Reasons to leave this platform! Outside country reviews buried!

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Ugh! It's happened again.  A guest moves to the US from another country and books a stay but the address is not yet updated to being a US address.  Guest leaves a stellar review that places our rental at the top of most desirable places to stay.  Airbnb's system buries the review lower down where it is not seen by potential US guests seeking a future stay.  Meanwhile guests from outside the country see the review at the top of the list of most current reviews.  Calls in to customer services is a waste of time because they are logging in outside the US and are seeing the "outside of US reviews" at the top.  Told they will pass along the information to a US representative who would be able to see the problem but they can't guarantee it will be a US customer service rep seeing/responding to the issue.  All the while US guests are seeing gaps in bookings/reviews because of this issue.  When we are receiving messages from Airbnb that most guests bookings are within 350 miles from our rental it is detrimental that all bookings/reviews are posting in the order of their bookings.  Airbnb lists reviews for guests regardless of where they live or book in recent order.  There is no excuse for them not to do the same for US hosts!  This is just another thing that outrages me about Airbnb host inequities and blind eye on how their practices affect our bottom lines! THEY ARE CLUELESS because they continue to get money from us and don't see our priorities as their priorities.  Sad mistake.

We are building our business up locally and look forward to the day, hopefully sooner rather than later, that we can leave their platform.

Until then we hope Airbnb will take this issue seriously and remedy the situation for all hosts.

Mandrake & Karen

This is why your reviews aren't showing up at the top.  They are made by guest who are searching for a rental who live outside the country where your rental is or their address may not be current and reflects an out of country address that Airbnb is responding to.

[Sarah977]

@Mandrake-And-Karen0  It would make much more sense to have reviews in chronological order, but I fail to see what you are so upset about. 

You have fantastic reviews and really high ratings, and I don't see any review near the top that would damage your bookings that you'd need a better review to balance out- quite the opposite.

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Not trying to legitimize our experiences for your approval, Sarah.

[Elaine701]

@Mandrake-And-Karen0 

I have to agree with Sarah.

Wait until your place is trashed and Airbnb just shrugs shoulders, and lets the guest get off with impunity, and then guest writes a scathing, lie filled, vindictive review of your lovely place. THEN you'll be furious enough to want to cancel your listing on Airbnb. 

But I can assure you, just jumping to another platform won't solve it. They're equally disinterested. Really. 

Nature of the beast. Doesn't make it right, but it's how it is. Watch your back! 

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

Wasn't considering jumping to yet another platform.  Just quitting Airbnb when we no longer need their platform to rent our apartment.

[Dave52]

@Mandrake-And-Karen0  As you've noticed airbnb uses a bizarre algorithm to sort reviews, the reviewer's profile country, language, (number of words in the review is apparently a factor), and matched against the profile of who is reading your reviews.  Nobody in CS can change it.  It is coded into the system and been like this for years. 

I had a listing with a broad international clientele and ran into this all the time.

It would make too much sense to sort reviews simply by putting the newest ones on top.   Let's say you do a major improvement to your place?  Fix a plumbing leak?  Add a new 4K TV or streaming options?  New furniture?  Wonderful plants in the yard?  Of course you would like to be rewarded by having the newest reviews on top saying great things about your new stuff.  Prospective guests will get the most accurate idea of the *current* state of your place.  But alas it's up to the algorithm to decide.

My advice, don't sweat it or you'll go mad trying.  Hopefully everything will all work out in the end.

[Anonymous]

@Dave52  The review sorting mechanism is far less sophisticated than you think. It's solely determined by the country domain that the reviewer is accessing Airbnb from. That might not necessarily correspond with their native language or place of residence, so if you host a lot of international guests it can look more random than it actually is.

@Mandrake-And-Karen0  I can see how that looks weird to you, but it's not an evil conspiracy to hide your reviews or impede your success.

[Dave52]

@Anonymous  Actually Airbnb sent me a list of things used by the sort or lets call it the mis-sort algorithm.  It was 4 things.  Country, language, length of the review, and then finally least important the date of the stay (which should be most important). 

Someone from Brazil was looking at my place and ready to book, but they were concerned why I didn't have any reviews from the last 3 months.  Had plenty, but they were all buried in their view because nobody from Brazil had stayed for over 3 months!  Not to mention all the most recent reviews were 5-star due to some improvements I had done at the place....but buried.  

Frankly I was not even aware this was happening before they brought it up, because I did not see the reviews in the same order as they were seeing. 

I pointed out to the Airbnb case manager and they agreed 100%, who takes the time to scroll down past the first page of reviews?  But not being a coder, they had no ability to change it.

Bottom line, the sorting algorithm is dumb, almost everybody writes their reviews in English and anyway there's this thing called google translate, and who cares what country they are from??  Or what's in the profile.

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

@Dave52 Glad I shared my experience of what was happening so that others could learn who were not aware.  Yes, the sorting doesn't make sense at all and Airbnb should change it.

[Dave52]

@Mandrake-And-Karen0  Agreed but don't count on it being changed.  They might have some "business" reason for doing it this way.  Maybe they think people value most the reviews written by other people from their own country.  I don't agree its a major factor but they might think so. 

Yet as you say people move and don't update their profiles.

Or some over-enthusiastic coder set it up this way years ago and is so proud of their algorithm refuses to change it. 

I think its the latter.

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

@Anonymous, didn't think it was a conspiracy, just poor thought out planning and continuing process that is not equal for guests and hosts.

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

@Dave52 Thanks, I appreciate your sharing information and your experiences.  It all works out in the end.

Nice to talk to someone who has also had the experience with the sorting of reviews.  Building our business over time and exploring options of doing direct bookings down the road.

[Sarah977]

What there should be is an option for the guest to sort reviews by most recent or by region or language.

While it's a problem when some old review shows first, commenting that the mattress has a low spot, when the host replaced that mattress long ago, I can also understand the reasoning behind grouping them by region. Most of my reviews are in English, but I've had a couple in Spanish as well, from Mexican guests. Other Mexican or Spanish-speaking guests might like reading the reviews in Spanish first.

[Elaine701]

@Sarah977 

I agree. Being European, we get reviews in lots of languages, and even encourage guests to write in their native tongue. 

The review listing algorithm clearly favours the language, I'm not sure if it's the nationality. For example, on English (Airbnb.com), the English reviews show up first, and the most positive ones seem to get the first slots, followed by other languages. 

On the German site (Airbnb.de), the German language reviews show up first. That also includes Austrian or Swiss guest reviews in German. 

On Airbnb.es, the Spanish reviews show up first, whether the guest is from Spain or Mexico or Chile. Same with Airbnb.fr (French first). 

But even then, the visitor to any of these sites can simply press a button and translate the reviews to their language. Well, if they even bother to look past the first two or three in their language. And most Europeans possess a pretty good understanding of English as well as other European languages, so it's more about comfort than comprehension. 

In our case, it's a net positive, and that may help explain why I see this as a bit of a tempest in a teapot. Especially considering the number of truly outrageous things that continue to happen. 

[Mandrake-And-Karen0]

@Elaine701, I was unaware of the language element in sorting as well.  Thanks for bring this to my attention.