Will my hotel appear in Google at all without a connectivity partner?

Yes. With a complete business profile, your property appears in search and in Maps, but according to Google without prices. Only transmitted rates turn it into an entry with a price and a link to your booking page.

Does a private holiday rental get its own Google business profile?

According to Google, not at present: individual owners do not receive a business profile for their residential building, and privately owned or sublet flats do not count as businesses. Such flats are visible through booking pages connected to Google's holiday rental programme.

Can a portal show my property under "Official website"?

According to Google, no: online travel agencies do not receive this label. It goes to hotel operators, direct providers, CRS or integration partners, and only one partner per property. If a third-party provider shows the label, contact them directly.

How often do I need to update prices?

As often as they change on your website. With a connection via a channel manager or PMS this happens automatically as soon as you change rates there. Manually maintained price lists are not suitable for this channel.

Free booking links in Google Hotels: how to set up

Key takeaways

According to the Google help, free booking links cost neither a click fee nor a placement fee. Ranking is based on price accuracy, destination page and user benefit, not on bids.
A direct connection to Google is currently not available. Prices come through a connectivity partner: CRS, booking engine, channel manager or PMS.
The destination page must be your own booking page, ideally with room and dates preselected. Links to portals or social media are not permitted.
Holiday rentals run through a separate programme: only professional rental companies with a direct-booking website, and under 500 units via an approved provider.

Free booking links show the room price of your own website next to your hotel in Google and take guests directly there, with no click costs and no commission. The prerequisites are a complete business profile and a partner that transmits your prices and availability to Google, such as your booking engine, channel manager or PMS.

Google calls them "free booking links" in the Hotel Center help. They appear in the booking module that travellers see when searching for a hotel, alongside offers from booking portals. For Google to assign your site correctly, your price and property data need a clean foundation. The page on structured data and AI search describes what that involves.

What are free booking links in Google Hotels?

A free booking link is an unpaid entry in Google's hotel module that shows your name, or the name of your website, with the room price for the dates searched. According to the Google help, no charges apply for clicks on these links, and Google charges no payment either for placement or for interaction [Q1].

The order matters. According to Google, bids have no influence on the position of free links, and neither does your business relationship with Google [Q1]. Ranking is based on user preferences, the value of the offer, the quality of the destination page and the past accuracy of prices [Q1]. A hotel with correct prices and a fast booking page therefore has the same access as a large portal.

What requirements must a hotel meet?

A hotel first needs a complete Google business profile and then a connectivity partner that transmits prices and availability. Without price data, the property appears in Maps and in search, but without a price and without a booking link [Q2].

According to the Hotel Center help, a direct connection to Google is currently not available due to high demand (as of September 2026) [Q2]. Possible connectivity partners are a central reservation system (CRS), an internet booking engine (IBE), a channel manager or a PMS [Q2]. Google names three routes:

Your system is already connected to Google: you ask your provider to send your rates and availability to Google.
Your system is not yet connected: the provider can build the integration following the guide for connectivity partners.
You have no partner yet: Google refers you to a directory of providers that are already integrated.

For the destination page, the rule is clear. The booking page must lead guests to your own website so that they book directly with you, not with a third party. According to Google, social media pages and links to online travel agencies are not permitted [Q5]. According to the help, Google awards the "Official website" label to hotel operators, direct providers, CRS and integration partners, not to online travel agencies, and only one partner per hotel [Q4].

Holzhaus im Alpenstil mit blumengeschmückten Balkonen, davor eine Wiese mit Weidezaun und bewaldeter Hang

What does Google expect from your price data?

Google expects complete and current prices that appear on the destination page exactly as shown. The help's recommendations for free booking links list the following points [Q3]:

transmit all available rooms and rates
update prices as often as they change on the website
state taxes and fees separately where possible
cover stays up to one year in advance and up to 30 nights
take guests directly to the page with the chosen room, and show room and rate clearly there

The last point is where things go wrong in practice. If a guest lands on the home page and has to re-enter dates and room, the price from the search no longer visibly matches what they see. The article on channel manager and website kept in sync explains how to keep calendar and rates consistent between your system and your website.

Calculation: what a 24-room hotel could gain

The following calculation uses example figures only, which you replace with your own. It shows roughly how large a shift of portal bookings to your own channel can be, not what Google actually delivers.

In our example, these assumptions apply:

Rooms: 24
Average annual occupancy: 60 percent
Room nights sold: 24 times 365 times 0.6, which is around 5,256
Share booked directly via the free link instead of through a portal: 3 percent, which is around 158 nights
Average room rate: EUR 130, which gives around EUR 20,540 in revenue
Commission rate not incurred on these bookings: 15 percent, which is around EUR 3,081 per year

Deduct the costs your connectivity partner charges for the transmission, and the payment fees of your own booking flow. Ask your provider in advance whether the Google connection is included in your plan. The article on calculating booking commission goes into more detail on how commission changes gross into net revenue.

What applies to holiday rentals?

Holiday rentals have their own route at Google, and individual owners are, according to Google, currently not admitted [Q6]. Professional rental companies that have a suitable direct-booking website and can supply prices and availability may take part [Q6].

Companies with fewer than 500 units should, according to Google, connect via an approved provider. From 500 units, direct integration is possible [Q6]. Participation is free and requires no advertising budget, according to Google, and integration typically takes eight to twelve weeks after the property list is received [Q6]. Google's partner list for holiday rentals includes Beds24, Lodgify and Hostaway, among others (as of September 2026) [Q7].

For a landlord with four to ten flats, the question is not whether Google will take you on directly, but whether your channel manager is listed as a partner and whether it can pass your own website through as the booking destination.

Bild: Holzschreibtisch in einem Hotel-Büro mit offenen Gästebüchern, Papierwerk, einem Wähltelefon und Topfpflanzen vor großen Holzfenstern mit Bergblick.

Step by step

Check your business profile: name, address, category and website must be correct, otherwise Google cannot match the prices to your property.
Clarify the partner: ask your booking engine, channel manager or PMS whether they are connected to Google and whether free booking links are included in your plan.
Set the destination page: the link leads to your own booking page with the period and room preselected.
Reconcile rates: transmit all room categories and rates, and show taxes and tourist tax as they appear on your website.
Measure clicks: with the parameters CAMPAIGN-ID or IF-AD-CLICK in the destination address, you separate free clicks from paid ones [Q8].

If you also want to appear in AI assistants, you need the same care with property data. What matters there is covered in hotel visibility in AI search.

How we prepare your own booking page for this

With us, availability on the website comes live from the channel manager or PMS, and the booking flow runs on your own domain. That is the destination page Google requires for free booking links. The data feed to Google is supplied by your connectivity partner, not by HOHEIT. We do not claim any partnership with Google or with a system provider.

In the first consultation, we check against the interface documentation whether your system can send guests to your own booking flow with a preselected room. If it cannot, we show you which alternatives exist, rather than promising a fix.

When the effort is not worth it

Free booking links bring little if your prices are not transmitted up to date. If the price in search differs from the one on your page, that feeds into the ranking, according to Google [Q1]. A property that still maintains rates by hand in several systems should start there first.

A slow or cumbersome booking page also weakens the effect, because the quality of the destination page counts [Q1]. And anyone offering flats as a private individual, without a rental company, is currently not admitted to Google's holiday rental programme [Q6].

First check with your provider whether it is connected to Google, then have your own direct-booking website set up as the destination: book a call.