Hotel Tech Report consistently improves the HT Score ranking algorithm to incorporate variables and mechanisms that productize the buyer research, vetting, and due diligence criteria considered by savvy hotel technology buyers.

Similar to Google’s algorithm updates, HTR periodically rolls out improvements to build upon and strengthen the scoring methodology over time. These updates are designed to help hoteliers make better decisions, faster, by ensuring that rankings reflect the most accurate, fair, and current view of products in the market.

In a world increasingly shaped by AI, verified reviews and current customer feedback are more critical than ever. Buyers are no longer relying only on traditional search, review sites, and peer recommendations. They are also using AI tools and large language models that synthesize information from across the web - often with the HotelTechReport platform being the most cited data source in hotel tech commercial buyer prompts.

That makes it even more important for HotelTechReport to maintain the most accurate, current, and representative view of the hotel technology market. AI is accelerating how quickly products evolve, how quickly vendors reposition, and how quickly buyers evaluate their options. In this environment, outdated signals can become misleading faster than ever.

The core purpose of the Valhalla update is to ensure HTScore continues to reflect the latest and most relevant information about products in the market. This update is not designed to overhaul the HTScore or change the fundamental role of customer validation in the scoring system. Instead, Valhalla makes several existing scoring inputs more dynamic, consistent, and quality-oriented.

In short: Valhalla helps ensure that HT Score better reflects recent customer trust, representative market validation, and the strength of a vendor’s ecosystem relationships.

Who Will Be Impacted?

Most companies will not be materially impacted by the Valhalla update.

Companies are more likely to see movement if they have:

• Few or no recent reviews
• A large share of reviews from only a small number of hotels
• Older case studies that have not been refreshed
• Category strength based primarily on historical review volume
• Ecosystem signals based more on quantity than quality
• Limited recent validation from customers or partners

Companies with recent, representative customer feedback and strong ecosystem relationships should be well aligned with the direction of the update.

Rollout Notes

Most companies on Hotel Tech Report are not expected to see a material impact from this update.

Companies most likely to see movement are those whose current scores rely heavily on older reputation signals, reviews concentrated across a small number of hotels, outdated verified case studies, or quantity-based ecosystem signals that do not reflect current partner strength.

Vendors can review their current standings in the Reputation Report Card inside the vendor dashboard (which will soon get a major UI overhaul as well - stay tuned).

All Reputation Signals Are Not Created Equal

Generally speaking, this group of updates builds on a simple principle: not all reputation signals are created equal.

Recent reviews are more reflective of the current product experience than reviews from years ago. Recent case studies are more useful to buyers than outdated proof points.  Strong partner relationships are more meaningful than simply having a long list of integrations or recommendations with weak or unpopular partners.

The Valhalla update strengthens HTScore by making these signals more consistent across the scoring model.

Below are additional details about the criteria being updated.

Review Recency and Share of Voice

Share of Voice will now better reflect review recency and representative customer validation.

Historically, some scoring inputs treated all reviews similarly regardless of when they were collected. Valhalla brings greater consistency to how review recency is factored across the algorithm.

As a result, recent reviews will carry more importance than older reviews because they are more reflective of the current product, customer experience, and market position.

This update also helps ensure that Share of Voice better accounts for the breadth of a vendor’s verified customer feedback. A vendor with reviews from many different hotel clients provides a broader market signal than a vendor with a similar number of reviews concentrated across only a small number of hotels.  The Share of Voice variable now dynamically decays quantity the same way that reviews do.

Case Study Recency

Case studies are an important trust signal for hotel buyers because they provide real-world examples of customer success, implementation outcomes, and product impact.

With Valhalla, case studies will become more dynamic as a reputation signal. Recent case studies will better reflect a vendor’s current product capabilities and customer outcomes, while older case studies will become less influential over time.

This helps prevent outdated proof points from carrying the same weight indefinitely and encourages vendors to maintain current, relevant customer stories.

Partner Recommendations Based on Quality

In our 2021 Poseidon Update, HTR introduced an "integration quality score" which valued integrations with popular apps above those with weaker or unpopular ones.

Now partner recommendations will now place emphasis on the strength of the recommending partner rather than the raw number of recommendations.  A partner recommendation from a partner with an HTScore of 100 is more valuable than one from a partner with an HTScore of 60.

