content that could result in the removal of a review:

  • A guest leaves a comment about your appearance
  • A guest leaves you a bad review because they were frustrated by public transit in your city
  • A guest leaves a review about the type of people in your neighborhood

These comments have nothing to do with your listing or the service you provide as a host and aren’t useful to future guests. So, under our updated Review Policy, our customer support agents would be empowered to remove both the review content and star rating.

 

Reviews with biased information

Our community benefits most when reviews share an unbiased view of the member’s experience. Our updated Review Policy covers the removal of reviews with inappropriate bias—this may include situations where the reviewer is attempting to extort the person being reviewed, has a conflict of interest, or competes with the person being reviewed. Here’s a closer look at three types of biased reviews that will be removed under our updated policy:

 

  • Extortion: This is when a guest tries to use reviews to get something they want—for example, if they threaten to leave you a bad review unless you give them late checkout. Any attempt to use reviews or review responses to force a person to do something they aren’t obligated to do is a misuse of reviews, and we don’t allow it. People who use Airbnb also aren’t allowed to tie positive reviews to promises of compensation.
  • Conflict of interest: We appreciate how much hard work goes into earning a positive review. As a result, we will not allow hosts to unfairly boost their ratings by accepting fake reservations in exchange for a positive review, using a second account to review their own listing, or providing something of value (like cash or a late checkout) in exchange for positive reviews.
  • Competition: We’ll remove reviews written by hosts of competing listings or experiences where that person (acting as a guest) leaves negative reviews for competitive listings, or where we determine the content is intended to dissuade others from booking those listings or drive business to other listings.

 

Guests and hosts who repeatedly violate our updated Review Policy may face consequences, including account suspension and removal from the platform. We’ve also invested in retraining our customer support agents and improving our workflows, so hosts will receive better support in instances when irrelevant or biased reviews happen. As with our new Guest Standards Policy that tracks bad guests, our updated Review Policy includes warnings and education that can lead to suspension or removal of people who repeatedly leave biased reviews.

 

Updating our Review Policy is another important step in our journey of supporting guests and hosts like you who rely on relevant, useful reviews.

Your top questions, answered

 

What kinds of reviews will be removed by this updated Review Policy?

A healthy review system is one that respects and protects our community’s genuine feedback. For that reason, we take the removal of any review very seriously and only remove reviews that clearly violate Airbnb’s Review Policy. You can read the updated Review Policy in full, but, in short, this means a review is only removed if:

  • The review is in violation of Airbnb’s Content Policy,
  • The review is biased, or
  • The review is irrelevant to the author’s experience on Airbnb

Guests and hosts who repeatedly violate our updated Review Policy may face consequences, including account suspension and removal from the platform.

 

What kind of documentation should I have under the updated Review Policy?

We can’t emphasize this enough: Always aim to communicate with guests through the Airbnb platform. If conversations happen off-platform, be sure to keep a record of those conversations too. That way, if you ever need to report a review to our agents, they’ll have—at their fingertips—the information they need to make the right decision. That said, even when you don’t have this preferred documentation, we encourage you to report any reviews that violate our Review Policy because we may be able to identify other evidence or patterns of behavior regarding that guest. 

 

Will all irrelevant review content be removed?

If Airbnb determines that the review contains no relevant information about a host or guest or listing, the review will be removed. Reviews that contain mostly irrelevant information are also subject to removal, but only where the relevant information does not meaningfully inform community members.

 

Where a review contains information that is unrelated to an experience as a host or guest, or is focused on something beyond the control of the person being reviewed, our team will determine the relevance of the review by considering how useful it is to our community of hosts and guests. To do this, we’ll look at two things:

  • Does the review recount the reviewer’s experience and provide their personal perspective?
  • Is the review helpful to other members of the Airbnb community? Does it provide essential information about a host or guest, listing, or experience that would help others make more informed booking decisions?

 

What’s the difference between extortionary and retaliatory reviews?

It’s considered extortion if a guest attempts to use reviews (or review responses) to force a host to do something they aren’t obligated to do. So, for example, if a guest threatens to leave a bad review if you don’t allow them to bring additional guests, that review would be extortionary and would be removed under the updated policy.

 

Then there are times when a host may feel that a negative review is made in retaliation. This is when, for example, a host doesn’t allow the guest to bring additional guests, and the guest goes on to leave a review about how inflexible their host was, or even writes a negative review about cleanliness or location. However, without evidence of a threat to leave a negative review, this would not be considered extortionary and would not be removed under the updated policy. If this happens, we encourage hosts to use their public response to politely address the issue.

 

Why aren’t you removing all retaliatory reviews?

