The hospitality industry was among those that suffered the most because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In April 2020, hotel occupancy in the US dropped khổng lồ its lowest cấp độ ever -- a dismal 24.5 percent. The annual average was roughly 44 percent, which means that more than half of the khách sạn rooms were empty during the whole year.To survive the crisis, hoteliers have khổng lồ take measures, i.e., prioritize cleaning procedures, adopt contactless technologies -- & reconsider their distribution strategy. Listing your property in metasearch websites and investing in a marketing chiến dịch can help increase visibility & attract more direct bookings.We’ve already described the main distribution channels: GDSs, OTAs, & bed banks. In this article, we will explain what metasearch engines are, how they work, và how hotels can connect lớn main platforms & get the most out of this partnership. The article is addressed mainly to hotel managers, but we’re sure OTA representatives can also find some useful information on metasearch management.
Bạn đang xem: Attention required!
What is a metasearch engine?
Metasearch engines are tools that send tìm kiếm queries khổng lồ many different sources, aggregate results, and organize them in a ranked list. The main task of such platforms is lớn present the maximum number of options available on the market, so that a user can compare them & make an informed choice.
How metasearch engines work
In the hospitality industry, it means that the hotels’ inventory, rates, và availability are pulled from their own websites and/or OTAs they work with & displayed in one place. Potential guests can conveniently kiểm tra prices, view pictures, & read descriptions and reviews without having to browse through numerous travel platforms.For hotels & OTAs, the main benefit of partnering with metasearch engines is increased online presence & customer reach. According lớn the Eye for Travel survey, 94 percent of travelers use metasearch sites to lớn compare hotel rates. Another advantage is receiving your guests’ tương tác information, which doesn’t happen when your bookings are made through an OTA.Below is an interesting illustration by Mirai of how the breakdown of hotels’ kinh doanh investments changed over just a few years. They compare hotels’ total spendings on classic advertising in such metasearch engines as Google and Bing khổng lồ total investments in partnering with industry-specific metasearch platforms (Google khách sạn Ads, Trip
Advisor, Trivago, etc.).
Investments in ads vs. Metasearch engines
To get a better understanding of how metasearch engines work, let’s first discuss how they make money.
Metasearch cost models
Metasearch engines get their revenue from advertising. In the classic scenario, they don’t handle bookings, but instead redirect users to partner websites khổng lồ complete transactions. So, their typical cost mã sản phẩm is CPC (cost per click), or PPC (pay per click). This means a hotel is charged every time the ad is clicked và redirection occurs. This model doesn’t guarantee return và creates expenses before revenue but gives maximal flexibility & control over spendings as it can be frequently updated. Here’s how it works.When posting ads, inventory suppliers can bid for ad placements & compete with other advertisers for higher ranking in tìm kiếm results. So, you set the maximum price you are willing to lớn pay for having your ad displayed in the vị trí cao nhất position. When a related từ khóa is searched, the advertiser runs a real-time auction to lớn determine the order of listings. Generally, the bigger the bid is, the higher the ad ranks (other factors are also taken into account, such as ad relevance, landingpage quality, etc.)That’s where it gets complicated và risky because if you bid too low, your position will drop, but if you bid too high, the gains you’re getting might not be worth the price (big OTAs are also bidding with entire teams managing their kinh doanh strategy, so winning đứng đầu positions is quite a challenge). That’s why you need to monitor the market & your competitors’ activity and dynamically adjust your bidding. If done right, you can get a significant ROI.
Hotels
Combined tìm kiếm options from different inventory providers
Another common cost model for metasearch engines is CPI (cost per impression). That’s when an agreed rate is paid per 1,000 views of an ad. However, it’s rarer in the hospitality industry so we’re not going to lớn discuss it in detail.Today, many large travel platforms act both as a metasearch engine và OTA, allowing for instant booking on the same screen. In this case, a CPA (cost per action/acquisition) cost model is also possible. Here, a commission, or percentage of reservation value, is charged only if the booking is made through an ad or listing. It can reduce the risk of inefficient spending as advertisers pay on performance.However, since a commission rate can’t be adjusted as easily as in the CPC model, there is less flexibility in reacting khổng lồ possible changes & less influence on the placement of your listing.Another mã sản phẩm adopted by metasearch engines with booking capabilities is PPS, which stands for pay per stay & means that a fixed commission is paid only for actual guest stays.Also, there are various hybrid models that are combinations of the above options.
