I noticed when I search for sitters in my area that the order in which they appear seems a bit random, but pretty much the same every time with slight differences. Is the order in which you appear based on activity? Visits? Ratings? Thanks!
According to https://www.rover.com/blog/sitter-res...:
Basically, the article says Rover will not share the science behind search ranking.
It seems to be heavily skewed towards how much service (new and repeat) is booked on the system. My guess is everything else mentioned (response time, % photos, reviews, site visits) feeds into that, with the calculations supporting the overall goal to book as much Rover business as possible.
It appears to be based upon your timeliness replying to requests, reviews, sending photos.
It wouldn't surprise me if there is some subjectivity involved. For example, before I booked a stay I was #2 in the list, sometimes #1. I think when they review your profile (before it goes live) they apply a "potential" score and which gives you a boost.
From my perspective, I think photos carry more weight than how many requests you accept. I only take dogs from one household at a time. So, I archive a lot of requests as "not available." (Dog owners don't seem to consider, or trust the calendar's availability. I'm constantly getting requests when I'm already booked for one household's dogs.). So, in my case, I am consistently at the top of the list, yet I decline more requests than I accept.
But, I do a lot of photos. And, I reply 10-60 minutes. Even when my reply time dips to "within an hour" I'm at the top of the list.
So, either the photos are giving me rank. Or, there is some kind of subjective value they apply to a sitter's style, credibility, etc?
I think ida based on the percentage of conversations that you have versus how many book. It also depends heavily on how many people book you more than once. They calculate those percentages because I drop down when an old account just popped up that hasn’t been active in two years, but they reactivated it and their percentages were higher than mine and they went on top of my account. So their percentage somewhere is better than mine it’s completely number generator.