Here's a community description for a Kanab-Bryce Airbnb Expe...
Latest reply
Here's a community description for a Kanab-Bryce Airbnb Experiences Host Community offering activities like photography, off-...
Latest reply
Hello everyone,
One of the most popular discussion topics here in the Community Center is on how Airbnb Search works. We brought your most-asked questions to the Airbnb Search team and have gathered the answers for you.
I really hope you find the responses helpful. To read the responses to each question, please click on the 'Read more' buttons! 🙂
Lizzie
Answers to your top Search questions
You’ve created and published a fabulous listing and now your friends and family want to check it out. How do they find it? And among all the listings out there, how does the Airbnb algorithm decide which ones to show a traveler searching in your area? As we hear questions from hosts, two basic categories of questions emerge: What affects a listing’s ranking, and how can I find my listing online? So we took your most asked questions to the Airbnb Search team and have gathered the answers for you. Let’s dive in.
1. On search ranking, and how to improve yours:
What factors affect my listing’s placement in search results?
That’s a great question. We have an algorithm that looks at over 100 signals to decide how to order listings in search results. Most of those signals have to do with things that guests care about, like positive reviews and great photos. If you think guests might care about it, it probably factors into your ranking! The reason is this: you’re most likely to get a booking request (or be instantly booked) if a traveler finds the type of place they’re looking for right away. We get a lot of information from the traveler about what they want for then show them listings that match their needs most closely.
Not every signal is weighed equally, and you don’t need to have a perfect listing or an unbeatable location for your listing to rank well. But there are some really influential signals that make a difference. Some of those include: how often guests click on your listing in search results, how often guests attempt to contact you from your listing page, how many booking requests you accept, if you use Instant Book, and how competitive your listing price is.
Why are listings with Instant Book prioritised ahead of other listings in the search results?
The main goal of the search algorithm is to facilitate bookings. And if a guest has an excellent experience booking and traveling on Airbnb they’re highly likely to use Airbnb again in the future. This helps travelers and hosts alike. We’ve seen for many years that—all other things being equal—travelers prefer to use Instant Book because they can book quickly, skip the wait time for hosts to respond, and avoid possibly being rejected. Because of the high booking success for hosts and guests, Instant Book gives your listing a boost in searches.
That said, many of you have amazing listings and use a Request to Book approach to hosting. It’s important that you know Instant Book is only one of more than a hundred factors in your listing search ranking. You can absolutely rank really well in searches without being an Instant Book host.
If I’m a Superhost, will my listing get a boost in search results?
How can I improve my listing ranking in search results? Are there any settings I can adopt to help my ranking?
The best way to immediately improve performance in Search is to enable Instant Book. Our research shows that guests prefer the booking experience that Instant Book provides. Even when they don’t filter for Instant Book listings, they often choose them over others because booking a place to stay quickly means they can get on with planning the rest of their trip. Other ways to quickly boost your ranking:
Is it true that if guests add my listing to their wishlists, my listing will get a little boost in the search results?
Is it true that editing and tweaking my listing every day will help boost my listing in Search?
Can I pay to advertise my listing so it appears on more search results?
Why am I on the last page on search? This way no one will ever book my listing?
If I have to decline a booking because a guest doesn’t meet my House Rules, does this impact my search ranking?
Because being rejected for a booking is one of the worst experiences for our guests, we do factor this into Search Ranking. However, we understand that sometimes you legitimately need to decline a traveler, and we take that into account. We’re most interested in how you compare to other hosts, rather than just counting your rejections.
A single rejection will not significantly hurt your ranking, but over time, rejecting more guests than other hosts in your market will lower your ranking. We find that a large majority of our hosts are able to accept most booking requests, and our best Request-to-Book hosts accept almost all of them. You can help travelers know if they should try to book your space by writing clear, detailed House Rules and keeping your calendar up to date. Make sure your settings and amenities lists also set accurate expectations.
2. On finding your listing online
I just created my listing and it appears as published on my profile, but when I search for it I can't find it. If other people search for it, they can't find it either. Why is that?
I haven't received a new booking in awhile, so I searched for my listing and asked a friend to search for it too. Neither of us could find it, and it’s not showing up even when I add specific details and filters. What can I do?
If your listing is in a popular market with numerous listings, it may be necessary to apply several filters to show your listing. Don’t worry, this is how travelers search and they’ll be able to find your listing too! We recommend using dates on your search, and checking that they match your calendar availability and minimum nights settings.
A common reason Instant Book hosts (or their friends) may not see their listing is that they’ve chosen to require a guest have positive reviews in order to make a book their space. If you’ve chosen this requirement, it means your listing will show up as a Request to Book, not an Instant Book, listing for logged out users or new guests if the Instant Book filter is applied. This is because a logged out or new traveler will not be eligible to instantly book your place.
I can’t find my listing. Does it make a difference if I’m logged in or logged out?
I can see the listing appearing on the map in the Airbnb app, but when I go to view the same listing (with the same filters) in the desktop version, it isn't appearing. Why is this?
I have Instant Book activated, but my listing doesn't come up in the results. Isn't Instant Book supposed to boost my listing on search results?
I can’t find my listing when I search for its title. Why doesn’t Airbnb have keyword search? Will it be implemented in the future?
The most important thing is this: you’re a unique host who offers a one-of-a-kind experience, because you’re you and your space isn’t like any other. We hope these tips and answers help you understand the sometimes complicated nature of matching unique travelers with hosts. Focus on what you do best, play up your strengths, and don’t worry about showing up first in search.
