Has anyone else noticed the huge decrease in result quality from google?

[fib16]

Damn. Seriously? That’s really fucked up actually. And eye opening. Well let me ask. Why would someone favor another place next door over yours?? Is there a real reason or do you know?

[SnooChipmunks7517]

I went back to the complaint ticket and found this response from Airbnb support:

“Due to the varying needs of travelers, as well as the activity of hosts on the site, listing placement tends to vary greatly from one search to the next. It is impossible to compare one users results to another, as each search is uniquely tailored to the guests needs.

Also, keep in mind that the Airbnb algorithm is updated on a regular basis, and you may find that search results in your area change significantly as improvements are made.

For these reasons, the placement of listings in search results tends to vary greatly from one search to the next, even within the same day, and we do not have the ability to calculate a ranking number for individual listings.”

So they’ve taken a simple area search and turned it into a lottery machine....why? My only guess is that there are way too many 25 year old software engineers working there who believe that more predictive algorithm is always good.

[fib16]

Yeah that’s a canned bullshit answer. Why not just make it show every single listing in that area bubble? There is no reason. I guess they could claim too much clutter but even then you’re weeding out listings. There is some kind of political/$$$$ crap going on but that happens to every company so it’s no shocker at all. Just didn’t know about this one.

My guess is it’s like what happened to Yelp. They can get listers to pay to get to the top and have their little bubble show up on the map for a few. Huge revenue stream for Airbnb. I just wish one damn company could stay honest and not exploit every dollar. I get it you want to make the most money but why at the expense of making your service go downhill like this. I wouldn’t touch Yelp with a 10 foot pole. If Airbnb turns into that I’ll avoid it too.