No longer getting bookings from Air BnB after location adjustment interaction with customer service.

[Valerie926]

So when reviewing my listing last spring, I noticed my general location had been changed to the downtown area near my location, when I'm 6 miles north of there, at a golf course.  I got it corrected after several interactions with customer service (it wouldn't let me change it myself for some reason). Ever since then, I've gotten almost no reservations from Air BnB, when it used to be 65% of my business.  I've looked at my listing a couple of times, and the biggest issue I see is there are 16 listings from other communities as far as 42 miles away listed in the search result before my rental.  If someone plugs in my zip code, why don't they just see the listings from this community, when there are certainly plenty of listings here?  My listing showed up on page 3 yesterday, and the bottom of page 2 today.  Any suggestions for solving this?  I'm at the point I'm going to quit listing because I don't have enough business to make it worthwhile for me.

[Gwen386]

@Valerie926 I would change the title to, Spacious home at Chewelah Golf and Country Club

[Valerie926]

I took part of your suggestion and added the Golf Course in there.  But I also did a search for Chewelah and one option that comes up is "Chewelah Golf and Country Club", and there is only one listing that comes before mine that is actually AT the golf course.  Prior to my listing on page 2, there are 9 for Chewelah (non-golf course), 1 in Newport, 2 in Valley, 5 in Colville, 1 in Addy, 2 in Cusick, 2 in Loon Lake, 1 in Springdale, 1 in Elk (I don't even know where that is!), and 1 in Kettle Falls.  I just don't "get" how Air BnB comes up with so many options that aren't even close to Chewelah.

[Joan2709]

Hi @

I am so sorry to hear this. You (and many other Hosts) that are slightly outside a larger city, or town were previously included in search results. However, since the new "enhanced" map search features started in 2023, that is no longer the case. I believe in an effort to improve the search algorithm, they narrowed the results too much, resulting in many listings appearing as "small bubbles" (or not at all). They also exclude those listings outside a certain radius from a nearby larger city/town.

I provided feedback to Airbnb and suggested they not make the new algorithm so "tight" (not sure if it looks at distance from the major town/city). Also suggested they at least add a "callout" to the map (should be easy enough to do), that says "Move Map to See Additional Listings".  Alas, I don't see anything has been done.

Below is a link to another thread on the issue. Many hosts are having to close their listing on Airbnb, or list their property on another platform in order to resolve the issue (Vrbo, Booking.com, etc.)

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-Circle/AirBnB-listings-search-prominence-and-algorithm-chan...