Your hotel is listed on MakeMyTrip but buried on page 3. A competitor with worse reviews ranks above you. This is not random — OTA ranking is an algorithm, and it has clear levers. Here is how to move them.
Getting listed on MakeMyTrip or Booking.com is not the same as being found on MakeMyTrip or Booking.com. Over 70% of bookings go to properties appearing in the top 5 results for a search. A hotel on page 3 is effectively invisible — and invisible means no bookings regardless of how good the property actually is.
OTA ranking is not arbitrary. It is a commercial algorithm that these platforms have designed to surface properties that will convert, deliver good guest experiences, and generate repeat bookings on their platform. Understanding what the algorithm rewards is the first step to improving your position.
1. Conversion rate — the most important signal
OTAs prioritise properties that convert page views into bookings. A property that receives 100 page views and converts 8 of them to bookings ranks higher than one that converts 3 out of 100. To improve conversion: update your photos (minimum 30, ideally 50+), write a compelling property description that focuses on what guests actually want to know, and ensure your pricing is competitive within your star category and destination.
2. Review score and review velocity
Both the rating and recency of reviews matter. A 4.2-star property with 20 new reviews this month ranks above a 4.5-star property with no reviews in the last 60 days. After every checkout, send a WhatsApp message asking for a review — this single action is the cheapest ranking improvement available. Target a review request response rate above 20%.
3. Content completeness
MakeMyTrip and Booking.com score your listing on how completely you have filled in every section: amenities, room descriptions, policies, location, photos, check-in instructions, parking details. Open your OTA extranet and look for any section showing as incomplete. Fill every one. Properties with 100% content score get a systematic ranking boost over partially-filled listings.
4. Availability and open inventory
OTAs rank properties lower when they frequently show "no rooms available" for dates guests are searching. Close inventory only when you are genuinely sold out — never pre-close dates speculatively. Keep your minimum stay restrictions realistic and your open availability window long (at least 180 days ahead for leisure destinations).
5. Cancellation rate and response time
High hotel-initiated cancellations (where the hotel cancels the guest's booking) are severely penalised. Any cancellation rate above 3% triggers ranking suppression on most platforms. Similarly, properties that fail to respond to guest inquiries within 2 hours consistently rank lower than fast-responding properties.
This is the ranking killer most Indian hotels don't know about. When MakeMyTrip or Goibibo detects that your direct website (or another channel) is offering a lower rate than their platform, they suppress your visibility. No warning. No notification. Your ranking simply drops.
This happens more often than hotels realise — an old promotional rate left active on one OTA, a discount code on your website that the OTA crawlers find, a rate loaded incorrectly on a new channel. The solution is continuous rate parity monitoring, not manual weekly checks.
MakeMyTrip and Goibibo both sell sponsored placement — paying to appear at the top of search results regardless of organic ranking. This works in the short term. The moment you stop paying, you return to your organic position.
Hotels that invest in improving organic ranking signals (conversion, reviews, content, availability) compound their advantage over time. Hotels that rely only on paid placement are renting visibility rather than building it. The smart strategy is to run paid placement while simultaneously fixing the organic signals — so that when you reduce spend, your organic position has improved enough to maintain visibility.
The three organic actions with the highest ranking ROI per hour invested are: implementing an automated post-stay review request (WhatsApp, 2 hours after checkout), completing 100% of your OTA listing content (one-time, 2–3 hours per platform), and ensuring rate parity monitoring is active across all channels (ongoing, automated).
Strong OTA ranking and strong direct bookings are not competing strategies. They reinforce each other. When your OTA ranking improves, more guests find your property and visit your listing. Some of those guests then visit your direct website — especially repeat guests and those who want a better rate. This is called the billboard effect.
A hotel that builds strong OTA visibility while simultaneously building a quality direct booking engine captures both channels: OTA traffic converting to OTA bookings, and awareness from OTA driving guests to book direct on return visits. The long-term goal is to use OTA ranking to build brand awareness, while steadily shifting the commission-paying first visits into commission-free return visits.
Book a 30-minute session — we will walk through your specific hotel and show you exactly where the gaps are.
