House Sits now have a Highlights section upfront. I’m a little puzzled what it adds.
E.g. the first Highlight is always “Matches your experience with cats”. That’s very redundant information, because I know I’ve been sitting cats for 10 years on THS and that’s why I’m opening the listing.
Other highlights so far include: open to solo sitters. Ok, a little bit useful. I guess I’d be more interested in this if I would apply as a Family (e.g. open to families).
And open to having a call. Is that useful? Most HOs wouldn’t refuse having a call
I agree @Bluehorse I haven’t found any benefit so far .
If I have searched for a sit and filtered for sits in the countryside with a cat – all the search results will be in the countryside and a have a cat - so I don’t need the Highlights to tell me again this sit matches your preferences- its in the countryside and has a cat !
The most important information that would be helpful to me and many other sitters is how long the pets ( especially dogs ) can be left alone for .
Owners have to provide this information when they complete a listing but it’s not visible to sitters - not in the listing and not in the highlights !!!
I don’t understand why this data / information is collected and then hidden ? What is the purpose ?
@elmi4711 Are these new highlights only visible to Premium members ? I hadn’t realised . I haven’t found them to provide any information that I didn’t already know before opening up the listing - so of no benefit so far .
If I were THS, I would put in a “highlights” section and sell spots in this to HOs (as through having this as a “premium benefit”. I don’t think there’s a benefit to sitters (given how poorly the search seems to work…)
I’m not a Premium member (I’m a sitter). So far I’ve seen it on every sit I’ve opened recently.
As you say, how long dogs can be left alone is a crucial piece of information to show, considering HOs are apparently asked to fill this out anyway. Not indeed the match of a sit with something you explicitly filtered for in the listings
Communication again!
I may be wrong but I think we are using here two terms to refer to the same reality and one term which seems to refer to two different meanings.
What is mentioned here as a highlight section was called tags in this recent thread which deals with the same topic.
I think that what @elmi4711 refers to as premium is signing up as a sitter as well as a HO. I often get that offer from THS, the first time I got it I thought “what’s wrong? I thought I was already a premium member” and I had to double check.
So these tags or highlights seem to only appear at the top of a listing when a sitter is searching it doesn’t seem to apply for HOs searching for sitters but I think it could be useful.
For me, it’s not a significant change but I do find it useful, it’s a shortcut. I like especially the “would like to video call” or “suitable for single sitters”. I also read that someone gets “matches your preference for M sized dogs” I would like to get that, I’ll have to ask the poster how they got that information. I n my profile I only get to choose types of pets, if I select reptiles, I get snakes too although I am interested mostly in tortoises. Maybe the search for key words and if you mention it as a preference, they make the match. Lots of owners don’t mention the size/weight, maybe it’s part of that information that doesn’t get public.
Hmmm, so far the Highlights haven’t gone beyond “matches your preference for cats”, which is quite redundant info since I would not have clicked on the listing anyway if it didn’t match my interest in cats.
If for dogs for instance, I would prefer a certain type (small dogs…, active dogs), then I guess it’d be more useful indeed
I don’t. There are different tiers of membership, well, at least for HOs. They include being able to bump your listing, or some kind of coverage. And if I were THS, I would be looking for more selling points. So I assumed (yeah, there’s that word in there!) they’d just bump certain sits to the highlights section after the HOs had paid for premium.
I haven’t yet found a place to enter or select this in my home profile. If it’s new, I’ll have to re-check.
Have to take this back: There’s a “how important is a video call” slider, and you can select Solo, Couple, and/or Family. phew And I thought I’d missed something.
I have but they just mentioned “snake” and although I don’t really like the look of it, I wouldn’t know it if belongs to one of the forbidden categories. Last year I saw two pythons listed in Australia but I didn’t know then that they were not allowed. I just didn’t apply.
This is the one I saw recently, in Australia, too.
I haven’t noticed the ‘open to having a call’ highlight, but I have received:
Highlights
Matches your experience with dogs and poultry
Countryside sit
Open to applications from couples
It tells me nothing I didn’t already know (I check the listing to see whether a solo sitter is required and also reviews, to see whether couples usually sit). I know our own experience and I can see from the listing, the pics, the map and the location that it’s a countryside sit.
I agree entirely with @Bluehorse and @Silversitters, that more useful and important information is how long the pets can be left alone. The pet parents include this when placing a listing so why can’t sitters see it?
Open to applications from families with children aged 13 - 17.
This is really useful for families, but will only exist if the homeowner has updated their listing with these new fields.
Dog sizes are XS, S, M, L, XL I think.
