Wrong categories

[Jeffrey868]

I'm a superhost with 4yrs of Abnb hosting history.  I've got 2 beach condos in the same building, directly across from the beach in Santa Rosa Beach, FL.  Pictures, reviews, listing descriptions, etc all reference the beach, because  it's literally a couple hundred steps away.  Neither of my listings are in the beach category.  In addition, one of them is in the beautiful pool  category, and the other isn't.  It was even turned down when I requested it.  The pool is exactly the same distance away from both of the units.

In addition, I have a riverfront cabin in N GA that is directly on the water.  Our deed goes to the middle of the river.  Unfortunately, there are no category options for riverfront or waterfront?!?   Only lake and beach exist.  

How do I get Abnb to stop responding to my requests telling me that the "decisions are made using machine learning, based off of millions of properties"?  It's seriously maddening, and causing us to put way more time and effort into VRBO, which has none of these issues.

For reference, I've got a 4.92 overall rating.  

[Helen3]

Categories were removed a few months back @Jeffrey868 

[Jeffrey868]

@Helen3 What do you mean?  In the US, they are a real thing.

[Joan2709 · Accepted solution]

@Jeffrey868 

As @Helen3 says, Airbnb quietly removed categories from the platform (no longer viewable to guests) in April 2025 - no one was notified. Guests can no longer search for listings using categories like "beach" or "beachfront". 

Categories still appear to the Host on the Listing Page/Your Space, so perhaps Airbnb will still use that information down the road, but who knows? Supposedly catergories were removed to make way for the new "Services" feature. Airbnb collects alot of information that is not shown to guests currently like square footage of the property, so perhaps they will use the data in the future?

Unfortunately, categories were a real headache for alot of Hosts (although many guests loved it). Hosts were denied categories they should have been in, were assigned wrong categories and proximity callouts were wrong in many cases. This led to confusion for guests and many issues for Hosts. I think it was a good idea that was never developed correctly (AI mistakes?). Categories might return as a search filter, but that is just a guess on my part.