This means that recommendations from highly validated, credible partners will be more meaningful than recommendations from partners with limited market validation.

The purpose of this update is to better reflect the quality and credibility of partner relationships rather than simply rewarding quantity.

Customer Advocates Based on Current Category Strength

The Customer Advocates component will now better reflect current category momentum rather than all-time review totals alone.

This ensures that products recognized for customer advocacy are those with strong, recent customer validation in their category.

In practical terms, this update helps distinguish companies that are actively earning customer trust today from companies whose category position is primarily supported by older historical review volume.

Impact on Vendors

As with any algorithm update, it's impossible to predict what the movements will be upon rollout. However, we know who will be impacted positively based on characteristics and who will be impacted negatively. This also has to be scaled at the category level and depends on the competitive movement within each subcategory of software.

Tips to Optimize Your Rankings for the Valhalla Update

💡 Tip #1: Make sure you have recent reviews that are reflective of the current product experience for buyers. / Related to: Review recency and Share of Voice

💡 Tip #2: Diversify review collection across your customer base and avoid concentrating feedback among only a small number of hotels. / Related to: Representative customer validation

💡 Tip #3: Keep case studies fresh and publish current customer stories that reflect your latest product capabilities and outcomes. / Related to: Case study recency

💡 Tip #4: Build high-quality partner relationships and collect recommendations from credible ecosystem partners. / Related to: Partner recommendation quality

💡 Tip #5: Make sure integrations are listed, verified, and connected to meaningful ecosystem relationships. / Related to: Ecosystem quality

💡 Tip #6: Review your Reputation Report Card and Coaching Checklist to identify the most important opportunities to improve your visibility, reputation, and rankings. / Related to: Vendor dashboard optimization.

FAQ

Will my HT Score or ranking be impacted?

Most companies will not see a major change. Companies with older, less representative, or more quantity-driven reputation signals may see movement.

Does this mean older reviews no longer matter?

No. Older reviews still provide useful historical context. However, recent reviews are more reflective of the current product and customer experience, so Valhalla places greater emphasis on current market validation.

Can we still collect multiple reviews from the same hotel?

Yes. Hotel Tech Report recognizes that different users at the same hotel may have different roles, perspectives, and experiences with the same product.

That said, vendors should aim to collect reviews from a broad and representative sample of their customer base. Collecting a large share of reviews from only a small number of hotels may not provide buyers with a complete picture of market adoption or customer satisfaction.

Why are case studies being updated?

Case studies are valuable because they help buyers understand real customer outcomes. However, older case studies may not reflect a vendor’s current product, team, customer experience, or market position. Valhalla ensures that more recent case studies are better reflected as current proof points.

Why is HTR moving away from quantity-based ecosystem signals?

Hotel buyers do not evaluate ecosystem strength based only on the number of integrations or recommendations a vendor has. They also care about the quality, credibility, and relevance of those relationships.

Valhalla better aligns the algorithm with how buyers evaluate technology ecosystems in the real world.

What should we do to improve our score?

The best way to improve your score is to build a healthy, ongoing reputation strategy:

• Collect authentic reviews from a broad set of verified hotel customers
• Maintain recent customer feedback
• Keep case studies current
• Build credible partner and integration relationships
• Use the Reputation Report Card and Coaching Checklist to identify improvement opportunities

Where can we see our current standing?

Vendors can view their current performance in the Reputation Report Card inside the vendor dashboard.

Note

As with Google or any other ranking methodology, HTR’s algorithm is proprietary. Full disclosure of exact calculations, thresholds, and formulas can lead to attempts to game the system, which is why exact scoring mechanics are not shared publicly.

That said, HTR is committed to providing clear documentation, transparent guidance, and actionable tools such as the Reputation Report Card and Coaching Checklist so vendors can understand the key drivers of ranking performance and improve their presence on Hotel Tech Report in an authentic, buyer-centric way.

Win the shopper who's actively comparing you against the competition — and become the answer when buyers ask AI for alternatives.

This is the second step in a broader effort — following our redesigned comparison analyst reports — to infuse Hotel Tech Report's proprietary data and analysis into richer, decision-grade content. We're taking the same engine behind Segment Rankings — every verified review, scored across hotel size, type, and region — and using it to power the pages buyers rely on most.

