For searches like "hotels in London", the top organic results are portals and chains, and a good article won't change that on its own. What a hotel can do is control what depends on it: its Google profile, its pages, its booking links and, in the EU, a new Google unit for direct suppliers. This guide goes through each part with the sources available and what hasn't been measured. There are figures for what an OTA booking costs, but no reliable figure for how much SEO changes your direct bookings. You'll have to measure that yourself.
What's realistic against Booking and Expedia
The direct channel is still the largest in Europe. According to PhocusWire and Hospitality ON, the 2026 study by the European trade body HOTREC, with responses from 2,713 properties, puts direct bookings at 51.3% and OTAs at 29.9% in 2025, against 57.6% and about 19.7% in 2013. Two caveats: we read those reports and not the full study, and HOTREC represents hotels. "Direct" includes website, email, phone and walk-ins, so it isn't what Google brings you.
To see who occupies the results, Sistrix showed this on 6 November 2026 for nine searches in three large cities (Barcelona, Hamburg and London):
- "Where to stay in…": no hotel website in the top 10 organic results in any of the three markets. They're travel blogs, videos and forums, sometimes portals.
- "Hotels + city": 2 or 3 chains, and the rest portals, metasearch engines and tourism sites.
- Deals or booking: 0 or 1 hotel or chain websites.
That's nine searches and not a rule: it leaves out small cities, mobile, and the hotel boxes and ads above the results. It also doesn't show that a small hotel can get into the "where to stay" results. Look at your own searches: open a private window, search your name and three local queries, and note what appears before the first organic result. The "domain authority" so often quoted is a metric from third-party tools. It doesn't appear in the Google guides we read for this article, so don't take it as a Google figure.
What an OTA booking costs
We found no general rate published by Booking. The firmest figure we read is a contract: Best Western's 2025 franchise disclosure document records, for its North American hotels, 15% of net room revenue on the standard programme and 18% on the preferred one, which is by Booking's invitation. It's one brand's agreement, approved in 2015, and we read it in a third-party copy, partly summarised. Your rate is in your contract.
The sum that matters uses your own numbers. Here's an invented example:
| Item | Example | Where to find yours |
|---|---|---|
| Net booking value | €300 | Your reservation system |
| OTA commission | 15%: €45 | Your contract |
| Cost of a direct booking | Booking engine, payment gateway, ads and SEO spread across bookings | Your accounts |
SEO only pays off if its cost per additional direct booking stays below that commission. Count only bookings that wouldn't have come anyway: someone searching for your name already knew you. That's why we removed the previous version's sum, "if 5% of your traffic books". It had no source.
What people search for at each stage
Average monthly volume in the UK, Google Keyword Planner, 12 months, retrieved on 6 November 2026. London is an example, and where one stage ends and the next begins is our judgement.
| Stage | Search | Volume | Page that fits |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inspiration | things to do in london | 74,000 | Area guide |
| Inspiration | where to stay in london | 880 | Neighbourhood guide, with your hotel as one option |
| Comparison | hotels in london | 49,500 | Home or hotel page |
| Comparison | hotels in central london | 18,100 | Hotel page that makes the location clear |
| Comparison | london hotels with pool | 4,400 | Pool or facility page |
| Booking | london hotel deals | 5,400 | Offers page with real conditions |
| Booking | book hotel london | 2,900 | Hotel page with direct access to the booking engine |
| Booking | london hotel free cancellation | 40 | Hardly anyone searches this way: say it on the booking page |
Two readings. Facility searches don't carry equal weight: "with pool" has volume, while "with breakfast" (20) and "free cancellation" have almost none, and a small town will have very different figures. And much of the inspiration volume isn't asking for a hotel: someone looking for things to do in London isn't booking, and we have no data on how many end up on your site. For more ideas, start with the long-tail searches in your area and check the volume before you write.
Your Google Business Profile
Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and popularity, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help. It gives no figures. The basics of local SEO are in our glossary. For a hotel, its guidelines have three details:
- Name: your real name, the one you use consistently. Unnecessary information isn't allowed and can get the profile suspended, so no "Hotel X, the best in London with spa".
- Categories: the fewest that describe your core business. A restaurant, café or bar inside the hotel should have its own profile, and the hotel doesn't add "Restaurant" as a category.
- Hours: Google lists hotels and motels among businesses that shouldn't provide hours. Our previous version recommended the opposite.
Reply to reviews: Google says positive ones and helpful replies can help you stand out. It doesn't say how much that moves bookings.
Room and destination pages
Google has no document specifically for hotels here, so this is our judgement. Each page answers a search from the table above:
- Room: size, beds, views, real photos of that room, and a link that opens the booking engine with it selected.
- Facility: if "with pool" gets searched, the pool deserves its own page, with hours, season and photos. If it has no volume, one line will do.
- Area: write what only you know, such as the real journey from the station or when the terrace next door fills up. Everyone already has a list of monuments.
- Who's responsible: byline, address and contact details. We cover this in how to show E-E-A-T.
Hotel search in the EU (DMA)
If your hotel looks different in Europe than elsewhere, this is why. It's a summary of public sources as of 6 November 2026, not legal advice.
- The decision. On 23 July 2026 the European Commission found that Google favours its own services in Search, hotels among them, and fined it €460 million for that. The other €430 million of the €890 million total relates to Google Play. It ordered Google to end the breach and said it will monitor the changes Google has proposed and started testing.
- The units. Google's documentation describes, for users in the European Economic Area, an aggregator unit for approved OTAs and metasearch engines, whose clicks go to the aggregator's site. And a supplier unit (updated 18 September 2026) for direct providers such as a hotel, which only appears if the aggregator unit does. It isn't called that on the page: in three searches we looked at on 6 November 2026, for Barcelona, Hamburg and Dublin, each in its own language, it was headed "Hotel websites" or the equivalent, with 10 hotels on their own domains, above the web results.
