How search ranking works

Short version: nearest first, unless the guest asks for the lowest price or the best rated first. There is no scoring model, and nothing about ranking is for sale.

What decides the order

1. Distance from where the guest is looking. This is the order every search comes in unless the guest chooses another. The closest bookable space appears first.
2. Or the order the guest chose. A guest can sort by price, lowest price first — the price on the space’s card: the evening they asked about, or else its shortest booking with cleaning and the Mehfil fee included — or by rating, best rated first, where more guests rating it breaks a tie and a space nobody has rated yet comes after every rated one. Spaces at the same price or rating stay nearest first. Either way it is the same rule for every space, worked over the nearest 300 that match the search, and every page comes in that order.

What decides whether a space appears at all

1. It is live. Drafts, listings awaiting review, and suspended listings never appear. Nor does anything belonging to a host whose account has been stopped, however live their spaces are.
2. It is within the search radius the guest is looking at.
3. It matches the filters the guest chose — occasion (a space whose host names no occasion is open to any, and is found under each), minimum capacity, maximum hourly rate, one kind of space, instant booking only (spaces that book without waiting on the host), and a budget for the evening, which is held to the price on the space’s card: its shortest booking with cleaning and the Mehfil fee included.
4. It matches what the guest typed, if they typed anything. We look at the title, the city, the kind of space and the occasions its host lists it for — so searching “rooftop” finds rooftops, and “mehndi” the spaces listed for one, not only the ones with the word in their name. We do not search the address.
5. It can take the hours the guest asked for, if they asked for particular hours: the space is free then, the host is open then, and the booking is long enough for the minimum that host takes. A space that cannot take those hours is left out rather than shown and refused at the picker.

What does not affect ranking

1. Payment. There is no promoted placement, no boost, no advertising. It is not offered, and there is no mechanism for it in the software.
2. Your rating, unless the guest sorts by it. Reviews are shown on a listing, but in the order everyone gets they do not move it up or down.
3. How long you have hosted, how many bookings you have taken, or how quickly you reply.
4. Any score we keep about you. There isn't one.

The "Top spot" mark

A listing that at least 5 guests have rated 4.7 or better wears a Top spot mark on its card and its page. It is read from the ratings every time it is shown, so it cannot be bought, set by us, or kept once the rating slips. It is a mark, not a ranking factor: a top spot sits in search exactly where distance, or the guest’s own sort, puts it.

The "Visited by Mehfil" mark

A listing somebody from Mehfil has been to see in person says Visited by Mehfil with the month we went, until its pin or address moves; it is a fact about the space and does not move it up, so a visited space sits in search exactly where distance puts it, or the price or rating the guest sorted by.

The "Photos by Mehfil" mark

A listing whose every photo was taken by somebody from Mehfil says Photos by Mehfil on its card and its page. It comes off by itself when the host adds a photo of their own, and it does not move the listing up either: it says who took the pictures, nothing more.

Why we are telling you this

Publishing ranking factors is the norm in this category, and the ones who hide them are the outliers. It is also easier to be honest when the answer is this simple. If ranking becomes more complicated, this page changes first.