Hotel Ads FAQs

I’m interested in adding my property to Hotel Ads. How can I integrate?

Given the number of important features that Hotel Ads provides, integration requires a significant amount of technical expertise. For best results, we recommend that you work with a Google-authorized third-party integration partner.

If you have a Google Account Manager, talk to him/her about any additional integration options we have available to you.

Learn more about integrating with Google Hotel Ads.

How do I update my Hotel List?

The Hotel List is a complete list of all properties that you want to display on Google Hotel Ads. We use the information in your Hotel List to match your properties to the canonical listing on Google Maps. The Feed Status Tool gives you a list of issues related to your feeds, and their possible remediations.

To update your Hotel List, correct or update any errors in the file and update the file in your Hotel Center account, depending on your delivery mode.

For more information about updating your feed, see the Hotel List XML Reference.

Why are my hotels not indexed?

If a hotel is not indexed, then it does not participate in the auction. The following are the most common reasons why a hotel might not be indexed:

Each of these common issues are described in the sections that follow.

You can use the Scorecard (on the home page of your Hotel Center dashboard) to get a quick sense of your overall matching statistics:

Data quality issues

Data quality issues are problems with the Hotel List Feed, such as missing information or incorrect formatting of information. The cause of a data quality issue is shown in the DATA ISSUES column of the Matching Report tool.

If a hotel in your feed has an error message, add or correct the information in your hotel's entry within your feed and resubmit the feed so that the hotel will be able to participate in the ad auction.

Troubleshoot data quality issues

The Hotel Ads Center provides a way for you to easily check the validity of your Hotel List Feed and remedy any errors. To find and fix data issues, follow the steps below.

To view data issues with your Hotel List Feed:

  1. In a browser, open Hotel Center.
  2. Select the Tools tab.
  3. In the left-hand navigation, select Hotel List > Matching Report. The Matching Report tool displays.
  4. In the "Data Issues" drop-down list, be sure that at least some or all of the possible data issues are selected:

  5. To find unmatched listings only, enable the "Not Matched" check-box and disable the "Matched" and "Overclustered" check-boxes in the "Match Status" drop-down list:

  6. Click the Apply Filters button. Hotel Ads Center displays a list of hotels that match your filtering criteria. The "DATA ISSUES" column lists errors for each hotel.

    The following example shows a list that contains hotels with and without data issues:

  7. Click on a link in the "DATA ISSUES" column to display remedial action about that issue. For example, if you click on "Duplicate Address", the Matching Report tool displays the following possible solutions:

For a complete list of data issues and their solutions, see Data Issues Error Messages and How do I find and fix data issues?.

Note: For more information about troubleshooting specific types of data issues, see below:

Clustering issues

Overclustered hotels are hotels that appear to be duplicates of other hotels in your Hotel List Feed. Overclustering is usually a result of incomplete or duplicate information in one or more entries.

If a hotel is "overclustered," the Matching Report tool displays it and the other overclustered properties in the "HOTEL ID OVERCLUSTERED WITH" column. To fix overclustered hotels, correct the error(s) and resubmit your feed. You can also download a CSV file with all of your overclustered hotels by clicking the "Download as CSV" button.

Troubleshoot clustering issues

When a hotel is "overclustered," it means that multiple listings are considered as the same entity due to its similarity in its attributes such as name, address, or phone number. This commonly happens in areas where the addresses are not well specified (in some countries) or where there is a high concentration of hotels (in some resort areas or Las Vegas, NV).

To get the list of overclustered hotels, you can either access them through Hotel Center or by using the Google Hotels API.

To get a list of overclustered hotels in Hotel Ads Center:

  1. In a browser, open Hotel Center.
  2. Select the Tools tab.
  3. In the left-hand navigation, select Hotel List > Matching Report. The Matching Report tool displays.
  4. In the "Match Status" drop-down list, select the "Overclustered" check-box:

  5. In the "Data Issues" drop-down list, select all issues so that you do not filter your results:

  6. Click Apply Filters.

    The Matching Report tool displays a list of hotels that are overclustered and/or match your other filter criteria. The hotel that is considered "canonical" (or primary) in a cluster is shown in the table. The "FEED HOTEL ID" column displays the ID of the canonical hotel in the cluster. The overclustered hotels are listed in the "HOTEL ID OVERCLUSTERED WITH" column.

To fix overclustering, submit a request to fix the overclustered properties to Google for consideration. When sending the request, please include the following:

  1. Hotel ID
  2. Hotel name
  3. Hotel address
  4. Hotel phone number

Be sure to check whether the overclustered property has data quality issues before submitting a request. The more accurate and specific the name, address, and phone numbers are, the easier it is to fix overclustering. For more information about fixing overclustering issues, see Manual Match Fix tool.

Note: In some scenarios, overclustered hotels may not be able to be fixed.

Matching issues

Unmatched hotels are hotels whose entries in your Hotel List don't match any entries in Google's catalog of hotels (also referred to as the manifest). Google attempts to match the hotels in your feed with those in its manifest.

Troubleshoot matching issues

If a hotel matches, then the Matching Report tool displays the name of the match in the "MATCHED GOOGLE HOTEL NAME" column and the hotel's entry is considered valid.

If a hotel does not match any entry in the manifest, then the value of the "MATCHED GOOGLE HOTEL NAME" column is "Not Matched." In this case, the hotel's entry in your feed is considered invalid and its information should be corrected. Once you remedy any errors, you can resubmit your feed.

