Chronological review order more important than ever

[Leanne99]

Hi,

I notice from numerous previous posts that the way reviews are sorted for listings has been a topic of consternation for hosts for quite sometime - years in fact.

I understand the reasoning given by AirBnB but do not think it valid and should be reconsidered and changed.

As a guest I want to see up-to-date reviews to show bookings are regular and standards are being maintained for that listing. I’m sometimes (probably unfairly) suspicious of a long break in bookings.

As a host, I’d like reviews of my listing  to appear in chronological order and reflect my most recent bookings and amenity offerings/ local conditions.
It’s more important to me now than ever before following a period of paused bookings due to COVID restrictions where I took on a tenant on a periodic lease agreement for 4 months.

Now that I’m back to AirBnB hosting, the excellent detailed review from my first guest, who is from my city originally but sometimes lives (and is registered for AirBnB) in Thailand,

has been placed way down my list towards the bottom of my 50 reviews where no one will see it.

This makes it seem like I haven’t hosted

for months and also means I miss out on people seeing an up-to-date appraisal of ammenities and cleaning etc. 
In a globalised world, the assumptions being made based on where a guest’s account is registered are ridiculous!  Language used seems to be a factor in the algorithm but in my case, almost all reviews are in English so assumptions are being made based on where the profile indicates the guest usually lives which is  arguably irrelevant.

Finally, given all the all the interruption and uncertainty at the moment due to COVID, it makes absolutely no  sense to present prospective guests with reviews from 2018 ahead of  those from 2020 - which is how mine seem to be appearing.

Please change this unhelpful and annoying policy AirBnB!!

Thanks,

Leanne

[Helen350]

@Leanne99 I agree! - Did you know that on your profile page, all reviews ARE in chronological order, most recent first? If I were a guest, I would go to the host's profile straight away to see the most recent reviews... (But guests new to Airbnb might not know this?!) 

[Leanne99]

Thanks @Helen350 - I have noticed that but not really connected that guests might specifically go there to check reviews.

I suspect not many would think to do that which is ok if your reviews are consistent I guess.
These kinds of work arounds wouldn’t be needed though if Airbnb didn’t prescribe the country-filtered  display mode. Maybe they could make this something hosts can choose in future if it’s of interest?

[Kath9]

@Leanne99100% agree. It makes absolutely no sense to have the most recent reviews way down the list. Like @Helen350 said, on your profile page, the review comes first, but on your listing, it is way down. Most guests when searching will not go to the profile page, they'll just look at the listing.

Airbnb, you've had a lot of feedback from hosts about this - please do something about it!

[Leanne99]

Thanks @Kath9 . It would be nice if this could be changed or if they provided a compelling reason as to why this is advantageous, maybe it would make more sense to me.

The assumption that people would rather see really old reviews just because the author has the same country listed as their residence baffles me. People from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds  can live anywhere.

[Colleen253]

@Leanne99 “The assumption that people would rather see really old reviews just because the author has the same country listed as their residence baffles me. People from all sorts of cultures and backgrounds can live anywhere”. Exactly.

Funny, Airbnb’s tag lines are ‘belong anywhere’ ‘live like a local’ ‘global community’, yet they insist on sorting reviews into their tidy little boxes for guests. 

But let’s face it, if something makes good sense, Airbnb is disinclined to go with it. 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Leanne99 I was looking at a review that mentioned a roof leak, the host says they have fixed it and then the next review down the list says the roof leaks. Its only when you look at the timing of the reviews that actually two guests complained about the leak and then it got fixed rather than how it appeared which was the host claiming it was fixed until another guest mentioned it.

Strangely listing reviews by the country of origin relative to the potential guests country must be quite clever programming (rather than simply putting them all in date order). I suspect this is a classic example of a programmer showing how clever they can be rather than actually giving the users a simple solution.

[Dave52]

@Leanne99 Agreed 100%.  Properties change over time, some get better, some get worse.  Reviews should be sorted from newest to oldest, so prospective guests get the most accurate idea of the *current* condition of the listing.  However as you say, airbnb discriminates based on language, country of origin, using some bizarre algorithm to sort reviews.  Had a long discussion with an airbnb case manager about this over a year ago, the case manager agreed but had no ability to change the discriminatory algorithm.  Apparently as you say, new reviews still get "buried" where no one can see them, simply because airbnb thinks the guest's review and opinion is less valuable because of their language or country of origin.  It's straight up discrimination.