Connectivity options & how lớn get featured
To work with metasearch engines, you have to mô tả your inventory, rates, and availability that is going khổng lồ be displayed khổng lồ travelers. Here are the options on how to establish this integration.
Via mở cửa APIs. Another option is manually connecting your software và a metasearch engine via APIs to activate data exchange. The main problem here is technical complexity (you need a tech specialist to lớn set up the integration). Many metasearch platforms bởi vì not provide APIs at all, forcing hoteliers to connect through partners.Through an OTA. If for any reason you don’t want to lớn work with metasearch websites directly, you can partner with an OTA and it can các mục your property on your behalf.You can definitely just have your property’s profile on some metasearch platforms without establishing any integration. Sometimes, it can even be created by an OTA you’re partnering with (you can claim this listing if you want lớn manage it yourself). In this case, travelers will be able to lớn see your descriptions, tương tác details, images, etc., but no current rates và availability would be displayed.
General tips on working with metasearch engines
Before we proceed with describing main providers, here are a few general recommendations on establishing a successful cooperation with metasearch platforms.Create và maintain a great profile. Make sure you provide all the up-to-date information such as location, detailed descriptions, high-quality pictures, full contact information, etc. The first impression is lasting, you know.Provide accurate prices. You don’t want your guests to lớn be confused with different rates on the metasearch và your own website. Besides, your ranking in most metasearch platforms would depend on the accuracy of provided information. So, make sure your rates are updated và remember khổng lồ maintain rate parity.Work on reviews. Since multiple positive reviews give more details and show that you are trustworthy, encourage your guests to write a few words about their experience. Also, respond to đánh giá to show your guests that you care about their opinions, whatever they are. It’s helpful to set up alerts for new reviews or, if you have multiple locations, partner with a reviews management company khổng lồ process your đánh giá and perform sentiment analysis to lớn provide you with valuable insights.Set up a Q&A section and provide timely answers lớn demonstrate your customer service level and give more details to lớn potential guests. A little trick is asking yourself questions và answering them using the right keywords và highlighting your strong sides (i.e., amenities, special offers, loyalty program, food or service quality, etc.)Implement a reliable booking engine. We already mentioned the importance of using connectivity software. Besides establishing a seamless data sharing process, make sure your booking engine provides a perfect booking experience for your guests.Invest in tìm kiếm engine optimization. Implementing common SEO practices is always helpful so don’t forget lớn work on the key words and overall nội dung of your website, landing page, và posted ads.So, who are the main players in this market and how can you establish the desired cooperation?
An overview of main metasearch engines
Google hotel Ads
Today, Google’s nói qua in the tìm kiếm engine market is about 92 percent, making it an absolute leader, travel sector included. If you’re still skeptical about its importance, kiểm tra out our thought-provoking đoạn clip on the role Google is playing in the travel industry.
You likely already know what a tìm kiếm engine is. Chances are you used one to find this blog post or khổng lồ find cachseo.com because you wanted to conduct some SEO campaigns và keyword research. But have you ever heard of a metasearch engine?
Metasearch engines are a way to lớn get a wide range of tìm kiếm results from different tìm kiếm engines. The theory is that you can get a wider breadth of answers và information to lớn inform your decisions better.
Metasearch engines matter because you don't just get all your information from one channel. We’ve seen from regular truyền thông media outlets that one data source can be skewed, & you may not get a balanced point of view.
What vì chưng Metasearch Engines do?
In simple terms, a metasearch engine takes the query you've entered và gathers results from multiple tìm kiếm engines online, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, and more. They aggregate the results for you so you can choose the best information from the tìm kiếm results provided.
Some service-based industries such as airlines and khách sạn chains use a size of the metasearch engine. If you are searching for a khách sạn room in a city, you will likely find websites that will scour hotels in that city. The search engine will then return different results from searching specific khách sạn websites. You can sometimes even see the same khách sạn room for different prices at other websites due to your metasearch.