- What it asks of a hotel. That the site serves users in the EEA and that you're a direct provider. Google says you don't need to provide data beyond what can be crawled, though supplier feeds can enhance the result.
- Carousel. There's also a beta carousel, available in the EEA for hotels among others, using ItemList markup with types such as Hotel.
There are few independent figures on the effect. Google, which is a party here, wrote in November 2024 that hotels and other businesses had reported drops of up to 30% in free direct clicks, and in December that hotels lost more than 10% of traffic in a test without hotel features in Germany, Belgium and Estonia. Mirai, which sells direct-booking technology, calculated, from Google Analytics 4 data on more than 3,000 properties worldwide and comparing eight months before and after January 2024, that Google Hotels fell in the EU from 13.4% to 8.9% as a source of direct bookings. After what other channels won back, that leaves a balance of −0.8 share points, which isn't 0.8% of bookings. All of this predates the 2026 decision, and nobody has yet measured what the current change brings.
What to do: check that your site can be crawled and shows prices, photos and location on the page. Ask your reservation provider about feeds. And search for your hotel from an EEA country, because what you see elsewhere doesn't apply.
Hotel Ads and free booking links
These are two different things. Google's Hotel Center help explains that Hotel Ads are paid links ranked by auction, while free booking links cost nothing and are ranked by usefulness. That usefulness takes in user preference, the value offered, the landing page and the historical accuracy of prices. According to Google, taking part in Hotel Ads or not has no effect on the ranking of free links.
Start with the free part: ask your reservation system, as Google says you may already be connected through it. If not, its starter guide explains how. If your prices on Google don't match your site's, fix that before you think about bidding. If you run ads, compare their cost per booking with the OTA commission, using the same sum as above.
Structured data for a hotel
- Type: Hotel is a subtype of LodgingBusiness and LocalBusiness in Schema.org, and Google documents the properties under LocalBusiness. There's more in what is structured data.
- What's marked up must be visible: Google asks you not to mark up content readers can't see on the page.
- Stars from your own reviews: since 2019 Google hasn't shown them for LocalBusiness and Organization when the entity being reviewed controls the reviews, including through a widget.
- Prices: those in booking links reach Google through Hotel Center or your provider.
Several languages
If you host travellers from other countries, each version needs writing for that market. Google asks you to mark versions with hreflang so it understands they're variants of the same content, and notes it doesn't use it to detect language. The detail is in what is hreflang. Research searches in each language separately: those in Spain and Germany aren't translations of the UK ones, and a table like the one above has to be redone for each market.
How to tell if it's working
Measure direct bookings and revenue, because traffic alone pays no commissions. These are the pieces:
- Google Analytics 4: if your booking engine is on another domain, set up cross-domain measurement. Without it, the booking looks as if it came from elsewhere. With a cookie banner, the figure may fall short of the real one.
- Search Console: separate searches with your brand from the rest. The former already knew you.
- Hotel Center: free booking link performance is in its reports section.
- Your reservation system: each month, bookings and revenue by channel and commission paid. It's the most reliable figure you have.
A rise in direct bookings can come from the season, a price change or the EU decision itself. Compare with the same month a year earlier and note what you changed. If you'd like someone alongside you, there's our SEO for tourism and hotels.
FAQ
Can a hotel outrank Booking on Google?
In the organic results for "hotels + city" we didn't see it: in the three searches we checked in Sistrix, in large cities, the hotel sites were chains and the rest portals and metasearch engines. In the EEA, though, the "Hotel websites" unit sat above the web results in the three searches we looked at, though we don't know how many clicks it gets. That's few searches, signed in, with no small towns or mobile.
How much commission does Booking charge?
We found no general published rate. Best Western's North American agreement records 15%, and 18% on the preferred programme, according to its 2025 franchise document. Yours is in your contract.
Are Google's booking links really free?
Google says it charges nothing for placement or clicks. You need a Hotel Center account or a connected provider, which may have costs of its own.
What changes in the EU?
For hotels, Google shows aggregator and direct supplier units in the EEA, and the Commission is monitoring these changes after its July 2026 decision. You have to measure the effect on your bookings.
Should I add opening hours to my Google profile?
Under Google's guidelines, hotels and motels shouldn't provide them.
Sources
Retrieved on 6 November 2026.
- European Commission: fine on Google, 23 July 2026, press release IP/26/1670
- Google: regional differences, aggregator unit, supplier unit, Hotel Center starter guide
- Google: beta carousels, 11 September 2026
- Google: DMA compliance update, 26 November 2024, and hotels test data, 12 December 2024
- Mirai: DMA impact on hotels, 14 October 2024
- Google: free booking links
- Google: local ranking, Business Profile guidelines
- Google: LocalBusiness, structured data guidelines, self-serving reviews, Schema.org: Hotel
- Google: localized versions, 21 September 2026, and cross-domain measurement
- Best Western 2025 franchise disclosure document, third-party copy
- PhocusWire on the HOTREC 2026 study, 17 September 2026, Hospitality ON (in French)
- Volumes: Google Keyword Planner; top results: Sistrix. Retrieved on 6 November 2026, no public link.
How this article was made
The previous version cited a 5% traffic figure with no source and recommended adding hours to the profile. This text was rewritten in November 2026 with AI assistance, from the pages linked above, and reviewed before publication. It includes no client data, and we haven't tested every recommendation in a hotel. Recommendations with no source are marked as our judgement.
