How listing sites rank your ad in their search results

OTA = Online Travel Agency, which means those sites that sell the booking and take the payment for you.
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paolo
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How listing sites rank your ad in their search results

Post by paolo »

If you are recovering from the rental season, and getting round to assessing your advertising for next year, here is something else to think about: how easy is it to find your home on a listing site’s search results?

If somebody is looking for a house in your location and there are 250 others, how that site arranges those 251 ads is an important consideration – will you appear on page 1 of results or page 5? On some sites you can influence the outcome, on others you can’t.

Here are some ways listing sites decide the order they show ads:

1. How recently you updated your availability calendar (e.g. holidayrentals.com, cyberrentals.com, visitfrance.co.uk).

2. Number of bedrooms (e.g. frenchconnections.co.uk)

3. How much you are paying – for instance how many photos you are showing (e.g. vrbo.com).

4. Randomly shuffled for each search, so that each property is given equal exposure (e.g. vacationhomes.com).

5. Randomly shuffled but always within a grouping by number of bedrooms (e.g. cottageguide.co.uk)

Does it matter? Yes it does! If you are always stuck 5 pages into a search for your location, you’re relying on people not to get bored before they reach you.

Important tip: if you are on a site that rewards regular calendar updating, make sure you do update it. On some this can mean just hitting the ‘update’ button without making a change. On others you have to make some sort of update.

A site like vrbo.com tells you where you will rank if you pay for more photos - vrbo actually tells you the additional cost of attaining a particular position.

If it is not clear how ads are ranked, make sure you ask the site before you hand over your money. If you’re not happy, tell them – it’s a competitive market-place and they all want your money, so make sure they earn it.

After you have weighed up all other factors, this is perhaps the last important one to consider before you decide on which sites to advertise on.

Listing sites differ in their approach to this because there isn't a perfect solution. Or is there?
Paolo
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Alan Knighting
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Post by Alan Knighting »

Paolo,

All good stuff!

It's much the same as with Search Engines. Someone has to be first and someone has to be last. I don't find it reasonable that the order should ever be fixed.

Alan
kevincohr
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VacationRentals411 allows you to "bid" for placeme

Post by kevincohr »

VR411 offers an interesting approach. You can post an ad for free, but then "bid" for placement higher up in the search rankings.

Feedback I've received from those you have tried it has been mostly postitive.

(I have no affiliation.)

Kevin
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

I saw a job vacancy on the h-r site looking for someone with experience with PPC campaigns - pay per click. I wonder?
alexia s.
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Post by alexia s. »

Now, that's interesting!
Best,
Alexia.
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Garri
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Post by Garri »

Alex, the vacancy doesn't appear to be there now which means they may have filled it. It's a flawed model for this field I think because if you have a place in one of the less popular countries you'll have the rub of the green when people are searching as they'll be fewer choices to make.
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paolo
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Post by paolo »

alexia s. wrote:Now, that's interesting!
Although every major listing site will have a serious PPC resource, whether in-house or out-sourced.
Paolo
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alexia s.
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Post by alexia s. »

Now, that could be reassuring!
Best,
Alexia.
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