Google Hotel Search FAQ

There are a few reasons why your prices or Free Booking Link (FBL) may not appear—especially for users searching from the United States or Canada:

1. You’re viewing the Google Search view, not the Google Hotel Search immersive view

Your Free Booking Link appears in what Google calls the "immersive view"—this is the detailed hotel profile on Google Hotel Search.

The FBL is always the one that says “Official site.” For Cloudbeds customers, this will link to the Booking Engine.

It may not appear directly in the general Google Search results page, unless your property or an OTA is actively running ads.

2. Your booking link may not appear in the U.S./Canada due to Google’s price transparency enforcement

If your Cloudbeds Booking Engine includes extra service charges or non-mandatory fees (like a 3% non-governmental fee) that are not also charged on OTA listings, Google may choose not to show your Free Booking Link in the U.S. and Canada.

Google’s policy aims to protect travelers by ensuring that all advertisers present consistent and transparent pricing.

What to check in Cloudbeds:

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  • From your Account, go to Settings > Property > Sources

  • Check the configuration for the Website/Booking Engine source

  • Remove or adjust any fees only applied to direct bookings that aren't also applied to OTAs

If the fee is required, consider baking it into your rate instead of listing it separately.

Changes can take up to 48 hours to reflect on Google.

3. Your property may not meet all Google listing requirements

Ensure the following settings are correct:

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  • Your Google Business Profile is claimed and the name/address/phone match exactly what’s listed in Cloudbeds.

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  • The Google Hotel Search channel is enabled in Cloudbeds under Distribution > Channels.

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  • The setting “Allow guests to book specific accommodations” is disabled.
    • This feature can interfere with how Google filters guest occupancy and may prevent your link from showing.  

As of March 16th, the activation will occur weekly. Keep an eye out for an in-app announcement on your Cloudbeds account to see if your account has been activated.

You can also check the following notification on your Distribution page:

1. Access the Channels tab in Distribution section
2. If your property has been included, you will see the following notification:

No - only properties with Cloudbeds Booking Engine will be eligible to be included in Google Hotel Search services.

If you use a different booking engine and want leverage Google, your booking engine provider needs to build their own integration - In such cases, please reach out to your booking engine provider directly.

For a better understanding, check the following details:

1. Free Booking Links - A free listing in Google Hotel Search that displays a link to your Cloudbeds booking engine with an official site badge that shows bookable rates on the prices page for your property. They lead to direct reservations and appear underneath any 'Google Hotel Ads' being run. They are listed under All options.
2. Google My Business - is a free tool that allows you to promote your property on Google Search. You can see and connect with your customers, post updates to your business profile, and see how customers are interacting with your business on Google.
3. Google Hotel Ads - Prominently displays your official website on Google Hotel Search with bookable rates. They lead to direct reservations and appear along with any other 'Google Hotel Ads' being run. Display in a property’s Google My Business profile, and appear in Google hotel finder results. When a user clicks on a Google Hotel Ad, they are redirected directly into the property's booking engine to complete the booking.
4. Google Ads - Google Ads are ‘keyword ads’ - A paid product that you can use to promote your business, help sell products or services, raise awareness, and increase traffic to your website. The results contain an Ad box. This program used to be called Google AdWords, where you bid on a keyword, create an advertisement with ad copy and people click on it to go to your website.

Google Hotel Ads is a metasearch tool that compares the property prices available on different OTAs and properties' direct websites.

The main goal of this feature is to increase direct bookings and online visibility in search engine results.

Cloudbeds PMS is integrated with Google Hotel Search, providing Availability, Rates, and Inventory to Google. This integration makes it possible to run Google Hotel Ads, which is offered through our Cloudbeds Digital Marketing.

No - All eligible properties will be included in the Google Hotel Search service, and this allows properties to benefit from the organic listing Google search results. Since Ads Hotel allows you to connect with other platforms, too, you can keep both and do not need to switch to Google Hotel Search.

We are working on better solutions for properties promotion on Google Hotels Ads in the future.

