How we decide

A report is built from every public review a listing has, judged one at a time, and the verdict comes from counting what those judgments say. This is the whole process, in plain words.

What we read

Every review the listing has, not a sample, five-star reviews included. About 1 in 11 five-star reviews still describes a problem, and those are the ones a star rating hides best. We also read the listing's own text and its amenities list. On the very largest listings we read the most recent few thousand reviews, and the report says so. Every report says which day it was built.

What counts as a problem

Each review is judged on its own: does it report a problem, what kind (noise, cleanliness, access, accuracy, safety, cost, host, location, maintenance), how serious it was, and whether the guest was being polite about something worse. A guest who says the stay was fine and mentions a broken lock in passing has reported a problem. A guest who says the place was small but they knew that going in has not.

How the verdict is decided

By counting, not by anyone's opinion. A listing is a Skip when the same problem keeps coming up among recent guests, or when a serious problem shows up in five-star reviews as well as low ones, which means even the happy guests hit it. Everything short of that is a Book, with the problems that didn't reach the bar still on the report under "go in knowing" and how many guests said so. Recent reviews count for more than old ones, one complaint from years ago never decides anything on its own, and a verdict never flips on a single new review. When it does move, the report says so, with the date and what it was before.

Where the words come from

The sentences on a report are written by a language model from the judgments and the counts, the way a person would write up a tally. It can't change the verdict, invent a complaint, or soften a number. Every issue on a report shows the counted facts beneath it, so you can check the words against the numbers yourself.

What we keep

For each review we keep its judgment, its star rating and its date. We don't keep the review text, and we never store reviewer names, photos or profile links. A report quotes a few words at most. The rest is in our privacy page.

Who pays us

Travelers, through trip packs. Hosts can't pay us and we take no booking commissions, so nothing on a report is for sale. The numbers are on /stats.

When we get it wrong

Reports are written by software and can be wrong. Every report has a "Something wrong in this report?" link near the bottom that reaches a person, and we fix what's wrong.