No More Categories By Location??

[Joan2709]

I was informed by Airbnb today that you can no longer use categories by location. The entire categories header has been removed from guest searches by location. For example; if you wanted to search for "Beachfront" in Miami, FL you can't anymore - the categories strip at the top of the page has been removed when you search by location. 

Not sure if there is any reason to continue having Categories then; and perhaps this is a good thing. Categories have been a big headache for many Hosts (placed in wrong categories and denied categories they obviously should be in, etc).

[Shelley159]

Hi @Joan2709 , how were you informed? Did you specially ask support, or is there a mailing list for these things that I don't know about?😀

[Joan2709]

@Shelley159 

LOL 😊

No special pipeline I'm afraid..

@Andrea6232 mentioned there was an issue a few days ago and I was not even aware. I rarely use Categories unless I am researching an answer for a Host here regarding it and I never use Categories when search as a guest myself.

After Andrea's post I started checking and sure enough....no more Categories header by location. I had noticed an issue with this regarding the New Category back in January with one of my clients who had just created a listing. You could not search in her location and find her listing when choosing the New Category. I contacted CS about it, but nothing was done. The other categories were still working in January.

After Andrea's post, I created a post in Host Circle about it and asked one of the moderators to forward to Airbnb. Airbnb (to their credit) did contact me about it and informed me this was actually intentional and not a bug. Not sure if Categories will now be removed from the Listing Editor Section for Categories altogether or not? As of yesterday, the listings I checked still had the Category Card on them. I guess we'll see.

I still have some concerns that Hosts aren't receiving the New Listing Boost (4wks)  in search results, but can't confirm that as I haven't created a new listing in a few months; just optimized exisiting ones. Some Hosts in the CC have voiced concerns they are not seeing their new listings appearing high in search results as in the past after publishing.

[Joelle43]

Hello @Joan2709 

All that fuss about categories and it only lasted a year?!  I agree, no point in having them on the booking page then as it just leads to confusion for guests and detracts from the main business of searching by location.  Let's get back to basics!

So it's as @Andrea6232 found when he was searching for new places to book in Croatia!  Impossible by location so of no use to guests who have a clear idea of where they are heading before they go on the platform to make a search.

Do you know if there is a new update coming up by any chance?

Thanks for the info!

Joëlle

[Andrea6232]

@Joelle43 

I do believe there is an update coming but as you know, Airbnb until the last moment keeps its mouth shut 😂

[Joan2709]

@Joelle43 

I agree....most Hosts will be glad to see Categories gone. Never really worked (IMHO) for guests and created a ton of headaches for both Airbnb and Hosts. I do believe it actually hindered guest searches on the platform. Not sure how well the Icons Category worked for Airbnb, but perhaps that was an attempt to get more guests to use Categories? 

Guess we will just have to wait and see what Airbnb does, but it certainly is another big change that Hosts were not informed about.