The Insaneness Continues...

[Tim-and-Holly0]

Airbnb is now apparently testing sorting guest reviews showing on the listing page by length of review. The longest review is first, second longest is second, etc. It used to be that the last guest to stay who wrote a review was first. 

Here's the problem with that. Guests who write bad reviews tend to be more wordy, thus their review will remain at the top for an indefinite period of time.  A bad review cannot be "buried" over time and when a host recieves a false review that Airbnb refuses to remove, guess what, that review may continue to kill your business for a long time.

Again, something that never needed to be changed is changed and ultimately hurts hosts.

[Susan151]

@Tim-and-Holly0  In Eastern USA, review sort order is the same as always. No changes by length.

[Tim-and-Holly0]

@Susan151:
Not everyone can see the trial. When my wife pulled it up on her computer she sees the original order of latest review first.

[Wendy117]

I know Airbnb trial changes in different locations, but after reading your post I quickly went to check that my  longest review in my budget accommodation from March 2017 - my only 3 star review,  had only resurfaced on page 2 not page 1. No point in trying to understand why Airbnb thinks it is important that my one 3 star review out of 121 reviews is important to guests - thank goodness it only shows on the one listing.

I have noticed some other changes since the last time I looked but not sure how long ago they were made.  Some (not all) reviews have a complimentary sentence bolded - I wonder how they do that, it must be manual intervention.

And the order, well I have never neen able to work that out, it still shows reviews in a foreign language at the end but the rest defies logic, eg this month 3 pages back and older ones in front. I stopped stressing long ago about the unfairness of how they present our reviews and am just really happy that none of the other listing platforms do this.

[Tim-and-Holly0]

@Wendy117:

Bolding was reported in this forum last week. Can't remember who it was, but here's the sentence they decided to bold out of the bad review, "Don't expect a neighborhood that you'll feel safe in."  This, of course, is the very first thing people who are in the trial see when they look at my reviews and this statement is a complete lie.

[Beth80]

I thought I'd better check my listings also. 

Not sure what the order of reviews is but not longest nor most recent. No rhyme or reason. 

[Tim-and-Holly0]

@Beth80:
They must be trying several different ideas-- A-B-C testing and not just A-B testing. Thanks for the update.

[Beth80]

@Tim-and-Holly0  Lucky you! 😢

[Tim-and-Holly0]

@Beth80:
Thanks? Maybe?

Fortunately not everyone is seeing it. We just had a family book with a child so they apparently did not see that they could get "murdered" in our home. Just can't understand, like so many other hosts, why Airbnb seems to be trying to hurt the hosts who make them money.

[Carmen-and-Ben0]

The review system from Airbnb is terrible and unfair to the host. 

For example, we had a guest do an INSTANT BOOKING for the same day. 

It was a local guest.

One night and one guest.

We asked him to confirm the number on his party and he stated it was him and his girlfriend.  

We asked him to update  5e reservation to show TWO guests. He complied. 

He arrived and upon meeting me, he had a bad attitude and cursed out loud when he could not follow the instructions to enter. 

Our keyless entry and check-in always gets 5 stars by all guests. Except this one. 

Before he reached the unit, I ejected him from the property and refunded his money. 

Airbnb allowed this guest to give me a review. So the tally for me is:

-$0 dollar earned,

-aggravation by a guest who could not follow simple instructions

- a 1 star review.

Totally unfair because the guest is reviewing a unit which he never set foot in and Airbnb has 5e ability to prevent this but won’t. 

So so my advice to all host, if you must cancel a reservation because someone makes you uncomfortable, do not give a refund. Keep the money and just grin and bear the bad review. 

[Gloria474]

The review system is aweful.  The longest review now comes up on top.  Guests are allowed to lie about the owners place and Airbnb will let them. This should not be allowed.  

[Tim-and-Holly0]

So here's an update two weeks after my original post. After I complained about the new ordering on one listing that placed the longest recent review first, followed by the second longest to shortest Airbnb changed my listing back to most recent reviews first. However, when I now look at my listing fro a different browser that I am not signed in on I get the random order reviews. The first review is from 2017 the next is 2018 and so on. Please, would someone tell me what a review that is two years old has to do with at all with a place today??? Quite frankly -- NOTHING. Since 2017 we've added a whole lot of stuff, replaced furniture, done a nearly complete remodel, spent a couple thousand dollars on landscaping, etc. etc. etc.

If a guest is to get a true picture of a listing then they need to see how the home is being operated TODAY, not two years ago. Who at Airbnb would think showing guests reviews from two years ago is a good idea?

Who at Airbnb would think that it would be helpful to either a guest or a host for the first review to be two years ago, then next review a year ago, the next review six months ago? This just makes it look like we only rent the home every few months.

See why I named the post The Insaness Continues? Now don't get me wrong. I do support Airbnb. We usually get along very well and 99% of the time I get great customer service. But someone in the web department has a very large screw loose in their head and they need to be replaced.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Tim-and-Holly0 

I know Ben (Airbnb host and programmer) my friend (web developer) and I (host and ex web  designer) could make this website perfect. I have no idea how many people work on it right now but they are probably paid for every change they make and it doesn't metter if the change is good or bad. As a result, we have a user-unfriendly platform full of glitches.

A few weeks ago I posted 18 clicks - steps needed to add just one rule set. Since then it becomes even worse as now you can't add a rule for days with different prices . It's a nightmare.

When I start hosting 3 years ago this website was perfect. In the meantime, Airbnb did make a few improvements but also messed up 100 of it.

[Tim-and-Holly0]

@Branka-and-Silvia0:
According to the book, "The Airbnb Story" published in 2017, there are over 400 web developers worldwide working on the website. I have 15 years in web development and nearly 30 years in marketing so I get frustrated when a huge, billion dollar corporation makes such infantile mistakes that hurt millions of hosts like you and me who earn their living from this platform. As I said before, I support Airbnb, but they have people making top-level decisions who have obviously never hosted a home or room.

How hard could it be to create a focus group of hosts to run these ideas past before they implement them? They could pick 5 of us from this forum and have some great representatives. I'd be happy to sign a non-disclosure and provide feedback.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Tim-and-Holly0 

"...over 400 web developers worldwide working on the website." 

hahaha I thought so 😄  No wonder it is such a mess! No one knows who drinks and who pays 😄