Metasearch engines are known for keeping a user’s privacy. Tìm kiếm engines such as Swisscows and Metager pride themselves on keeping your details private and out of the data-gobbling hands of search engines.
Are Metasearch Engines New?
Metasearch engines are not new. The first person to lớn conceptualize & create a metasearch engine was Daniel Dreilinger from Colorado State University. He developed Search
Savvy, which allowed users to tìm kiếm up lớn 20 search engines at a time.
Dogpile is one of the most well-used metasearch engines today. In 2005, the creators collaborated with Penn State University và the University of Pittsburgh researchers to measure data overlap from different tìm kiếm engine results. They discovered that only 1.1% of first-page search results were similar across engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask Jeeves, and more.
Xem thêm: Hướng dẫn seo google - cẩm nang tối ưu hoá cho công cụ tìm kiếm (seo)
What Is the Difference between a tìm kiếm Engine and a Metasearch Engine?
A tìm kiếm engine sends out queries lớn websites to lớn see if the website’s nội dung best matches the tìm kiếm query entered into the tìm kiếm engine. It returns with a results page, ranked from most relevant, according to lớn algorithms.
A metasearch engine submits queries to multiple tìm kiếm engines and aggregates the results into a list. The search engine can sort this danh sách they came from, by subject, or by relevance. The user can then choose which results best match their intent.
Top 7 Meta search Engines lớn Use
Now that we’ve told you what metasearch engines are, how they work, và why you might want to try one, here are the đứng top 7 metasearch engines out there.
Dogpile compiles results from all the major tìm kiếm engines into a single results page for you. It can tìm kiếm for images, audio và video, news, và directory searches.
Metager is an open-source metasearch engine. It has its website crawler & uses many of the big search engines. This metasearch engine conducts anonymous searches for video, audio, và directories.
Which Metasearch Engine Should You Use?
What vị you want from your search engine? vì you want privacy & anonymity? Then Metager or Startpage are two good options. If you’re looking for the tìm kiếm engine with the most reach & user base, Dogpile is your preferred option.Mamma will help you filter your results so you can customize your experience. If you need khổng lồ rate your results by country, then Kartoo is your go-to engine of choice.
People use Google because it is well known và has a lot of nguồn behind its searches. The same goes for Dogpile, arguably the most popular metasearch engine out there.
What Are the Advantages of Metasearch Engines?
The pros of using a metasearch engine include the potential khổng lồ be anonymous online và not have your user data vacuumed by Google.
Meta searches give you a much bigger picture of what is out there online. You’re not influenced by one search engine và past user history.
In addition, metasearch engines can be quick in finding you a wide variety of results. While they give an overview, they don’t provide detailed results, so they are so speedy.
What Are the Disadvantages of Metasearch Engines?
One of the disadvantages of metasearch engines is they sacrifice detail in the name of speed. They can give you a broad range of results but not a detailed result for your tìm kiếm query.
You cannot always guarantee a wide net of search results with a metasearch engine. They may limit themselves khổng lồ specific tìm kiếm engines, and you may not know which ones they are pulling from. A limited tìm kiếm engine reach can skew results.
Organic Research with cachseo.com
When doing organic research with cachseo.com, you can overcome some of these disadvantages of a metasearch engine by choosing what websites và domains to lớn analyze. You can also drill down into the details of tìm kiếm results for better SEO, rather than the top-level summary from metasearch.
Using the tên miền Overview, we’ve used Studio
Hawk khổng lồ show you how cachseo.com can work with you.
From the screenshot below, you can see the amount of organic traffic và the number of backlinks. You can filter for PPC campaigns and organic campaigns. Since we’re more interested in organic research, this tool can help you focus on important without overloading you with needless data & information.
Hawk are increasing in comparison lớn the previous period.
All the từ khoá the agency is targeting are listed, & you can see trends in the movement of those keyword over the past week. You can always change the date range and get a bigger picture if you’d like.
If you want lớn analyze organic traffic in more detail, dive deep into the Organic Research tool:
