How do review ratings work!

[Robin4]

@Ute42 gave a detailed explanation a few years ago of how the review rating system operates. If I remember, her post was called 'Guantanamo'

I do respect her post and her diligent work that went into it but, for me her stats don't seem to add up.

My last 48 reviews have been overall 5 stars! My current overall rating is 4.92, exactly the same as it was 48 reviews ago!

If I have, heaven forbid, one 3 star review I will drop to a 4.90 overall rating....why is it that 48 5 star reviews will not lift me to a higher overall rating but, one 3 star will drop me to a lower rating?

Why is the system so geared to penalise what we as hosts do! Surely if one rating takes you down, the next positive rating should take you up.....isn't that logical?  

Cheers........Rob

[Emilia42]

It is nothing against us hosts @Robin4. We'll have to go back in time and ask who discovered the concept of arithmetic mean exactly why they did it.

You have 415 reviews. Do you remember how many of those are 4 stars and how many are 3 stars? I can do a little calculating in Excel . . . 

[Robin4]

@Emilia42 

Em, of my 415 Airbnb reviews, 388 have been 5 star,  28 have been 4 star, and 2 have been 3 star!

I have never had less than a 3 star review!

Can you see why I am proud of what I have done, and want to do anything I can to protect that!

Cheers.......Rob

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Robin4 A five star review has little effect because it is 0.08 above your current mean of 4.92. A 3 star review is 1.92 below your current mean so will have a bigger effect.

Basic maths is acceptable for me - What is not is the reality that revenge reviews are almost welcomed by Airbnb.

[Kia272]

@Robin4  There are actually review calculators on the web that you can find via Google. I don't have a specific one I use, but they are easy to find. Since the time I got a revenge review of all 1s across the board, I periodically use the calculator to see how many more 5 stars I need to go up a notch. 

I can't argue the merits of the AirBnB review system, but knowing where you're at definitely helps. 

Kia

[Deb3312]

That seems logical. But I do know that one bad review will leave you behind for a long time! It doesn't work that way for ( the way you described). I think Airbnb likes to keep hosts chasing good reviews.... So we as hosts get beat up by the slightest negative review.   I had one guest give me a low rating because she didn't like the location.... C'mon! I can't help that I'm a hour from a major city! If you want to be in the city book something in the city. I do know that Airbnb likes to keep you scared of negative reviews tho. 

[Ann72]

I hate the location rating, @Deb3312.  I always want to say to the guest, "YOU chose the location!"

The balancing factor to hosts being scared of negative reviews is that guests are scared, too.  Maybe not as many of them are scared, and maybe they aren't as scared, but I've found that the majority want to get a good review and are upset if they don't.

[John5097]

@Robin4 

If I first recall @Emilia42 posted this formula about 6 months back. You probably found another calculator that makes it easier.

But it shows that Airbnb uses straight math, which appears to put long time host at disadvantage. 

388 x 5 = 1940 

28 x 4 = 112

2 x 3 = 6 

388+28+2= 418 

1940 + 112 + 6 = 2058 

2058/418 = 4.92344

I believe it takes 100 5* reviews to negate a single 4* review. 

So yes, a 3 star review could drag it down. After roughly 400 reviews it could be 4.91, depending on how close to the round up/down number. 

So roughly it could take 100 5* reviews to see a change depending on how close the round up point. 

It appears host would continue a slow spiral downward, even with just a handful of 4* and rare 3* review each year. So the longer you host the more disadvantage. 

[Emilia42]

@John5097 It is true that it is a downward spiral because a 5 is the highest value you can go. So anything less than a 5 pulls down the average. That is a given. But as more 5's are accumulated the lower values will have less of an impact. For example, because you have so many (100+) 5 star reviews, a single 4 will only drop your average to 4.99. (That is still amazing!) Whereas if you have only 10 reviews a 4 star would bring the average to 4.80. 

[John5097]

@Emilia42 In 5-7 years if I have a 4.92 that means my B&B would be a success. Anytime I read reviews of a listing with a 4.7 there isn’t a single bad review and booked. The most important part of the review is the comments and if they are real. 

[Robin4]

@Emilia42  @John5097 

Back in the days where Airbnb used to look after their hosts and nurture them, as part of the stats page we used to have a ratings section which kept track of previous guests star ratings....not just overall but, for each category.......

All you had to do was click on each category and an analysis of your guest reviews would be displayed.

It was one of those nice helpful things that made Airbnb a joy to use.

But the interesting thing though, if you had 50 consecutive 5 star ratings in a particular category your star rating for that category would reset to 5 stars.

Of course helpful information like this is no longer available to us, it has been replaced with stupid promotional nonsense like this which is solely designed to make us lose money while lining Airbnb's pockets......

But back in those days Emilia and John, it was possible to get back to a 5 star overall rating, a poor guest review didn't crucify you forever like it does now.

I do long for those days again, the platform supported us and made us feel important, we were actually patted on the back when we did something well, instead of being told what we are doing is never good enough for Airbnb!

Cheers.........Rob

[Emilia42]

@Robin4 Yeah, I didn't like that change when Airbnb decided to round to the nearest hundredth of a decimal point as opposed to the nearest tenth. At least the subcategories have remained the same.

[Colleen253]

"At least the subcategories have remained the same."

For now. It's yet one more thing they can change for the worse, so it's only a matter of time...

[John5097]

@Robin4 @Emilia42 @Colleen253 

Speaking of changes. After reading Robin's post, I also felt demoralized at the thought of my own Dashboard. 

I went to take a screen shot but noticed its a new dashboard that looks much better. Thank goodness the old one is gone! 

[Colleen253]

@John5097 I admit it’s nice that the endless lists of ‘you must do this’ and ‘you must add that’ hoohah, which always invoked a sense of shame and wondering goodness how do I even manage to get out of bed in the morning, because according to Airbnb I’m falling apart, is gone.

I still won’t be hanging out in my new dashboard though. Still quite useless, overall.