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).

[Courtney756]

I disagree. I found it much easier to find what I wanted, for example, a creative space.

[Zack216]

This is a completely ******ic move by AirBnB. I have used the categories feature extensively to plan most of my trips, specifically when looking for things such as a Lakehouse, a beachfront house, or a cabin nestled in the woods.

Without this feature, it is essentially impossible to search for any type of location now, and there is ZERO capabilitly to filter throught the thousands of listings that pop up per location.

Suffice to say, I will no longer be using AirBnB as a platform, as the lack of search filtering capabilities have now made the platform an essentially useless ******wagon. Google searching for specific types of locations and private listings is now unfortunately a better solution than using AirBnB, however this is a huge loss for anyone who likes to plan specific types of trips.

I have never had issues with booking a home in a specific type of category, and it not turn out correctly. That's what pictures are for. Sure, occasionally someone might list a forest-house as a lake house, but all it takes is a few seconds of looking at pictures to validate this is not the case and is an inaccurate listing. That couple with the fact the AirBnB could easily be leveraging AI to validate or even categorize the type of home based off of pictures alone.**

**[Inappropriate content removed in line with the Community Center Guidelines]

[Joan2709]

@Zack216 

Please provide feeback to Airbnb. It is possible they will add addl filters to guest searches for what used to be in categories, but who knows?

www.airbnb.com/help/feedback

[Damia476]

Yeah, and exactly that makes me not want to book on Airbnb anymore. Because I want to search for a castle or something unique, now I have to use Google for it and that will bring me to direct websites to book it. So very dumb move by Airbnb. 

[Terri578]

I’ll miss categories, because I used it to specifically search for farms to take my dogs to. What I wish is that we could hide properties we are not interested in. Would sure help. 

[Joan2709]

@Terri578 

It's possible that Airbnb will be adding categories back (at least some of them) in the form of additional search filters? 

Try using the current filters as much as you can to help eliminate properties you might not be interested in. You can also try using internet searches and social media searches to find what you are looking for. Not ideal, but something to try.

[April701]

Ya, I was just searching for Categories as  Guest & it's nowhere to be found. Thanks for confirming this. 

[Rebecca2577]

Thanks for confirming this... I'd been struggling to figure out where the categories went.  I am so disappointed.  I used this feature every time I was on the site.  Now I will have search elsewhere when I want to figure out destinations by category.