Room disappears from search results when room filter applied

[Arthur728]

Hi all, I was wondering if anyone had any advice about a problem that I'm experiencing which causes my listing for a room to disappear when the room filter is applied. I have talked to Airbnb support and as many have mentioned they have basically passed the buck to the elevate branch of Airbnb which seems to be and elusive and unreachable branch of airbnb. Ultimately, the room category has to be added by elevate but my request has been pending for days. The listing type is room but because the room category has not been applied, any user that searches for a room will not see my listing. I can literally search as a guest and see my listing on the map when the any type filter is applied but as soon as I click room it disappears. I have no idea why it would take so long for them to simply declare that a room is a room. I also cannot imagine why anyone would want to call their listing a room if it were not. Rooms are generally less expensive than houses so it would do me no good to pretend that my house was a room. If anyone has any experience or recommendations with how to get Airbnb elevate to approve the request so that my listing can be seen I would greatly appreciate it. Just to illustrate the impact, my listing has zero first page impressions a week in, while my other rooms have around 16,000 first page impressions each. Obviously if it's not showing up in search results because people who search for rooms use the room filter, it's not going to get booked and I am losing money everyday they don't fix this.

[Joan2709]

@Arthur728 

This is a known bug and we are told Airbnb is working on it. See this thread:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Ask-about-your-listing/Place-to-stay-vs-private-room/m-p/2158460

Be sure you are in the Rooms Category by following the Guide Here:

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Host-guides/Room-Hosts-Make-Sure-You-Are-in-Rooms-Category/td-p/...

@Bhumika ...can you add this listing to the others that are Rooms that don't appear when guests search using the Rooms filter?

[Arthur728]

Okay thank you! I hope they fix it soon. I can't imagine how many newer hosts are just giving up and abandoning the platform because they are not getting bookings and don't know why 😞

I did sumbit the request through Elevate a few days ago so I'll just keep waiting. Thanks again!

[Joan2709]

@Arthur728 

In reviewing your listing, it probably should be categorized as a Guest Suite and NOT a room. Airbnb says in order to be categorized as a room, the guest must share at least one of these rooms with the Host:

Bathroom

Kitchen 

Living Room

Rooms Category

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/3400

I would change your property type to Guest Suite and indicate the private entrance in the Title:

[Arthur728]

Hey Joan, I replied on the other thread but thank you. Guests actually do share the kitchen and living room and other common areas of the house, but Airbnb never asks this with the exception of when they ask you what type of listing it is so that you can select room. The only way I could find to indicate that there are other shared areas of the house aside from marking the listing as a room, was to add a picture of the living room and then indicate when I added the picture that it was a shared space. Still no luck though. Status is still pending and the room still disappears when the room filter is applied in the search.  First page impressions are still only a tiny fraction of what they are for my other two rooms (which did not require loading pictures of the living room or kitchen) 

[Joan2709]

@Arthur728 

Yes...I think the issue is still that Airbnb removed the ability for guests to search by categories in April, and the AI is no longer able to curate "Rooms". The result is any listing added as a room after April does not appear in the Room Filter in guest searches.  It's almost like the "link" isn't there as the "string was cut in the middle" as it were and the AI they were using doesn't work anymore as they changed the structure of the system. The other categories did NOT have a search filter like Room does and therefore it probably wasn't noticed until now.

They are going to have to figure out a new way to connect the Property Type Room, the Category Room and the Guest Search Filter Room.  

I did notice they removed all the Help Articles related to Categories, so not sure what that means 🤔. 

I'm tagging @Joelle43 so she can keep the French CC in the loop as there were Hosts there complaining about this same issue.

@Bhumika 

[Bhumika]

Thanks for the tag @Joan2709 , I have forwarded Arthur's issue to the relevant team.