The Airbnb Rankings Report is a study that analyzed 1.5 million Airbnb pages and 30 thousand listings to see if there are trends to ranking higher on Airbnb. The study was produced by RankBreeze, an Airbnb SEO firm (which I personally use and love).

Here are the results:

#1 Instant Book: Turn it on

Instant Book DOES give you an advantage in Airbnb search.

#2 Superhost Status: More likely to show up on first 6 pages

Having Superhost Status DOES give you an advantage in Airbnb search.

Superhost status listings are more likely to show up on the first 6 pages of search results.

#3 Airbnb Listing Description Length: 3,100 - 3,900 characters

Longer descriptions do better, with the amount of words declining as you get deeper into the search results.

Page 1 search results average about 3,100 characters.

(FYI: Just for some due diligence I went back and looked into the copywriting that Rankbreeze has actually done for my listings and every one of my listings that they worked on had over 3,100 characters — and had an average across the board of over 3,900.

#4 Star Ratings: Page 1 - 4.89, After 4.85-4.86 , Nothing lower than 4.85 in first 18 pages

Airbnb Search Page 1 results have an average of 4.89 stars.

After page 1 the average was between 4.86 and 4.85 stars.

Nothing under 4.85 (on average) showed up on 18 pages of search results.

#5 How Many Pics: At least 60

You need at least 31 great photos, but the Top-Ranking Listings have an average of 60 photos.

The top listings having the most photos, and the lower ranked listings with the least photos.

#6 Strict Cancellation Policy: Turn on

Listings with the Strict Cancellation Policy have in fact a small BENEFIT and actually rank slightly HIGHER in the top 3 pages.

#7 Flexible Cancellation Policy: Turn off

Listings with flexible cancellation policies typically appear LOWER in search.

#8 Pet Friendly Policy: Typically appears past Page 6

Having a Pet Friendly Policy does not help listings. If guests are searching without a preference on pets, Pets Allowed listings tend to show up PAST page 6.

I know I said this was the Best And Worst findings from the RankBreeze study — but really I don’t think there’s any bad news here. I think it's actually great for us.

Click here to get the report.