My listing doesn't appear!

[Gordon58]

My place is in Glasgow, Scotland and recently I experienced a massive drop-off in bookings, inquiries for future bookings and views (according to the stats on the website – whether they are accurate or not is another issue).

I did a dummy run as a potential guest, putting in 'Glasgow' and 'any time' in the search field and couldn't find my place in 17 pages of listings for the city.

I realise it's a quiet time of year for visitors to Scotland but I'm a Superhost and expected to get a few viewings at least.

I checked on advice forums and made a couple of changes to my listing in the hope it would appear – it didn't.

So, I contacted customer service. They said there might be a problem with the way my address was listed with them (not sure why, it hasn't been a problem in the past). She said she would amend it and my place should appear on the listings in 24 hours.

A few days on, my place still isn't appearing when I do a dummy search.

I've complained in the feedback request following on from the customer service inquiry but I'm not convinced Airbnb will get it sorted as the customer service agent seemed a bit, well, clueless.

Anyone else experience a problem like this and, if so, any advice you can give?

I've been trying to email Airbnb about it but their email address seems to be impossible to find.

Thanks for reading and good luck to other Airbnb hosts.

Gordon

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Gordon58 I can see 1 of your listings under your profile so it is active. I made a search for a room in Glasgow and found it on the first page and on the map.

[Matthew285]

@Gordon58, I was also able to find your listing. I searched for "Kinning Park, Glasgow" and it showed 98 listings on the map. Yours was #29 of the 98 on the map.

I did this search in a new private browsing window, so there was no old account info to affect the search.

I am not sure why you are not able to find it. Have to made certain that the "Instant Book Only" filter is not turned on? For some people, that filter is turned on by default.

[Gordon58]

@Matthew285, Thanks for taking the time to send the message and for looking for my place on the site. That was very kind of you. Relieved to hear the listing there, although I'm actually not in Kinning Park, I'm in an area called Pollokshields! I was a bit puzzled why it came up as KP! In terms of the listings' visibility, maybe it depends on what device is being used to search? I looked for an “Instant Booking Only“ filter but couldn't find it. I have Instant Bookings switched on but wasn't aware there was an option to make that the only way to book.

Once again, thanks for your help.

Gordon

[Matthew285]

@Gordon58, yes of course you are correct; you are not in Kinning Park! I don't know your lovely city as well as you do, and I just looked for the biggest words on the map that weren't covered by price bubbles. Please accept my apologies for lumping your lovely listing in with the hoi polloi from Kinning Park. 😉

How AirBnB figures out what 300 listings to show is somewhat of a mystery. Hosts have spent a lot of time trying to figure out the magic formula that AirBnB uses to rank the listings and choose the top 300 to show. It matters a great deal what device your use, what filters you apply, what AirBnB account you are logged into when you search, where you are located, what language you speak (I am not even kidding here). It ALL matters to the AirBnB algorithm. That is why I often tell people that just because you rank high or low for one guest, that does not mean you will rank high or low for ALL guests.

I did a proper search for your listing in Pollokshields, and hooray! You rank even higher here when grouped with your proper compatriots: #16 of 62. Right on the first page!

But anything you can do to improve your search ranking will help you gain more bookings. Your listing is there! Now lift it higher!