Why booking sites show above your hotel when guests search your name

1. 1On a phone, on mobile data, open a private window and search your hotel's name and town.
2. 2Note everything above your own website: adverts, marked Sponsored; your Google panel, with its photos, rating and list of prices; and links to booking sites.
3. 3Open the list of prices on your panel and look for your own website, marked as the official site.
4. 4Do the same on a computer, where the panel sits beside the results rather than above them.
5. 5Repeat once a month, and keep a screenshot each time.

Three different things put a booking site above you, and each has its own answer:

• Adverts on your name. Google says it won't restrict anyone from using a trademark as a keyword, so any booking site can pay to appear when your name is searched. Nor, Google says, will it restrict your name in the advert itself when the advert's page sells your rooms and makes clear the advertiser is a reseller.
• The list of prices on your panel. Booking sites pay for places in it, marked Ads, and are also listed free under All options. Google marks one link for each hotel as its official site, and never a booking site's.
• Their own pages about your hotel. A large booking site's page for your hotel, with your photos and reviews, can rank for your name without any advert.

• Your price on your panel: ask your booking engine to send your prices to Google, so that your website is listed free as the official site (see the guide on Google's free hotel listings).
• Your website on your profile: your own address in your Google Business Profile, never a booking site's.
• Your website's own title: your hotel's name and town in it, so that Google shows it for that search.
• Your own advert on your name, if booking sites' adverts take the top: aimed only at searches for your name, tried for a month, and judged by the bookings it brings against what it costs.

Google lets a booking site use your name to sell your rooms. It doesn't let any advertiser impersonate another business to hide who it is, or suggest a link with you that doesn't exist. An advert on your name that calls itself your official site and leads to someone else's page can be reported to Google.

1. 1Take a screenshot of the advert, with the search and the date.
2. 2Note the address the advert leads to.
3. 3Report it to Google as misleading. If your hotel's name is a registered trademark, Google also takes trademark complaints against named advertisers, in the countries where you hold it.

The booking sites you have contracts with sell your rooms, and on your own name they also compete with you. Ask your contact at each whether it advertises on searches for your hotel's name, and whether it will stop. Write down what each says, and check your name again a month later.

Each month, search your name the same way and note what sits above your website. Count the bookings made on your own website and the commission paid to booking sites that month. When your website moves up and direct bookings rise while commission falls, it is working. One month says little; three in a row show the direction.