When Booking appears ahead of your own website
This article explains why Google makes that choice, how to run the test in two minutes, and what solves the problem in the order worth following.
If someone types the name of your restaurant into Google and the first result is Uber Eats, or types the name of your accommodation and the first result is Booking, something specific is happening: you are paying commission for customers who already knew you and were searching for you by name. Google is not making a mistake: it is choosing, between two pages about your business, the one it considers more reliable. And that one is not yours.
Run the test now, it takes two minutes
- The name of your business, nothing else. ‘Restaurant [name]’, ‘[name] Funchal’.
- The name plus the town. ‘[name] Machico’, ‘[name] Caniço’.
- The name plus what you sell. ‘[name] pizza’, ‘[name] double room’.
Now look at the first three or four results for each search and answer one question: how many of them are yours?
If the answer is ‘all of them’, you can close this article. If you see Booking, Airbnb, Uber Eats, Glovo, GetYourGuide, TripAdvisor or a directory you never authorised, keep reading.
Notice one thing, because this is the part that is usually missed: anyone typing your business name is already your customer. They are not discovering you. They know you, they liked you, they are coming back, and they have just been handed to a platform that will charge a commission on that booking or order. Commission exists to bring in new customers. In this search, it is not bringing in anyone.
Open Google in a private window, so your browsing history does not interfere, and type:
Why Google chooses the platform instead of your website
Domain authority.
Booking has millions of links from other websites pointing to it. Your website has the links it has gathered. You cannot win on this signal, and this is not where you compete.
Structured data.
Platforms tell Google, in code, exactly what the page is: an accommodation business, with an address, price, availability, reviews and an average rating. Most Madeira business websites say none of this, and we often find websites that display Google reviews in a nice image without a single line of code saying that it is a review. It is there for the visitor. For Google, it does not exist.
Updates.
The platform page changes every day because prices and availability change. The ‘About us’ page on your website has been the same since 2021.
Reviews.
The platform shows dozens, with dates and text. Your website shows three anonymous testimonials.
Entity clarity.
This is the signal where almost everyone loses points without knowing it. If your business appears online with its name written four different ways, two conflicting postcodes and two street numbers, Google has to decide whether it is looking at one business or several similar ones. When it has that doubt, it prefers the source that has no doubts: the platform.
It is not malice and it is not random. When two pages are about the same thing, Google decides based on signals, and the platforms win on almost all of them:
That last point is not theory. It is the problem we find most often in Madeira businesses with more than one venue or more than one counter.
What solves it, in order of importance
The order matters, because the first two points cost little and solve most of the problem.
1. Your complete Google Business Profile
Your Google Business Profile is the only asset that can appear above every result, with a map, stars and a phone button. Complete means: the right primary category, services or dishes listed, up-to-date opening hours including public holidays, a link to your website with the correct address, and plenty of real photographs: the recognisable exterior, the interior, the team, what you sell. The exterior is what Google uses to confirm that the business exists where it says it does.
And publish updates on the profile. They do not need to be elaborate: a new dish, a finished project, a note about the week.
2. The same name, address and phone number everywhere
Choose one way to write the business name and address, and use it without variation: on the website, Google Business Profile, Facebook, Instagram, directories, Booking and Uber Eats. The same name, the same street number, the same postcode, the same phone number.
It is one of the most tedious tasks there is and one of the tasks that delivers the most per hour spent. With more than one venue, it makes the difference between Google understanding that there is a group and believing they are unrelated businesses.
3. Structured data on your website
Tell Google, in code, what your website is: what type of business it is, where it is, its opening hours, the services it offers, the dishes it serves and the rooms it has. It is a morning's work and it is missing from almost every website we have audited this year.
A technical note worth knowing, because there is a lot of incorrect information about this: reviews a business publishes on its own website do not produce stars in Google results. The markup helps Google connect the website to its business profile as the same entity: it is not for stars. The stars that count are those on the Google Business Profile.
4. One of your own pages for each thing the platform shows
If Booking has one page per room and your website has a single ‘Rooms’ page with everything together, Booking has a better chance. The same applies to a restaurant whose menu is a PDF: Uber Eats has one page per dish, with a name, description and photograph, while your PDF has none of that.
You do not need to copy the platform. You need a page on your website that answers the same question.
5. Ask for reviews without embarrassment
Ask. At the end of a meal, at check-out, when delivering a project. It is the cheapest local signal there is and the one where a small business can overtake a large one in a few months.
6. Give people a reason to book directly
After reclaiming the search for your name, the person lands on your website, and there they need a reason not to return to the platform. It can be the price, a condition, a drink or a late check-out. Anything the platform cannot offer. Without that, you won the search and lost the booking.
What does not solve it
Leaving the platforms.
That is not the goal and it is almost never a good idea. Platforms bring in new customers, which is what they are for. The goal is to stop paying them for customers who were already yours.
Paying for ads on your own name.
It solves the problem on the day you pay and returns to the same situation on the day you stop. It is a quick, expensive patch.
Changing your website.
If the website is built properly, the problem is not the website: it is what is missing around it. Rebuilding a website that works is the most expensive way not to solve this.
Frequently asked questions
It does, and it is less serious. The social profiles are yours and do not charge commission on bookings. Even so, if your Instagram profile appears above your website, it is a sign that the website has little authority for its own name, and the correction is the same.
For a search of the name, which is the easiest search of all, it takes weeks rather than months, as long as the Google Business Profile is completed and the structured data is added. That is exactly why it is the first thing we recommend: it is quick and noticeable.
It changes everything, and for the worse if nothing is done. With several venues, the risk is not only that the platform appears first: Google may treat your five venues as five unrelated businesses with conflicting information. In that case, the priority is to organise the profiles one by one before changing the website.
Repeat the test from the start of this article every month, always in a private window, and write down what appears in the first three results. It is a five-line table in a notebook and tells you more than any report.
I do a free visibility check: I search for your business as a customer would, on Google and on Maps, see what appears ahead of your website and why, and send you a report with what I found in the order worth fixing. It is free and there is no commitment. Request the free visibility check, or, if you prefer, search for your name on Google first and tell me what you saw.