Search your hotel's name on Google from your phone. Beside your photos and reviews, you will often see a list of prices from booking sites, each one a link to book. If your own website is not on that list, a guest who searched for you by name ends up booking on an OTA. You then pay commission on a guest who was looking for you. This guide explains what those prices are, what Google's free booking links cost, and what you need to add your own.
What a guest sees when they search your hotel on Google
When someone searches for your hotel, or for hotels in your town, Google shows a hotel card. It has your photos, your rating and a map. For the dates the guest picks, it often shows a list of prices from different sites.
Each price is a link, and a guest who taps one books on that site. A price that comes from the hotel itself can carry the label "Official site", which tells the guest they are booking with you directly.
Google shows the prices each site sends, but it doesn't set them. Google also decides which links to show and in what order, so no one outside Google controls the list.
Free booking links cost you nothing in commission
Free booking links are free in the way that matters most to a hotel. Google takes no commission on the booking and charges nothing for the click. Google also sells ads for hotels, but those are a separate, paid product. You don't need ads to appear in the free links.
With ZimmerStack, a booking that comes through your Google link carries no commission from Google, and the guest pays at the property.
Worked example
Two links on the same card
In this example, Google's card shows your room at ₹4,350 on an OTA and ₹4,150 on your official site. The OTA's commission is 18%.
| Booked through the OTA link | Booked through your free booking link | |
|---|---|---|
| Price the guest pays | ₹4,350 | ₹4,150 |
| Commission | ₹783 | ₹0 |
| What reaches you | ₹3,567 | ₹4,150 |
Your price was ₹200 lower, and you still kept ₹583 more from the booking.
This is the same arithmetic as how to increase direct bookings, with one difference. The guest was already searching for your hotel by name.
What you need before your link can appear
Google shows a hotel's own link only when it has details it can trust and prices it can check. Work through this list before you connect.
- A Google Business Profile. Claim and verify your hotel's profile, so you control its details.
- The same name, address and phone everywhere. Your profile, your website and your OTA listings should match word for word.
- Live rates and availability from a channel manager. Google needs a connection that sends your prices and rooms, and updates them when they change.
- A booking page that works. The link has to open a page where the guest can book the dates and room they picked.
- Full property details. Add photos, a description, check-in and check-out times, and your cancellation policy.
- Prices that match. Google expects the price it shows to be the price the guest sees when your page opens.
The name, address and phone line is the easiest one to get wrong. An old phone number on one OTA, or "Road" on one site and "Rd" on another, is enough to cause doubt. Why your hotel's name and address must match has an audit you can run in about an hour.
How the connection works through your channel manager
You don't upload prices to Google by hand. A connected channel manager sends them, the same way it sends prices to your OTAs.
- Claim your Google Business Profile. Check the name, address, phone, website and photos.
- Fix your details everywhere else. Make your website and every OTA listing match the profile exactly.
- Ask your channel manager to connect Google Hotels. In ZimmerStack, Google Hotels connects like any other channel. Ask support, and the team sets it up with you.
- Check the rooms and plans Google receives. Send the plans guests will recognise, such as room only and with breakfast.
- Give Google time. Google checks the connection and your details before your price appears.
- Search your hotel as a guest. Use a private window on your phone, pick dates, and check your link and your price.
Because Google receives the same rates and rooms as your OTAs, a booking on any channel closes the room everywhere, Google included. ZimmerStack's channel manager runs Google from the same inventory as every other channel.
Keep your official-site price the lowest on the card
Google puts your price and the OTAs' prices in one list, on one screen. It is the plainest price comparison a guest will ever make.
If an OTA shows less than your official site, the guest sees it at once. You then pay commission on a guest who searched for you by name, which is the most avoidable commission there is.
The fix is the same as for rate parity: one base rate, a channel markup for OTAs and a website discount for your site. Why your website must never cost more walks through it with numbers. Check the card once a month, for a weekday and a weekend, the way a guest would.
When a guest searches your hotel by name, your own link should be on the card, and it should be the cheapest one.
What Google will not promise, and what you control
No one can promise where your link appears, or whether Google shows it for every search. Google decides the order and the links it shows. Be careful with anyone who promises you a place at the top.
What you control is what Google works from:
- Correct details on your profile, your website and every OTA.
- Live prices and rooms from a working connection.
- A price that no OTA on the card beats.
- A booking page that loads fast and confirms straight away. What a hotel booking engine does covers what that page needs.
- Recent reviews, with a reply to each one. How your rating decides your price explains why they matter.
What to do this week
- Search your hotel on Google. Use your phone, pick next Saturday, and note every price on the card.
- Claim your Google Business Profile. If someone set it up years ago, get access back.
- Match your name, address and phone. Make your website and every OTA listing say exactly what your profile says.
- Check your booking page. Make sure it opens fast on a phone and confirms without a call.
- Ask for Google Hotels on your channel manager. Then check the card again once your price appears.