Google opens the doors for hotels to offer their services through free listings of hotels, which is separate from the paid results.
The same as what Google did with Google Flights and Google Shopping, it opens up free listings in Google Hotel search. In Search Engine Land, Google Hotel search, you will see a new section for “all options”, below the paid results showing unpaid listings from hotels and travel firms.
Free hotel listings
Google claims that the users’ experience with Google Hotel search makes it free for hotels and travel firms to appear in hotel booking links. Full access to a huge range of hotel prices helps users have a more comprehensive set of options when researching their trip and deciding where to book as Google stated.
Google Travel Options is expanding to offer more free listing opportunities. Google continues to build an open platform for all partners to get more opportunities to highlight their information and to help people book a flight, find places to stay, and explore a new destination, Google stated,
What it looks like: Free Google Hotel listings show the interface for users’ benefits.
Difference between free hotel listings and paid
Good stated that free book links show the same info as paid booking links. Hotel ads are the paid links. It is ranked according to Google’s ad auction. The free booking links are the unpaid links, which are ranked according to the utility to the users, Google explained. Google stated that free booking links are shown alongside hotel ads in the existing booking module. The hotel partners pay free of charge for free booking links and Google doesn’t collect payment for the placement or user engagement with the links.
Ranking for the free hotel listings
Google has a section that explains how to rank in the free hotel listings section. Google said that free hotel booking links employ various signals to select the best links to show to the users. The signals may include:
- Consumer preference
- Value offered to users
- Landing page experience
- Google’s historical accuracy prices
Google clarified that Google’s commercial relationship with a free booking link provider has no ranking effect, and nobody pays for the higher ranking. Participation and participation in Hotel Ads don’t impact the ranking of the free booking links. The “privacy accuracy policy” is used by Google to determine the historical accuracy of prices. Google computes the score for every partner according to how prices are compliant with the policy. The Price Accuracy score is meant to inform partners that the prices are considered accurate and a basis for possible penalties Google applies to partners. The Overall Price Accuracy and Predicted Score range from Failed to Excellent.
How to participate: You can sign up to participate if you are from the hotel or travel company.
Why we care
Google continues to open up more spaces of its vertical search services for free offering, it helps companies, smaller with less budget and get more exposure for the hotels in Google Hotel Search and Google Search. If you work or run with a hotel, it is something that you may want to dig into.