What Net Affinity measured
Net Affinity analysed its own Google Ads search data across its independent hotel clients. The vendor compared January 2025 with August 2026. It split the data into branded searches, which carry a hotel or property name, and non-branded searches, which ask more broadly for a hotel or a stay. Net Affinity supplies booking, marketing and payment systems to independent hotels, so the panel is its own client set. The company publishes no dataset behind the figures and no independent auditor reviewed them.
The vendor published the findings on 29 September 2026 under the byline Christiane Foller.
Branded queries are getting longer
In January 2025 the one- to two-word branded bucket and the three- to four-word branded bucket sat at almost the same level. They held 47.8 per cent and 48.9 per cent of branded impressions. By August 2026 the balance had moved. Three- to four-word queries reached 55 per cent of branded impressions. One- to two-word queries fell to 40.1 per cent.
Net Affinity recorded the same movement in the queries that converted. One- to two-word searches dropped from 57.4 per cent to 46.9 per cent of branded conversion share. Three- to four-word searches rose from 40.4 per cent to 49.5 per cent.
Net Affinity reads the result this way. A guest who already knows the hotel does not stop at the hotel name. The query adds context about an offer, a room type, an experience or a reason for travelling.
Non-branded queries carry the signal further down
Three- to four-word queries already dominated the non-branded set at the start of the analysis. They accounted for almost 60 per cent of non-branded impressions and of non-branded conversions. That share held through August 2026. The change sits in conversion share at the longer end. One- to two-word non-branded searches raised their impression share from 25.8 per cent to 29.7 per cent. Their conversion share fell from 32.8 per cent to 30 per cent. Searches of five words or more moved from 8.8 per cent to 12.4 per cent of conversions.
Net Affinity's reading for hotels is that shorter queries still open the discovery stage, and the detailed queries close the booking.
The wider Google Ads picture
Net Affinity relays a Search Engine Land analysis in the same post. That study, written by Jason Tabeling and published on 11 September 2026, compares the same two months on its own dataset. Its 1-2-word impression share fell from 42 per cent to 24 per cent. Its 3-4-word bucket rose from 33 per cent to 48 per cent. Conversion share for 1-2-word queries went from 62 per cent to 52 per cent. The 3-4-word bucket went from 20 per cent to 46 per cent. The 5-6-word bucket tripled, from 3 per cent to 9 per cent, and the 7-plus-word bucket quadrupled, from 1 per cent to 4 per cent.
One line in the Search Engine Land piece does not reconcile with its own numbers. The summary table puts the 1-2-word conversion move at a 35-point absolute change. The article body states 62 per cent to 52 per cent, a 10-point move.
Tabeling's advice to advertisers is to fund the long tail, write ad copy that echoes the query's own wording, and move budget away from broad head terms.
What the shift means for hotel demand
Paid search buys a smaller share of conversions at the short end of the query set. The conversions sit further along the query, and that moves the money a hotel spends on the head of the funnel.
Net Affinity's branded series is the operative one for a hotel with a name to protect. A guest who types the property name and stops there is one query type. A guest who types the property name plus an offer, a room type or an occasion is another, and it held 49.5 per cent of branded conversion share in August 2026. The second query tells the hotel what the guest wants before the booking page does.
Net Affinity names the shape of those searches for an independent hotel: a family hotel in a city, a spa weekend near a city, a hotel near a named attraction.
The day-use shelf reads its own queries
A day-use programme sells a time slot, and the buyer searches for one. The network's own day-use shelf publishes 103,857 hotels across 46 states, on four slots of morning, afternoon, evening and overnight. Its home page puts day rates typically 30 to 75 per cent below the nightly figure, and its rates page puts a day slot at roughly 40 to 60 per cent of the room's nightly price.
Net Affinity's series carries no day-use bucket, no hourly term and no slot search, so the study does not measure the day-use funnel. Those queries sit in the operator's own booking records, and the rate card sits with each property.
The limits on every figure here
Two limits apply. Net Affinity's numbers are its own client data, self-reported, with no published dataset and no audit. The Search Engine Land figures come from its author's own analysis, and the article's own table contradicts its prose on the 1-2-word conversion move.
Net Affinity states a third limit itself. Query length alone is not evidence of how AI is changing hotel discovery. The vendor also states that shorter keywords still matter, and that its picture is not identical to the wider study.