StayParity reads that whole list. This page says what we check, who the sellers usually are, and how Google decides which one is your "official site".
What we check on Google Hotels
Every seller, not a fixed list
Each check reads Google Hotels once for your hotel, for one stay and one guest count, and records every seller in it. Each seller becomes its own channel in your queue, under the name Google shows. A seller we've never seen before is recorded the same way as Booking.com.
Seller lists change with the guest count. One hotel that drew about thirty sellers for one guest drew three for three guests, probably because fewer sites sell the larger rooms.
We check each night in your horizon, up to 3 guest counts per hotel. The horizon is 30 nights on the free check and trial, and 60 or 90 on paid plans.
Your own price
If we connect to your booking engine (BON today), your price comes from the engine itself. Otherwise, it's the price Google shows for your official site.
With BON connected, we also keep the official-site price Google shows as a channel of its own, called "Official site on Google". If Google shows your official site below what your booking engine quotes for the same stay, it turns up in your queue like any other undercut. One likely reason is that the price feed to Google hasn't caught up with a change you made.
Like for like first
Google often shows the detail behind a price: the room, whether breakfast is included, the cancellation terms, the guest count, and whether taxes are in. We use it to match rooms before calling anything an undercut. Where a seller's price comes without that detail, we compare the cheapest offer on each side, and your queue says which it was.
Seen on Google, not re-read on each seller's site
For Booking.com and Expedia, we confirm an undercut on the channel's own page when your listing URL is on file (see Booking.com and Expedia). For every other seller, the Google price is what we report, marked Seen once. It's the price a traveller sees on Google, but we haven't opened that seller's site to check it.
By default, alerts wait for Confirmed. To be alerted about the other sellers too, set your alert rule to fire on Seen once. They're in your queue either way.
Who the sellers are
The examples are sellers that appeared in our own recorded Google Hotels searches. Your list will be different, and it changes by market and by date.
| Seller type | What it is | Examples seen beside a hotel |
|---|---|---|
| Your official site | Your own booking engine, or the CRS or integration partner that sends Google your prices. Google gives the "Official site" badge to one partner per hotel, never to an OTA (see below). | Your hotel's name |
| Large OTAs | Online travel agencies you probably have a contract with, directly or through your channel manager. | Booking.com, Expedia.com, Agoda, Trip.com, Priceline |
| Sister brands of a large OTA | Brands owned by the same group as a large OTA, listed under their own names. Expedia Group's brands include Hotels.com, Orbitz, Travelocity and CheapTickets (Expedia Group (opens in a new tab)). | Hotels.com, Orbitz.com, Travelocity.com, CheapTickets.com |
| Regional and loyalty sellers | Travel sites strong in one region, and airline or loyalty programmes that sell hotels. | Traveloka.com, Qantas Hotels, eDreams |
| Comparison brands selling as a seller | Brands better known for comparing prices, listed here with a price of their own. Where the booking happens depends on the brand; click through to see. | KAYAK.com, momondo.com, Skyscanner, Wego, trivago DEALS |
| Smaller resellers | Sites you may not recognise and have no contract with. Their rooms can come from another OTA, from a wholesaler or bedbank, or from a contract of yours you forgot. The price alone doesn't say which. | We don't name them here: a price doesn't tell you where a reseller buys. |
Google says each free booking link shows "the name of the booking partner who is selling the room" (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)). So a rate that reached a reseller through a wholesaler appears under the reseller's name, not the wholesaler's.
How the "Official site" badge works
All quotes are from Google's Hotel Center help pages.
- Who gets it: "Google displays the badge for hotel owners, direct suppliers, central reservation systems (CRS), and integration partners (IPs). The badge won't appear for online travel agencies (OTAs)." (About "Official site" badges (opens in a new tab))
- How many: "Only one partner for hotel ads and free booking links will receive an official site badge." (same page)
- Cost: "There's no cost to add official site badges to your campaign." (same page)
- More than one official-site feed for your hotel: Google "automatically picks the best available hotel rate for your hotel based on feed quality considerations such as price accuracy as well as comprehensive and competitive rates." (same page)
- A partner you don't want to carry the badge: "If a hotel owner doesn't want a CRS or IP to ever show this badge, they must reach out to the third-party advertiser to stop sending rates, inventory and, if applicable, stop bidding on the property." (same page)
Two related points from Google's help:
- Free booking links aren't ranked by payment. Google says ranking uses "consumer preference, value offered to the user, landing page experience, and historical accuracy of the prices", and that nobody can pay for a higher ranking (About hotel free booking links (opens in a new tab)). Paid hotel ads are marked "Ads" (Google Hotel Center Help (opens in a new tab)).
- If you use a reservation system, "you may already be connected to Google through your provider" (same free booking links page). That connection may be where your official-site price comes from.
When a seller's price on Google is wrong
Google requires that the total a traveller sees on the booking page "must be prominently displayed, be the same as the total price displayed on Google's site" (Price accuracy policy (opens in a new tab)), and that taxes and fees for Google users "should not be computed differently than they are for non-Google users" (Prohibited practices (opens in a new tab)). If a seller's price on Google isn't what the traveller can book, the prohibited practices page links a form for reporting it (lodging partner issue form (opens in a new tab)).
What we don't check on Google Hotels
- Other markets. We read Google from one fixed market, the US, in English. A seller Google shows only to travellers elsewhere won't be in our list.
- Signed-in prices. Our reads are signed out.
- Each seller's own site. Apart from Booking.com and Expedia, we report the price Google shows and don't open the seller's page.
- Where a reseller's rate came from. We see the seller and the price, not the contract behind them.
- Test bookings. We don't make them.
- Longer stays. Every check is a one-night stay.
More on each channel
Booking.com and Expedia have their own pages. Why a channel ends up below your price is in Why is Booking.com cheaper than your website?, and the EU rules are in our EU rate parity guide.