--------------------
Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.
Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.
sometimes I get booking enquiries asking for alternative dates that are actually already booked so I may decline the request and I have just read that this can negatively impact on where my listing places in search results, surely this isn't right....
What is a level next to hosts name??
What does it mean??
Yes, indeed. What is level 1 and who is on level 10? Probably you have to dream to get to level 10 and stay slush in front of your guests.
Basically, every level is a certain number of post to the community forums... I THINK it is every 10 posts you go up one level, but don't quote me on that.
...and "stay slush"? (I googled it but didn't find it in the urban dictionary.. heh!
Jann
Ha, ha... I considered a level is something related to the quality of my services. And "slush" is a Ty Boo Buddy Slush Dog . It's a sweet toy. You can find it in Amazon.
But you are right. OK, we need to understand the Airbnb
Jann, please , don't ...
But I adore the fact you take me seriously . At least we both finally know what a"level" is. I really had no idea.
@Jennifer679, you can refuse such a request on the website, with the option that you refuse for wrong dates.
If it's only an information request, yo can always pre-approuve for the false dates and write that the real dates are not free.
When you do that, you are asked, if the pre-approuval should block your calender or not block it. Click on Not
Hi, I have requested a $500 security deposit. How does this work and where is the money held?
EASY: It's NOT!
A security deposit is a threat...that's all. It's almost impossible to claim any of that deposit should anything happen.
Raise your room rate to get the "deposit" over time, put it in an account where you'll use it if you need it. That's what I did...
Also, that's known as hi-jacking a thread. This question should've been posted in it's own thread...better yet, search for "security deposit" from the top of the page ("Search the Community") will come up with the answer...
hmmm
--------------------
Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.
Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.
As you can see here, the majority of hosts here are unhappy with how Instant Book affects search results - not necessarily because it brings your listing up higher (which - as some have said here - is not fair when hosts that DON'T use it STILL respond w/in an hour or less) - but mostly beause it is often AUTOMATICALLY enabled for guests. Speed of host response - especially when hosts have 4.8 or above rating - should be taken into account.
I would be much less unhappy with AirBnB - as a whole - if they didn't enable Instant Book as a default on so many searches...
Jann
Thanks for your response @Jann3, it is really nice to speak with you. I hope your new life as an Airbnb host is going well 🙂
Instant Book is certainly a feature that hosts feel very strongly about, in both ways and I am really pleased that you and the rest of the community are sharing your thoughts on this (not just in this thread, but elsewhere on the CC). I want to make sure our voices and opinions on how Airbnb products and how features work are heard within the team and I am happy to say this is exactly what is happening.
In general though, my aim in sharing this information here is so we can make sure top unanswered questions are answered by the team working on it and hopefully clear up any confusion points, plus in general so we can learn more about the features we talk about so regularly here in the CC. We can also then have a good discussion about it all and potentially suggest ideas to improve, which could then benefit the whole community!
I thank you again for your comments Jann, your feedback is really helpful and I will certainly pass it back to the team. I am sorry to hear you are unhappy with how IB works with search results, but hopefully you feel a little more informed now.
I wonder, based on you specific comment, aside from disabling this completely do you think there are any other ways this could be perhaps improved?
Thanks for your time.
Lizzie
--------------------
Thank you for the last 7 years, find out more in my Personal Update.
Looking to contact our Support Team, for details...take a look at the Community Help Guides.
@Lizzie, I hope your holiday was great!
To answer your question: my life as a host was going great the first month due to the "placement push" new hosts get in search results... (no one can deny this: the "stats" page proves it; more displays by FAR than the next month or this month.) I would agree with others that bookings are seasonal, however high season here is Oct & Nov...and (before the fire here) that's when bookings stalled.
You asked how you could improve Search/IB; the #1 way is to tier how search results are affect by response times. You guys keep reminding us of the 24-hour window. Pushes are done to the device, emails are sent and "threats" are made if hosts don't respond...The 24-hour response windows for Reservation Requests are fine, but when I (or ANYone) responds anywhere from 5 minutes to 30 minutes (on average) I believe penalizing hosts with lower result placement is misguided. The quicker the response time for reservations, the higher we should get in search results (above other hosts that have slower response times.) That one is a no-brainer.
As for Instant Book; I understand why AirBnB wants Instant Book. Far more fees are charged over-and-above other booking styles. Let's not mince words; AirBnB keeps fees of those guests OR hosts that EITHER don't use Instant Book correctly or those hosts that cancel too many bookings via Instant Book or Res. Req.'s. They add penalty fees to hosts that don't understand they turned it on or didn't know how it worked. Instant Book also is a quick "no thought" booking method so many of the people that want to cancel later (depending on cancellation policy) do not get their fees back...So, that equals more money. A quicker booking is a "less thought about future ramifications" booking.
However, there are other ways to make money from your users that doesn't tick off both sides. I also find it upsetting that so many extra "how good is this guest" features (IB hosts only seeing guest ratings, for instance) are given to people that turn on IB when you don't take those bonuses away for hosts that cancel IB guests often. AirBnB actually SAYS "if you are uncomfortable w/a guest, you can cancel penatly free." If AirBnB doesn't think EVERY SINGLE HOST is gonna use that reason, they're crazy, so - then WHY have host penalties at ALL?
That is just my two cent's worth (2 p's worth? heh)
Jann