A Tripadvisor ranking is essentially your hotel’s report card in the eyes of your guests. It’s where you stand compared to other properties in your area, based on the reviews and ratings that your guests leave. The higher your ranking, the more likely it is that potential guests will notice and choose your property.
NB: This is an article from SiteMinder, one of our Expert Partners
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Your Tripadvisor ranking is influenced by how many reviews you get, how positive they are, and how recent they are. In simple terms, the more happy guests you have sharing their experiences, the better your ranking will be. This ranking isn’t just a number – it’s a reflection of the quality of service you provide and how well you meet your guests’ expectations.
This blog will discuss how the algorithm works and how to improve your ranking on Tripadvisor.
Why is your TripAdvisor hotel rating important?
Keeping a strong Tripadvisor ranking can make a big difference to your business, as it plays a huge role in helping new guests decide where to book. So, every positive interaction, every thoughtful detail you add to your guest experience, brings you one step closer to climbing higher on that list.
What you need to know about the Tripadvisor ranking algorithm
Tripadvisor announced some changes to its ranking algorithm and the way it displays popular hotels – and it appears to be good news for hoteliers.
Here are eight interesting things we learned about the method for ranking popular hotels:
1. Reviews
Travellers and guests are sharing experiences faster than ever before. Back in 2006, there were six million reviews on the Tripadvisor website. Today that figure stands at more than one billion – and travellers are adding hundreds of new reviews and photos to the website every minute and the record number of reviews resulted in ‘fast-risers’. There were instances of newly-listed hotels skyrocketing to the top of rankings after securing their first few 5-bubble reviews – also known as ‘fast-risers’. Eventually, as more travellers submit reviews, the rankings would level out.
But of course that’s less than ideal because fast-risers would temporarily enjoy higher positions, and other hotels would appear lower than they would have otherwise. Hundreds of millions of reviews were analysed to fix it
2. Popularity ranking algorithm
When designing the change of algorithm, Tripadvisor analysed hundreds of millions of reviews covering the past 15 years. They researched how the rankings of properties were impacted over time.
The result was an enhanced popularity ranking algorithm placing more emphasis on quantity and consistency, which helps stabilise the ranking for all businesses, reduces fast-riser behaviour and creates a more accurate overall ranking for travellers.
3. Quality, Recency, and Quantity
Tripadvisor’s method for ranking properties continues to be based on quality, recency, and quantity. But how does the site define these?