In order to temporarily close your property on Google, you need to mark your property at your Google My Business profile as "temporarily closed".

Cloudbeds updates Google with blocked inventory, but also, you will not be able to promote your property at Google.

If you want to disable your Google Hotel Search connection, send an email to our support team and one of our Customer Coaches will confirm once complete.

Cloudbeds will send your rates, availability and inventory from the Booking Engine to Google. Check the following article for further details about restrictions: Google Hotel Search - Information about Restrictions

• If you have any add-ons configured at Cloudbeds, the guests can add them to the reservation during the booking process, but it will not be reflected in Google
• Cloudbeds does not send payment options to Google

The activation occurs weekly for a smooth and successful rollout. If Google Hotel Search service was not activated for your property, it means that your property was not determined by Cloudbeds for last week's cohort.

If your property is eligible for the connection, we will activate Google Hotel Search service soon.

It is not possible due to the requirements from Google in order to update prices and inventory correctly. Cloudbeds needs to use the Booking Engine URL as the landing page.

As a workaround, you can use an option to redirect your guests once the booking is confirmed. Click here to check how to configure.

Google Hotel Search provides a "Free cancellation only" toggle or filter that allows users to narrow down their hotel search results.

If the customer turns ON the toggle, your property might not show up because Cloudbeds does not currently send cancellation policy data to Google Hotel Search via Channel Manager.

This means Google cannot detect whether your direct booking rates include free cancellation. As a result, your property will not appear when travelers apply the "Free cancellation only" filter; even if your rates offer free cancellation.

If you do not want certain room types to be displayed on Google Hotel Search, you can use the Allotment or Closeout options in the Distribution page.

The Allotment option will affect the inventory for all channels, while the Closeout setting will turn unavailable dates specifically for the Google Hotel Search channel.

Further details below:

In the channels list, you may encounter the following message:

This means that Google is not able to match your property.

Some solutions to fix this are:

• Adding or Claiming your Business on Google My Business
• Hotel categories shall be selected
• Property profile details should match the information in Cloudbeds

Fixing Data Issues:

• The phone number is too short
• Missing physical address
• Invalid Phone Number
• Missing Street Number
• Inconsistent latitude/longitude
• Invalid Postal Code

• Although the guest found your property on Google and used the Free Booking Link, the reservation itself was made on the Cloudbeds Booking Engine. Therefore, the reservation source will always be showing as Website/Booking Engine.

• If you need to see which reservations were created using the Free Booking Link on Google, you can export the list of reservations from the Reservations tab and use the field Origin. The reservations made through Google connection will have Cloudbeds Digital Marketing as the Origin.

Follow the steps:

1. Go to Reservations
2. You can filter the reservations by Date Booked
3. Click Apply
4. Click Export Reservations

5. Make sure the field Origin is selected (on the right side) - You may add or remove other fields if necessary.
6. Click Export Reservations

Google compares prices between direct bookings and channels (OTAs) and shows the cheapest price on the following Google calendar.

When the guest is redirected to your Cloudbeds Booking Engine, they will see all available rooms, base rates and rate plans* for the selected date range.

The booking link will redirect not only to a specific rate plan or room type, but also to the guests section to indicate the number of adults and children (if applicable).

It is possible that your old PMS/Booking Engine are still active.

Solution: Contact your old provider to make sure the system is completely shut down. If the inventory is still active on the old PMS, reservations can still go into it.

Once the old PMS is decommissioned, Cloudbeds Booking Engine link will appear — as long as Google Hotel Search is enabled on Cloudbeds PMS. Check out the requirements: Google Hotel Search - All you need to know

Whenever Google Hotel Search mapping switches to Pending approval from Channel status — it could mean that the Amount Allotted for Sale was changed, and Google is trying to update the feed list.

After Google Hotel Search is done with it, the status on the mapping should change to Enabled again.

Properties that belong to the same owner, have similar names and are in close vicinity to one another, cannot be connected to Google Hotel Search. This is a restriction coming from Google Hotel Search.

For the two properties to be connected to Google Hotel Search, they should be at least 1.5 miles apart from each other.