The Manual Match Fix tool gives you a simple way to resolve issues after your initial Hotel List matching process has finished. Use it to address any properties with missing, incorrect or incomplete data. See the Help Center for more information about how to use the Manual Match Fix tool.

Why are my hotels over- or under-clustered?

Over-clustering usually happens when one or more of your hotel properties appears to be a duplicate of another property. Hotels are often over-clustered in densely populated areas, such as Las Vegas or other tourist destinations. Occasionally, two or more attributes (e.g. address, phone, longitude, name, etc) of a hotel are listed on maps separately, but describe the same hotel property. If you experience issues over- or under-clustering see Manual Match Fix tool.

How do I fix issues with images?

Google gathers images of hotels from multiple sources. Depending on the original source of the image, you may be able to resolve the issue yourself. For any issues not resolved by the sources listed below, please contact Google.

Note: There is currently no way to alter the ranking of photos on Google.

Photos submitted by other users

Street View

With indoor Street View for hotels, you have the ability to offer 360º virtual tours. To troubleshoot issues with these Street View images and user-submitted images, use the “Report a Problem” link included on the bottom right of any photo's page. You can also use this form to request blurring and report on the overall quality of a photo.

User uploaded images

Hotel photos uploaded by users can be flagged for review. See our reporting errors article about flagging inappropriate or irrelevant photos. Google will review flagged photos to determine if they violate our quality guidelines.

Photos you submitted

After you verify your hotel’s page on Google, sign in to your account to add and manage photos of your hotel.

If the photos for your hotel(s) are incorrect (old, wrong hotel, rebranding) or non-existent, please contact Google through the contact form.

How do I update my landing page file?

Use the landing page editor to add, change, or remove landing pages in an existing landing page file. Access the landing page editor by following these steps:
  1. Sign in to your Hotel Center account.
  2. Click Landing pages in the left-hand navigation menu.
  3. Click Manage landing pages.
  4. Click a landing page to edit.

Follow these step-by-step directions to add, edit, or delete a landing page.

How do I fix transaction message errors?

Review transaction message errors by using the Feed Status Tool, which generates a report of feeds that include errors and/or warnings that Google encountered when processing those feeds. Filter the report by file type, status, or time period to get more granular insights into your feed errors. You can also use the Feed Status v.2.0 to generate the same reports.

How do I fix feed errors?

The Hotel Ads Feed Validation Tool uses feed error codes to identify specific problems with the validity of your data feed. For more information on how to interpret specific error codes, consult our searchable feed error codes table. It provides options to filter by keyword, or by feed error type. We also have a variety of other tools in the Hotel Center that you can use to troubleshoot different types of feeds.

My ads aren’t showing up in search. What should I do?

There are a variety of factors that can prevent your ads from appearing in searches, including issues with billing, prices, taxes, landing pages, bidding strategies, or feed errors. Below are suggestions for troubleshooting each issue:

Check your billing accuracy

  • Be sure that your billing information is accurate and complete in your Hotel Center account.
  • Confirm that your hotel is indexed and has no data quality issues. You can check index status in the Hotel List views, or in the list provided by the Hotels API. To resolve data quality issues, use the Manual Match Fix tool.

Ensure your hotels are not suspended and have valid prices

  • Ensure that you have valid prices and no errors for hotel itineraries. You can check prices through Hotel Center or the Hotels API.
  • Check to see if your hotel has been suspended because of price violations.
  • Review the Price Accuracy Policy to see if your price accuracy score is below the acceptable threshold.

Review the Taxes and Fees Policy

  • Hotel itineraries that include taxes and other fees will show in markets outside the US and Canada, but itineraries that don't include taxes and fees in the US and Canadian markets are more likely to be shown. Refer to the Taxes and Fees Policy for further details.

Check for landing page mismatches

  • Check that there are no landing page mismatches by looking at the tags in your landing pages file. Our matching algorithm decides whether the ads should be displayed or not for a user coming from a particular IP location.

Evaluate your bidding strategy

  • Review your bid strategy to confirm your bid for a hotel is competitive enough. Non-competitive bids will result in a slot type of “Z” and a slot position of “-1” in your Performance Report.
  • Check the Ad Preview tool. The Ad Preview Tool in Hotel Centercan help you understand why your hotels might not be shown. Learn more about the Ad Preview Tool.
  • Fix feed errors. Often, ads won’t show up in searches due to feed errors. Google’s Hotel Ads feed validation tool provides you with quick and easy access to the information you need to fix most search-related data issues, such as overclustering, indexing and more.

Additional information

For additional information on how to improve the performance of your ads, see our tips on how to troubleshoot common issues:

  • Improve the performance of your ads.
  • Optimize your bidding strategy to improve your ad performance.
  • Identify missed opportunities based on auction participation and bids.
  • Learn how budget can affect ad visibility.
  • Use room bundles to boost performance.

Want to learn more? We offer a comprehensive list of reports that can help you effectively manage your ads performance and identify improvement opportunities.

What's an “Automated Check Score Drop” alert?

Getting an alert that your Hotel Center account experienced an “Automated Check Score Drop,” means your accuracy score experienced material drops and needs to be improved.

To opt-in to alerts or to review/change your email alert settings, see Setting up Email Alerts. To improve your accuracy score, review Price Accuracy Report and Improve Price Accuracy.

Related links

To help assess general feed quality, use the following:

To look into errors with Hotel List feeds (information about your hotel properties), use:

For more information about Hotel Price feeds (Information about room rates and availability):

For questions about landing page feeds: (Information about where online customers book your rooms):

If you have additional questions, please contact us.

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