Unison

Guide

Why your property sits low in Booking's results

First check whether your property can be booked for the dates and the number of people you entered. Then look at the filters and the sorting order. A property missing from the list and a low position are two different problems. What is worth checking next depends on that distinction.

Why don't I see my property on Booking

Start with a simple check. Open the property's listing by its direct address and pick dates you have open in the calendar. Set the right number of adults and children. Check the minimum length of stay and arrival restrictions. A free room in the calendar is not enough if the conditions do not allow booking it for that query.

Then go back to searching for the town and remove any extra filters. If the listing works but is not on the list, check whether the location and amenities match the query. If you still cannot explain the absence, report the specific dates, the number of people and the search settings to the portal. A bare "I'm not there" gives them little to check.

What your property's position on Booking depends on

This much is known: Booking publishes a general description of its sorting, but gives no formula you could calculate your place from. In the default order it points to click-through rate and reservation counts both before cancellations and after they are subtracted. It combines these results with, among other things, prices, availability, reviews, house rules and content quality. The portal also confirms a possible influence of commission and participation in the Genius and Preferred Partner programmes. Results can be personalised. It describes this in the ranking section of its How we work page.

The exact weights for your property and a specific search are not known. Nothing in that description implies that adding an amenity will move you up three places, or that a price cut guarantees the first page.

A complete listing. Does the guest know what they are booking

Look at the first photo, the room names and the amenities list. Can you tell which room has a balcony? Is parking on site? Is the kitchen shared, or does it belong to the apartment? These are questions the listing should answer without a call to the owner.

I treat completeness as keeping the listing in order, not as a promise of points in the algorithm. Tick only the amenities you really provide. A full form with untrue answers leaves you a problem at check-in.

Price against the neighbours. Compare the whole stay

Open several similar properties in the area for the same dates and the same number of people. Compare the final total, the room standard, breakfast, parking and cancellation conditions. An entire cottage and a room with a shared bathroom are not the same product, even if they are on the same road.

If you are more expensive, check whether the listing clearly shows what the guest is paying extra for. Do not start with a price cut just because the neighbour ranks higher. Without counting your own costs it is easy to offer a stay that is no longer worth serving.

Availability. Check what you are really selling

Go through several dates in the season and outside it. See whether an old minimum stay is still there, or a closed date that was supposed to be back on sale. Open only the stays you can take. There is no point in listing a room for one night if, in practice, you need at least three.

Reviews. Fix the cause the guests describe

Read the latest remarks and note the ones that keep coming back. If several people write about a difficult access road, improve the directions. If the lack of a kitchen disappoints, check whether the description does not accidentally promise one. A reply to the review alone does not remove the cause.

You have influence over the service and the accuracy of the description. You do not choose the rating a guest gives, and you cannot build a new review history in one evening.

Languages. Does the other version promise the same stay

Open the listing in Polish and in the language your foreign guests use. Compare the kitchen, the bathroom, meals, surcharges and arrival times. Check your own website the same way. If the translation says something different, prepare a fix or report the error to the portal.

I have no grounds to attribute a separate ranking bonus to every additional language. The point of this work is simpler: the guest should understand the conditions and find on arrival what they read.

Check it yourself

Write down one set of dates, the number of people, the filters and the sorting. Check availability, compare the full price with similar properties and read your own listing as someone who has never stayed with you. Note specific gaps, not just your position number on the list.

What you have no influence over

Do not treat your screen as one shared list for all guests. A single search result is also not enough to attribute a change in position to a corrected description.

You can do this yourself

You can go through this list yourself and fix the gaps you find. What you influence straight away is whether the information you give is true and complete. Publishing it on the portal may require a submission and time. You set the price and availability too, but your costs, free rooms and the way the property works limit you there.

To put the content in order, you first need to know what each source says today. In the audit I compare your website and the portal listings, and point out discrepancies and gaps. Sources that could not be checked I mark in the report. That is the first step towards fixes, not the last step towards a higher position. The audit guarantees neither a place in the results nor bookings.

See what the audit covers

Related articles