When a hotelier searches "[your product] alternatives," they aren't browsing — they're in a buying decision, weighing their options before they commit. We've rebuilt these pages from the ground up to make that high-intent moment work harder, for buyers and for the vendors our community recommends.

Check out a sample alternatives page

What's new

• One page per company — we consolidated overlapping product-level pages into a single, authoritative alternatives page per company. Better for buyers, stronger for SEO, and no more pages competing against each other for the same search.
• Powered by Segment Rankings — alternatives are broken out by hotel size (small, mid-sized, large), drawing on the same verified-review data behind Segment Rankings, so shoppers see the products that fit a property like theirs instead of a generic one-size-fits-all list.
• Real data, real analysis — verified recommendation rates, HT Scores, pricing tiers, AI-generated summaries, and head-to-head comparison links in one view, so buyers can build a shortlist without bouncing back to Google.
• Built for LLM discovery — clean URLs, structured data, and a crawlable layout so your rankings get cited when buyers research alternatives through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini.
• Faster and mobile-first — optimized to load quickly and read cleanly on any device.

What this means for vendors

Your data is the engine. These pages are dynamically generated and live-updated from real Hotel Tech Report signals — your verified reviews, your segment rankings, your recommendation rates, your content and editorial presence. That makes everything you build on HTR more valuable than ever: the stronger your reviews and the richer your presence, the more prominently and persuasively you show up in the moments buyers are deciding.

Added Perks for Premium Members 

On your own alternatives page, Premium tilts the experience in your favor:

• Boosted visibility — Premium products get boosted visibility to drive additional visibility and leads from high intent alternatives pages putting you in front of buyers who are actively comparing your competitors.
• Positive framing — your product anchors the page instead of a grid of potential alternatives and the page is designed around helping buyers shortlist you, not around why they should consider alternatives instead
• Fewer competitor placements — keep the visitor focused on your brand, with a prompt to reach out to your team before they decide.

And with an active PPC campaign, you earn paid placement across alternatives pages site-wide — in the segment rankings, the comparison table, and on your competitors' pages — sending high-intent, ready-to-buy traffic straight to your site.

This is just the beginning — we're continuing to bring our proprietary data and analysis into more of the surfaces where buyers make decisions.

See where your product ranks across hotel size, type, region, and country — and become the answer when buyers ask AI.

Hoteliers are increasingly researching vendors through ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Gemini. These models reward specific, structured, real-data-backed content over generic claims. A single overall rank gives them little to work with — but "#1 PMS for boutique hotels in Italy, based on 47 verified reviews" is exactly the kind of niche, long-tail, data-grounded signal AI search cites.

Segment Rankings turn your real HTR data — every verified review from every hotelier — into rankings that work this way.

Four dimensions

• Size — small, mid-sized, large, enterprise
• Type — boutique, luxury, branded, and more
• Region — Europe, North America, APAC, etc.
• Country — every market with enough hoteliers to qualify

Each ranking shows your position, % recommended, review count, and quarter-over-quarter trend. You qualify in a segment with 5+ verified reviews from hoteliers in it; below that, a progress indicator shows how close you are. Refreshes quarterly.

Why it matters

LLMs answer buyer questions like "what's the best PMS for mid-sized hotels in Europe?" by leaning on niche, structured, source-backed content. Segment Rankings are exactly that:

• Niche and long-tail — hundreds of specific positions per category, not a single overall rank
• Real platform data — every ranking traces to verified hoteliers in that segment, not editorial claims
• Structured for citation — clear position, denominator, and recommendation percentage AI can quote directly

The same granularity sharpens your sales work too — specific segments to lead with in case studies, growth opportunities one or two reviews from qualifying, and concrete wins to quote ("#1 for Mid-sized PMS in Europe" beats "highly rated").

What Premium adds

All vendors see their rankings in the dashboard. Premium changes how buyers — and AI — see them:

• Indexed for AI search — your rankings are exposed to LLM crawlers with schema markup and indexing so they're cited more easily when buyers ask for recommendations
• Visible to non-logged in visitors and LLMs — every non-logged in visitor and LLM sees them, not just logged-in HTR members
• Customizable featured rankings — pick three to showcase across the site. They replace the default Popular Alternatives block on your profile (which sends visitors to competitors) and take over the default survey result placements

What's Coming Next

In the weeks ahead we'll be rolling out a full AI visibility dashboard that will give you the ability to see in real time which LLMs and bots are researching your brand and products on Hotel Tech Report.