While we understand how frustrating it can be when you receive a review that feels retaliatory, we don’t have a crystal ball to tell us what a person’s true motivations are. So, without a documented threat to leave a negative review or other evidence of a biased review, Airbnb won’t intervene. Here’s why:

  • As a marketplace, we often don’t know the truth about what took place, and our review system is a critical feedback mechanism for our hosts and guests. That means we want as many reviews as possible to remain intact—so our community can put them to good use.
  • Most guest reviews contain honest feedback about their experience and useful information for hosts and guests.

 

To reiterate, as outlined in our updated Review Policy, Airbnb can—and will—intervene where there’s evidence of a threat, promise of action that’s dependent on the review, or other conflict of interest and/or competition. Additionally, we will continue to intervene when a guest leaves a review that violates our content policies—including discriminatory content or a violent threat.

 

For more information, read the updated Review Policy or learn more about how we moderate disputes of our Review Policy in our Help Center.

How we’re tackling inconsistent reviews

Sometimes, a negative review is less about the guest’s experience in your space and more about them not understanding how reviews or the platform work—they can even be the result of an honest mistake. Earlier this year, we built a tool to help address these types of reviews by automatically detecting inconsistencies, and then interrupting the flow to give guests a chance to correct them. So, for example, if a guest gives you 4 or 5 stars in every category (cleanliness, accuracy, and so on) but then a 1-, 2-, or 3-star rating overall, a pop-up will ask if they’re sure about their overall rating.

 

Similarly, if a guest leaves a low rating for something like location or value—two categories we know can be interpreted differently by guests—a clarifying question will appear.

  • For location, we’ll ask if the location was accurately described in the listing
  • For value, we’ll ask what would’ve made the stay a better value

 

These interruptions force guests to think a little more about the rating they’re giving, which they can then go back and correct. As a result, we’re already seeing more consistency between the category scores and overall scores. Improvements like these help ensure that guests’ ratings align with their experience—better ratings are more useful to guests and reward the hard work of hosts.

There’s still more to come

Reviews are the backbone of our community—they help hosts grow their businesses, and they help guests gain the confidence they need to make the booking. We have a dedicated team doing lots of thinking around how to make our entire review experience better for hosts and guests. We’ll continue to improve the review system over time—please keep sending us your feedback about improvements that you’d like to see. In the meantime, we’re excited about these changes and hope you are too.

918 Replies 918
Cihan8
Level 1
Istanbul, TR

We also have struggle with early check in and late check out.

Cheryl611
Level 1
Sand Springs, OK

I appreciate your consideration in updating the review policy. I have one negative review on Suite 301, which states it was meant for me privately; however, I was in the hospital quite ill for a period, and never even read the review until after it had become public. Why make "private comments" become "public reviews" automatically? 

@Cheryl611 I don't see even one negative review on Suite 301. And there is certainly nothing that states it was meant for you privately. private feedback does not become a public review. If there was a negative review, it doesn't appear to be there any longer, and if it was once there, the guests must have thought they were filling in a private section, but in fact were commenting in the public review section.

Julie394
Level 4
Australia

 "Reviews are the backbone of our community" - seriously - guests use reviews to emotionally  abuse hosts and this is facilitated by AirBnb. None of the so called "case managers" I spoke after the so called "improved" review system has been announced were aware of it and were not enforcing it. Further, the rating system is fundamentally corrupt - you can't allow guests to rate the overall experience as a "4" providing that all other rating they provided were "5"  - and more to that when they do rate the overall experience as a "4" AirBnb suspends the listing and sends me a message that I have to improve - what a load of corruption. The so called  "case managers" must be asked to provide a case number for each call which they refuse to do now and there should be a feedback message sent to the host who contacted them so the host can rate their experience with the so called "case managers" - right now they are so arrogant to the point where one of them told me " will you ever shut up" and hang up. This is a disgrace!

I have just experienced the same. But I have 47 five star reviews and got now a 1 star full of BIASED comments since that guest was evicted from my listing by AIRBNB itself. Now they are saying they dont find anything problematic in her review. There you see what goes on with them. I can only fully underwrite what you have written...SHAME ON THEM...I had good booking where they made good money with. I will now delist as I do not want to direct my guests to AIRBNB and pay them for their shameful behaviour towards hosts.

Rufina2
Level 2
Ocho Rios, JM

@Airbnb Announcing new policies to minimize the frustration associated with the review process is only helpful if support staff are trained to identify and categorize issues. 

 

I had a guest whose plans changed and wanted to cancel 2 nights of her 3 nights reservation and receive full refund instead of the 50% stated in my moderate cancellation policy. She tried to get a refund by fabricating issues; the beds are smaller than advertised, undisclosed cameras, no hot water. Airbnb asked her to provide proof of any of her claims and she wasn't able to do so.  She left the following day without cancelling the reservation because she was determined to get a full refund instead of a partial one. She indicated to Airbnb that she planned to have a third party visit the property and document her issues, that was never done. The guest didn't communicate these issues to me, didn't respond to my messages or my offer to visit the property to view any issues. Because the guest was never able to provide proof of any issues and didn't cancel her reservation, she was not refunded.

