When is a hotel website not a hotel website - or a list not a list?
The BOOT highlights an intriguing website called TopHotel100.com.
It is basically a catalogue of the most popular hotel-related websites on the web, based on the number of other sites on the list that "mention" [in other words, link] them.
[A bit like Technorati]
But the list itself is rather odd. The top ten goes something like this:
- 1 Tripadvisor.com 2,110,000 (mentions)
- 2 Booking.com 1,760,000
- 3 MySwitzerland.com 1,570,000
4 Orbitz.com 1440000
5 Holidaycheck.de 1,420,000
6 Marriott.com 1,330,000
7 Expedia.com 1,290,000
8 Voyages-sncf.com 1,230,000
9 Travel-library.com 1,080,000
10 Kayak.com 1,020,000
Is Kayak a "hotel" site? And VoyagesSNCF is a rail-led/online travel agency site. It seems astonishing that there are 1.5 million mentions of MySwitzerland.com contained on the other 312 sites.
As Hughes on The Boot says, he doesn't actually care as the overall list is quite a good who's who of decent hotel sites (with the odd bizarre exception), but there is certainly a faint whiff of the Link Love going on here a bit.
We've submitted the Travolution Blog to see how closely they monitor entries.
We were asked to add a link or logo in order to get listed. [TOP 100 HOTEL SITES]
Struggling to find the link on TripAdvisor and Expedia, unsurprisingly.
We'll keep you posted......
Kevin May, editor, Travolution
Technorati tags: hotel 100 lists
2 comments:
That is a surprisingly high ranking for MySwitzerland.com a destination site.
On the other hand, when I headed the project to build that site back in '99 we put a strong emphasis on a national hotel booking engine for Switzerland.
A feature that was, of course, widely attacked by travel agents at that time but welcomed by individual travelers from all markets.
Good article , you make some interesting points.
hotel information
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