Are the AirBNB Category Bots doing a good job?

[Stephanie365]

So far, I'm not impressed.

I live on an actual farm in an actual farm house with horses on my property. All disclosed in my listing. My neighbors on all sides also have horses. Well, except Everett. He has cows. Suffice to say I'm on a farm.

The Category Bots don't agree. When I look up farms listings in my area, my home isn't selected.

I then decided to see what the category bots DID select to be farm property in this area. There are a few listings they got right.  But they also got several listings quite wrong. To me, if the host's property itself is not a farm, it shouldn't be in the farm category.

Our first example of an epic bot fail is this property.  It's in a suburban neighborhood. But there is a farm nearby which is only mentioned once in the listing and it's well buried.  So the bots added them to the farm category. <face palm>

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/13721300?adults=1&category_tag=Tag%3A8175&children=0&infants=0&search_m...

Our next contestant is a log cabin with views of fields. The property was a former farm but is no longer. The main house is an old farm house though, but that's not where the AirBNB rental is located.  It does have view of other farms, but that's about it.  

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/47952221?adults=1&category_tag=Tag%3A8175&children=0&infants=0&search_m...

Our third contestant is a cottage in the woods. No where in the listing is the word "farm". Nothing in the photos shows anything to do with a farm. But it's in the farm category.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/47952221?adults=1&category_tag=Tag%3A8175&children=0&infants=0&search_m...

Tell me again why Chesky thinks the dumbbots will do a better job than the people who actually own the properties when it comes to deciding the categories?

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Stephanie365 In my opinion the bots have no chance. Many listings show local beaches, mountains, etc without any of these being visible from the property. Equally people talk about beaches etc even if they are some distance away>

Unless they open up categories for hosts to tick (at their risk if they choose wrongly) this will not end well I am afraid.

[Ted307]

@Stephanie365 

I asked our latest guests (who checked in today) how they happened to find our listing. They put in the exact dates they were interested in coming to Prescott. We were first in the list, according to the guests. No categories were involved. So, it is reassuring that we are still findable in the search as it has always been in the past. I am still updating our photos and prices to see if it helps! Our bookings seem to have slowed, we were vacant last weekend for the first time in months.

Chris

[Emiel1]

@Stephanie365 

Nice investigation. It shows that Airbnb AI fails.

Please note listing URL's are just like this (yours):

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/20092225

Your listing is not assigned to any category.

Maybe some day Airbnb AI (learning curve...) will recognize it as a farm.

[Stephanie365]

@Emiel1 for whatever reason, I could not get the short URL links to come up when I was checking things out. Maybe it was because I was doing a category search vs a regular one? I dunno.

And thank you for checking to see if I was in any categories for me. 🙂

[Susan990]

Thank you @Stephanie365  for your insightful and researched study of the bots issue and what it has done to the ABB platform.  Hopefully what ever drove the CEO's  to do this to the company will be discovered and exposed  and removed soon. The very core idea from the origin story of ABB seems to have been abandoned. Feels like Hal has taken over the ship because the mission is too important for humans to  handle ala 2001 a  Space Odyssey.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Stephanie365  I did a quick search myself and found a listing in the "Amazing pools" category.  It is an ordinary city center apartment, without a pool in amenities but it has a picture of the public swimming pool at the nearby recreation center.  😄 😄 😄

Obviously, it is easy to sabotage AI with pictures of local attractions such as castles, pools, beaches, forests, lakes... 

[Lorna170]

@Branka-and-Silvia0  @Stephanie365  

Adding a Cinderella castle to my listing today.  It will compliment my waterfall and rustic cabin.

[Marg11]

It took Airbnb humans a few years ago to separate our flat in Warwick, Western Australia from stays in Warwick, Queensland but I had to get a bit cross after several guests tied to book us for an event in Queensland. Only by quoting the distances between the two Warwicks, flying time, time differences and a map were we switched to appear with other Perth, WA Airbnbs. Wonder what the Bots would have done?