Related Posts

• AI Powered Alternatives Pages
  
• AI Powered Product Comparison Analyst Reports

We've rebuilt our comparison pages into full analyst reports — and changed how we generate, publish and index them.

• Richer content & data: verified review scores, HotelTechAward rankings, AI-powered sentiment analysis with real quotes, segment-specific fit, AI-generated verdicts, and integration data — all in one view.
• Quality over quantity: we only publish a report when we have enough verified data and content to make it genuinely useful. No filler pages.
• Faster performance: optimized to load quickly and read cleanly on any device.
• Built for LLM discovery: updated sitemap and a crawlable structure optimized for LLMs to index — meaning more visibility for the vendors our community strongly recommends, in the places buyers are increasingly starting their research.

For our vendor partners: the stronger your reviews and editorial presence on HTR, the more visibility you earn — both with hoteliers and with the LLMs they rely on.

Cloudbeds myfrontdesk vs. Mews → · All reports →

We're excited to announce a new feature that gives vendors instant visibility into what's impacting their lead generation performance on Hotel Tech Report.

What's New

Starting this month, vendors will see live performance alerts directly in their Lead Inbox when specific issues are affecting their visibility and inbound lead volumes. These alerts appear as coaching tips that help you understand exactly what's holding back your lead generation potential.

How It Works

At the beginning of each month, we automatically analyze your account performance across three critical areas:

1. Product Rankings & Reputation We track how many of your products rank in the top 3 within their respective categories. If any of your products fall outside the top 3, you'll receive an alert explaining how this impacts your visibility with buyers (you can check your reputation and get real time tips to improve in the Reputation Report Card)

2. Targeting Coverage We measure what percentage of available segments you've enabled for Instant Connect across your product categories. If you have less than 50% of segments enabled, you'll see an alert about expanding your targeting to capture more qualified leads.

3. Membership Status We track whether you had an active Premium membership during the month. Premium members receive boosted visibility in non-rank-based locations, which directly impacts your lead generation potential.

What You'll See

When performance issues are detected, you'll notice:

• A clear alert count indicator in your Lead Inbox
• Specific, actionable insights for each issue
• Data showing exactly what's impacting your performance (e.g., "1/1 of your products didn't rank in the top 3")
• The timeframe when these issues occurred

Why This Matters

Previously, vendors had to guess why their lead volumes might be lower than expected. Now, you get proactive coaching on the specific factors affecting your pipeline generation, allowing you to:

• Take immediate action on issues impacting your visibility
• Understand the why behind lead volume fluctuations
• Optimize your strategy based on real performance data
• Maximize your ROI on your Hotel Tech Report presence

Getting Started

This feature is now live for all vendors. Simply navigate to your Lead Inbox to see if any alerts apply to your account. Hover over the alert count to see detailed information about each issue.

NOTE: Alerts will only be available from the month the feature was deployed (beginning Feb '26)

What's Next

This is just the beginning. We're continuously expanding our alerts system to provide even more actionable insights that help you grow your pipeline and close more deals.

Have questions about your alerts? Contact your Hotel Tech Report account manager or reach out to our support team.

The next time you login you'll notice that the Lead Inbox got a fresh redesign including: 

• Redesign of the main lead inbox
• New focused view when new leads are pending
• Enriched lead cards for accepted leads with additional details and activity log
• Live coaching tips to optimize your lead volumes and conversion
• Lead insights tab to show lead segmentation and ROI (Premium feature)

Reach buyers right after they take high-intent actions. Our new success-page placements embed PPC auctions into post-review experiences, unlocking a highly efficient way to promote products and monetize key conversion moments.

• Trending Hotel Tech Tools
• Operations Tools
• Revenue Manager Tools
• Guest Experience Tools
• Hotel Marketing Tools

Turn content into clicks. Our new eBook & Webinar PPC auction helps vendors drive low-CPC, high-intent traffic to gated assets—perfect for pipeline creation, not just brand awareness.

