Airbnb review sorting is discriminatory - STILL AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

[Dave52]

Shocking but true, after all these years Airbnb still discriminates in the way it sorts reviews (as displayed to other guests).

Airbnb decides guests will care only about opinions of other guests from their same country.

Effectively builds digital walls based on country.

It's as if you went into a room and were put with people from your same country to share experiences. 

Who does this?  Airbnb does this.

This is wrong, and discriminatory.  We as hosts serve a GLOBAL community and the most recent reviews should go on top not be devalued because somebody lives somewhere else.  Period.

Hosts have raised this issue for years and Airbnb said they would fix it, but apparently never did.

In 2022 how can such things still be practiced by Airbnb.  We as hosts do not discriminate.  Why does airbnb?

[Pat271]

I don’t know…sorting by the sensibilities of the culture most likely to book doesn’t seem discriminatory to me. With your properties in the U.S., would you like to see the following reviews first?

”Nice place, but could not leave 5 stars because there was no bidet in sight!”

”Host got angry with me because I didn’t use the shower curtain, and bathroom walls got wet.”

”No Shaoxing wine or oyster sauce! How am I supposed to cook?!”

There is a difference between being discriminatory and recognizing that different cultures will have different perspectives. Airbnb are sorting the reviews based on the culture most likely to use their services. This is no different than showing retirement and drug commercials during working hours, or showing toy commercials during kiddie cartoons. 

[Dave52]

@Pat271

Disagree.  Let me give you a real world example.  I have an apartment in Paris, used to rent it short term only (many US guests).  NOW long term rental only due to changes in the Paris market.  Mostly caters to students coming from all over the world.  Most recent guest, a couple students stayed August-Dec 2021, posted review.  Very relevant review to any prospective guest NOW.  

They happen to live in the UK. OK.

Problem.  When anybody views the listing from US (or a long list of many other countries) they won't see this review AT ALL.  They see a bunch of old reviews when it was STR from 2020 2019 ever older.  MOST RECENT review is buried way down literally many pages below reviews from 2016!  

So, THE most relevant review for the apartment is buried where few see it.  Not good.  Discrimination like this is never a good idea and this is why.

PS- my US listings serve guests from many many different cultures, some now live in the US, some come from other countries.  As airbnb host, it would never occur to me that a review's relevance would or should be based on their culture or national origin or the country where they live. Because this is discrimination.

[Pat271]

You would feel differently about this if all your best reviews came from the country of origin.

We could argue all day the semantics of whether this is discriminatory or not, but I do agree with you that recency of a review should carry significant weight.

Another possible reason for the sorting might be translation. If the majority of guests book in their home country, I could see them skipping right past listings in which the first few reviews are in another language.

[Dave52]

@Pat271 

Country has the highest rank in airbnb's discriminatory algorithm..  This is what I see with my listings.  This is wrong.  

As a host who serves guests from all over the world and many different cultures, of course I would prefer most recent reviews to show on top because I'm constantly making improvements  to improve guest experience. But that's not the point.  A stay in 2022 is way more relevant than a stay in 2016 regardless dont you agree?  It's better for the prospective guest, the host, and airbnb to see most recent reviews first.  But it doesn't work this way!  Their algorithm strikes me as some legacy thing that needs to be updated to modern day travel.

[Helen744]

@Dave52 Hey Dave , I have noticed this strange shuffling,some of my best reviews are my most recent and include a few  from overseas which I expect to show up but dont .It makes zero sense and is relatively new but as you say ,"Who is looking thru 60 reviews to find two from Overseas" .I was hoping these reviews would work for me but now they have all become kinda irrelevant because the reviews before the big covid gap are popping up and few people relate to them .Just mad . H.Someone is making bad decisions  for no benefit  and chances of that one ugly review disappearing become less, as for sorting them by country ,that is just outrageous .H.

[Dave52]

@Helen744 A few years ago BC  we made some headway with an airbnb product manager about this.  They totally agreed and were working to fix it.  Covid hit and they were "laid off" with the others. It was not fixed. Now it's an even bigger deal as many listings have had gaps in rentals or switched from STR to LTR or vice versa during covid time.  It's an insane sorting algorithm.  Many prospective guests are confused and why wouldn't they be, they dont see your recent reviews.  Most guests don't say anything and you'll never know why they didnt book.

[Ann72]

@Dave52  This practice hurts hosts.  When looking at a hotel room, a restaurant, or an Airbnb, I am chiefly interested in how recent the reviews are.  If the reviews are sorted by so-called relevance instead of date, and the first appear to be old, I will either toggle to see reviews sorted by date or move on until I find something with fresher reviews.  I have zero interest in where reviewers came from.  They all came to the same place and chose to report on what they found there. 

I don't need Airbnb nannying me and dumbing down the info for me - but they must imagine that many people do.

[Dave52]

@Ann72 Agree.  Hurts hosts, hurts guests, hurts airbnb.  And it's just dumb.  Anyway discrimination is dumb and this is a perfect example.  They have failed to give any good reason why they do it this way.  Conclude its legacy and some coder at airbnb is too proud of their algorithm to give it up.

FYI had a chat with airbnb CS "buffers" today about this and got the usual bot replies.  They agreed having the most recent reviews buried is not a good idea, they agreed "off the record" it's discrimination, but could do nothing about it.  "Engineers coded it that way"

[Sarah977]

@Dave52  You do know that reviews appear in chronological  order on your profile, right?  You could put some wording in your listing for guests to click on your profile to see the most recent reviews, as the ones in the listing themselves aren't sorted by date.

[Dave52]

@Sarah977  yep I know but don't see how this helps.  More confusing. The guest will see all reviews from all my listings in one long list and it doesnt say the listing either.  A recent review will get buried very quickly.  

The guest doesn't care about other places when they just want to stay at one.  Am I missing something?

[Sarah977]

@Dave52  No, you're not missing anything, but generally speaking, while you have more than one property, a host's reviews usually reflect pretty accurately  the type of host you are- i.e. it's not likely that one of your listings would have reviews saying the host was great, easy to communicate with, quickly reponsive to aany issues, and another property would say the contrary. 

They used to have the name of the listing a review was for at the heading of each review on your profile page, but I noticed they no longer do that. That was really stupid thing to eliminate, I can't imagine why they changed that.

[Lawrene0]

Agree, @Dave52 . When a guest not from Canada looks at my listing, they see pre-pandemic reviews -- back when I greeted guests and served breakfast. Now I have self-check-in and leave them packaged oatmeal. That is, of course, in the listing, but the reviews they see on top say they get waffles. The recent reviews are buried for them.

When I'm looking for a place to stay elsewhere, I see the Canadian reviews first. I want to see the recent reviews. I don't care what other Canadians thought once upon a time.

Ugh. 

It makes no sense.

[Dave52]

@Lawrene0  and to add to yours, what's worse, how many guests even know about this insane algorithm.  They assume newer reviews go on top.  I never knew for years until one day a prospective guest from Brazil wanted to book but asked me why I had no reviews for over 6 months (I did have many).  So I did some research and discovered airbnb's insane sort algorithm.  I explained to scroll down the page for newer reviews, they asked why I list them this way, I said I don't, airbnb does!  I don't think like that and neither does the guest.  They couldn't believe it.