 

The guest then left me a 1 star review calling me 'dishonest' and urging others not to waste their money by booking my property. Her review also stated a new set of complaints... issues that were never brought to my attention nor Airbnb's attention. The ACs break down at nights and the outdoor pool was filled with bugs. So for some reason my 4 good perfectly good AC units break down at nights only and worked fine during the days... and none of the guests who rented before of after noticed. 

 

My Airbnb support worker seems genuinely sorry about my situation, however she believes that even tho the guest's review of my property is biased, the review can only be removed if the guest had sent me a message stating that they will write me a bad review if I didn't refund her in full. 

 

I believe the fact that the case worker is able to identify that the review is biased and knows that the guest could not provide any photographs or documentation of her issues and reason for requesting a full refund, should be proof enough that a 1 star rating and propaganda about my honesty was her way of retaliating because she was not refunded. 

Jt4
Level 2
Austin, TX

This is just more lip service from the airbnb higher-achy so they can appease us longtime hosts who have experienced hardships and massive frustration with crazed guests who simply cannot be pleased... no matter how much we bend over backwards!

 

Bottom line: No matter how inflammatory, bias, racist, sexist or deranged they may be... Airbnb refuses to remove reviews from a year ago.

 

I have a guest review which clearly violates the "updated review policy”. This person took personal pot shots at me, lied and said that my home “needs to be renovated”.

 

An automaton from airbnb called me and kept spouting the same gobbledygook pat response over and over again. “I am sorry but this review is a year old and we cannot take it down even if it violates the new terms set forth on Dec 11 2019” . Nowhere in the new terms does it specify a time statute... yet the robotic goon who called was insistent that because the review in question is a year old, he cannot remove it. Criminals! 

 

Anyone else experience this kind of ineptitude and blatant disregard for the written rules as set forth in the updated review policy? 

 

This is absolutely unacceptable! I’m going to have my attorney contact airbnb & pull the call so it can be proven that the agent clearly usurped the terms of service.

 

Don’t worry be happy! 

 

Peace,

 

JT

Aviv30
Level 2
Tel Aviv-Yafo, IL

sounds great!

Carole158
Level 3
McMinnville, OR

Question: what happened to the policy about inconsistent / uncharacteristic reviews? For example, I've had nothing but 5 star reviews on one of my properties 36 times. I just got a 3-star review for the first time, complaints being that the furniture wasn't comfy, mugs were too small and the house was drafty (the house was built in 1910 but there's new heating units). I remember sometime in the past Airbnb saying that inconsistent / uncharacteristic reviews would be reviewed by their team -- is that still true?

Ros5746
Level 1
Rotorua, NZ

How do you deal with someone who complains about something that you have stated in the listing such as the check in time or animals on site?

 

Nada121
Level 1
Irvine, CA

To Airbnb, 

As a host I would like to point that 2 weeks  time period (that  Airbnb  has currently  as time limit for guests to leave review) should change to 3 weeks and give more time to guests that are traveling  to leave review for their hosts.

If the guests are coming for example from US to Europe their trip will be at least  2 weeks, so  that means that if they stay fist couple days in one city  most likely  due to traveling they will not be able to write review for their host. This situation happened to me more then couple times.

My guests contacted me and asked what to  (they were late  to write review  just for one day) doand unfortunately Airbnb customer service can not help, since reviews are done automatically. Anyway  in my case I  had several long rentals of 2 weeks and I  end up missing one review and missed opportunity to become super host even do other reviews were good.

73宿0
Level 2
Osaka, JP

My experience with the latest Airbnb review policy. 
They are not keeping their words, you will simply received a template like reply saying that decision is final.
Even though I spent time and effort to gather all evidence and document, they do not seem to even examine it.

Same her, standard decision was taken and transmitted, even though when I call in and the agents take not and reescalate, nothing is being done! After some time, when I call again, I am being told that the case was solved! Solved? without even contacting me?

SHAMEFULL support, nothing than a lip service

Ernesto178
Level 1
Cainta, PH

Can the overall rating be determined by Airbnb based on the ratings for each six criteria?  For example, if you get 5 star rating on, say, 4 criteria, yet overall rating is a 3 or lower overall rating.  Will the review still be considered for purposes of determining the overall rating?

Grace248
Level 2
Scotland, GB

All very good and well. But I still don’t understand how it’s the Hosts fault that a guest may arrive late and be in an exceptional bad mood over something related to TRavelling.......   then despite the host bending  over backwards to prepare the accommodation at short notice as they were let down by another host.  They still leave a very unkind and completely incorrect review.   This happened to me just a couple of months ago.   This situation has left me flabbergasted and lost for words that Air BNB allow guests to get away with very bad behaviour.