Learn more & view placements

Beginning December 1, 2025 HTR will be migrating the Legacy Static Site Takeover format to the New Dynamic Auction Format.  

Comparison of Old vs New Site Takeover Formats

	OLD FORMAT	NEW FORMAT
Ad placement	Exit intent modal (site wide)	Exit intent modal (site wide)
Ad format	Static. Pre-reserve exclusive placement for static 2-week intervals 4-6 months in advance (example)	Dynamic. Bid for placement in the real time PPC auction  (examples)
Example
# of Advertisers	1x advertiser	3 advertisers
Ad type	Promote a piece of content (ebook or webinar)	Promote a product
Pricing	$4,000 per 2-week interval	Real time PPC auction starting @ $15/click
Availability	Reserve 4-6 months in advance	Activate in real time

What challenges does the new auction format solve?

1. Performance based: The old static format was priced based on 2-week reservations which meant one advertiser could pay the same fee who achieved 2x the results and vice versa (since it was a static fee per period).  The new PPC auction ad format changes this entirely by making the ads entirely performance based so you don't pay for impressions or visibility but instead you pay for results (aka interested hoteliers clicking through).
2. Higher intent: The old format promoted content vs the new format promotes products which means the clicks are higher intent clicks (aka more valuable clicks)
3. Full automated process: The old format required companies to submit a piece of content to promote, after which HTR would produce a campaign and send a draft to go through revisions which added work for clients.  The new format promotes products which we already has all of the content you need which eliminates the need for back and forth, campaign production or revisions and means you can set campaigns live instantly with zero effort required.
4. Last minute inventory: Since the old static site takeover had fixed reservations and was limited to a single advertiser, it meant that in order to reserve a campaign you had to purchase and reserve it 4-6 months ahead of time.  Now with the new format, advertisers can activate a campaign in real time via the PPC dashboard and start generating clicks. 
5. More opportunities for advertisers: Since the old static format could only promote a single piece of content with fixed 2-week reservations, it meant there were less than two dozen slots for advertisers many of which got reserved by a single advertiser.  
6. Market based pricing: Compared to the previously static priced legacy site takeover ad campaigns reserved in 2-week increments, the new live auction format unlocks real time pricing based on supply and demand in the market in real time.

What if my company has already reserved a legacy static Site Takeover for after the December 1st migration to the new format? 

For companies who have reserved static/exclusive site takeover campaigns starting December 1, 2025 these campaigns will be converted into PPC credits for you to utilize in the live auction at the dollar value of the legacy site takeover campaigns ($4k per 2-week campaign interval).  Our team will be reaching out to all companies with existing reservations to notify you about the change and confirm that the equivalent credits have been added to your account so that you can utilize them to run Site Takeover Campaigns via the new live auction format.

We’ve completely redesigned our category pages to help hoteliers evaluate software faster, with more clarity and less noise.

This isn’t a cosmetic update. It’s a structural upgrade to how buyers research technology on Hotel Tech Report.

Smarter, clearer comparisons
Category pages now prioritize decision-making frameworks over feature lists — helping you quickly understand differences between vendors based on hotel type, size, region, and use case.

Operator-focused buyer guides
Each category now includes a structured buyer’s guide covering:

• How the software impacts hotel performance
• Key evaluation criteria
• Pricing benchmarks and tradeoffs
• Critical integrations
• Implementation considerations
• Emerging category trends

Segment-based insights
Instead of generic rankings, we’ve enhanced visibility into how products perform across different hotel segments — so independents, groups, luxury, resorts, and limited-service properties can evaluate based on fit, not popularity.

More transparent evaluation methodology
Our framework now more clearly explains how we analyze:

• Verified hotelier reviews
• Hands-on product demos
• Workflow depth
• Integration strength
• Segment fit

This helps buyers understand not just who ranks highly, but why.

Why We Built This

Buying hotel software is high-stakes. The wrong decision creates operational friction, revenue leakage, and long-term switching costs.

We redesigned category pages to reduce evaluation risk and increase buyer confidence — whether you’re shortlisting vendors or conducting a full tech stack review.

We’re continuing to roll this out across all major categories.

Explore the new experience → https://hoteltechreport.com/operations/property-management-systems