Guesty: a search widget, your own subdomain or the API

Guesty says it’s built for short-term rental property managers, from 1 to 3 listings on its Lite plan up to 200 and more on Enterprise. It lists vacation rentals, B&Bs and guesthouses, outdoor stays, urban rentals and aparthotels.

1. 01

   The Guesty search widget

   A small piece of code (a div and a script, not an iframe) that adds Guesty’s search to any page. Guests pick dates and land on your Guesty booking engine. It works on WordPress, though Guesty doesn’t offer a plugin or support custom code issues.

2. 02

   Your own search with a link

   Guesty documents links that open the booking engine with a check-in date and guest count filled in, so a custom search bar can hand off to it.

3. 03

   The Booking Engine API

   For a fully custom site. Guesty recommends this API for building your own booking site, covering availability, quotes, coupons and reservations. It needs a developer.

By default the booking engine lives at yourname.guestybookings.com. You can connect your own domain or a subdomain like book.yourdomain.com, and Guesty sets up the security certificate. You control the logo, colors, homepage image and Google Analytics or Meta Pixel IDs.

Guesty documents links that open the booking engine with filters set. Its example uses checkIn (YYYY-MM-DD) and minOccupancy. Check Guesty’s current article for check-out and other filters.

API. The Booking Engine API is tied to your Guesty account. You create an API instance once the booking engine is on, and it has rate limits. Guesty’s Open API covers the rest of the account.

Payments. GuestyPay or Stripe, among others.

Guesty lists connections to big travel sites, vacation rental sites, outdoor and camping sites and Google.

Big travel sites

• Booking.com
• Expedia
• Agoda

Vacation rental sites

• Airbnb
• Vrbo
• Whimstay
• Hopper
• HomeToGo
• Homes & Villas by Marriott
• Plum Guide

Outdoor and camping

• Glamping Hub

Google

• Google Vacation Rentals

Airbnb, Booking.com and Vrbo connect directly. Guesty’s help center says Expedia listings are linked one by one. Google Vacation Rentals is a premium channel and needs a Guesty booking engine site or an API site. Hipcamp isn’t listed.

Put the booking engine on a subdomain of your own domain, like book.yourdomain.com, and add Guesty’s search widget to your own site. Guests stay on your brand from search to checkout, and guests see your name instead of guestybookings.com.

Either way, your own pages are what Google and AI tools read and recommend, so that's where the work pays off. I build direct booking websites around the booking software you already have, and I can move a site out of your booking software, redirecting every old page so your rankings carry over.