Published Reviews Not in Chronilogical order

[Mike298]

We are Super Hosts in Claremont Cape Town with 2 units on our property - 2 person self catering - "Comfy Cosy Garden Cottage  in Claremont " &  " Modern Get Up & Go Garden Pad in Claremont " for 1 traveller / business person.  in our 1st year we have had 82 excellent reviews which we believe is the life blood of our business where our guests have  literally come from all parts of the world.

Our big concern is that our reviews ( 100% ) participation are now all jumbled up !!! we have developed our skills over the last year and our reviews are much better now than in the beginning, BUT , when potential guests search our website the first review is April '17 then skips to Jan'17,Oct'16,Aug'16, Page 2 is July'16,June'16,April'16,Mar'16 Page 3 April'17,Mar'17,Feb'17,jan'17 .!! Our guests who have written their reviews in their own language - French,Portugues,Spanish,Mandarin,Japanese,Greek  & Dutch are all at the VERY END of our review list which people Do Not Go To Read! This jumbled review format does not show that we have been full all the time ! Nor gives the current seasonal trend - We want our reviews shown in chronological order ie.the last guest to leave is at the number one place on Page 1 of our reviews.

Can anybody help or pass this concern on to the IT dept. of Airbnb as this problen needs urgent attention,

kind regard,

Mike Meyer 

[Clare0]

@Mike298 Originally, Airbnb put all the foreign language reviews at the end.  So if a user's selected language is English, the English language reviews would appear first.  If a user's language is French, the French reviews would appear first.  This is actually pretty logical. 

Problem is that Airbnb started keying off the guest's country of domicile instead of the language the review was written in so even if your language is English and you are in the US, a review from an Australian would go to the back along with the foreign language reviews.  

I've reported this to Airbnb since I think it was / is a coding error, but it wouldn't hurt to go on Airbnb's Facebook page to lend your voice as well.  🙂

[Monika64]

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[Monika64]

@Clare0 @Andrea9 Sometimes I seriously wonder if "host voices" are EVER heard 😞 My reviews are out of order and of course the one bad with the problem is on top. It's not too bad but of course I'd prefer having the newest, great one on top.

Airbnb costumer service stated they have zero control over it. I told them this is not Las Vegas where a roulette wheel should be deciding what goes on top! 😞 Who has control over it if not them?!?!?!?

I have mostly reviews from the Philippines, some from Singapore and one from the US. The US one is on top. How is that suppose to be on the top based on the guest of origin?

[Clare0]

@Monika64, @Andrea9 Yes, the reviews have been out of order lately.  Wish I could give you a definitive answer, but I can only tell you what I think is happening.  For some time now, reviews in a language different from the language selection set by the host were listed at the end.  So, for example, if my language selection is English, any review in French was listed at the end.  If I change my language selection to French, the French reviews would appear first, the thought being that reviews in the same language as my selected language  would be more relevant. 

What I think is happening is that someone changed the programming to key off of the guest's country of domicile, not language, so that reviews from guests who live in a country other than the host now appear in the end and out of date order.  So what is happening now is that if I am in the US, reviews from Australians, New Zealanders and British guests would be listed at the end of my reviews despite being in my language preference of English.  

I know this has been reported to Airbnb and my guess (and hope) is that it will be corrected soon as many hosts have complained.  

As with many fixes, programmers tend to batch multiple fixes at the same time, not one by one, so I would expect this to be resolved in the next release of fixes. 

Not speaking for Airbnb, mind you, just what I think is happening.  🙂

[Monika64]

Hi @Clare0, yes I saw you did post this before but this would not explain why my one US review is on the top, before all the Philippine reviews? All in English, actually. Any ideas?

[Clare0]

@Monika64 Possibly because your country of domicile as a host is New York, US.  🙂

[Monika64]

@Clare0 That's true but than that'd mean for the rest of my Airbnb "life" that'll be the 1st review everyone would see? That's just insane!

[Clare0]

@Monika64, My guess is that this will get fixed at some point since, like I said, many hosts are complaining about this and many have said it does not make sense.  I doubt that you will have to spend your Airbnb life dealing with this!

[Monika64]

@Clare0 I hope not :-))) Than again let's see how long I last :-))))

[Andrea9]

@Monika64, Good morning,

As @Clare0 already covered everything I can only add that I try to avoid looking at that review section of my listing too much since it really frustrates me as it is, showing me all the oldie reviews by guests living in the Netherlands (since that's where I live) ... and after that a vague jumbled order of those in English (but no logical order it seems). Though all the German-language ones are placed at the end.

When I look at your reviews I see:

Klaas (first since he's from the Netherlands too)

Jay

Gellina

Stephanie

Chin

Deena Rose

Emma

Lucky you, they're all recent...

Who knows when anything will change. One thing in Airbnb life will never change and that is Change, whether it's things we like or not!...

[Monika64]

@Andrea9 Thanks so much for the info! I guess what you see really depends on where you are located! Amazing! I don't mind you seeing Klaas' review 🙂 He was a lovely guest 🙂

It seems that after his review you actually see the ones in timely order. Well, everything is fairly recent for me (still) but I can imagine how frustrating is to see a 2 year old bad review on top for some of the older hosts :-(((

[Andrea9]

@Monika64

Addendum to "see the ones in timely order":

In my case more recent ones in German and a couple other non-English reviews are stuck at the back 😞

It's all completely convoluted, and I'm wondering... 

Assume a non-German-speaking American studying in Germany wanted to book something in Argentina -

would they first see reviews in German (assuming their profile listed a German city of residence and their IP address is in Germany), or

would they first see English reviews (if their profile had a US city but IP in Germany)??

And if they then while traveling logged on through an IP address in Argentina, would they first see reviews in Spanish???

This because, yes, my city of residence is in The Netherlands, my IP address obviously too, but I use the English language site version.

[Monika64]

@Andrea9 I was wondering about the same thing 🙂 I think having them in in order of check out date would make most sence because if it changes based on where you log in from or what language the potential guest uses than it doesn't give an accurate picture of the condition of the places and the host itself, right? I'm sure most hosts would learn the ropes of hosting as they encounter more and more guests so this should be reflected in their reviews instead of having something on top that might have been a "student driver" review from the beggining.

[Andrea9]

@Monika64

Well, the point is that only some of my reviews are chronological. Some of my recent ones in another language are stuck on the last 2 or 3 pages of 20!

I sometimes believe that the tech people thinking this stuff up have no real experience in the real world, sad to say... LOL.