Yahoo! continues to roll out new search shortcuts into their SERPs. This time they seem to be testing embedding expandable shortcut information about hotels into search results (as opposed to topping SERPs with the information).

The collapsed result:

The expanded result:

Results are hit and miss, but I figured there must be some rhyme or reason to Yahoo!’s decision to show this information. I decided to find a definitive way to make the extended information appear.

Big, famous hotels (like the MGM Grand and Bellagio) that have their own websites all seem to get the special drop-downs. Maybe, I thought, if a hotel has its own website it will show up. But that didn’t pan out.

Lesser-known hotels (like a local Springfield chain) don’t get the special treatment - even though they have their own sites. I thought the local hotel could have been left out because it didn’t have any Yahoo! Local information - but that’s not the case. It has 7 reviews. But it doesn’t have pictures.

So I tried again, this time searching for a hotel that had pictures posted in Yahoo! Local. Bingo! The Grand Plaza Hotel in Branson, MO has all three: it’s own URL, reviews, and pictures in Yahoo! Local. And what do you know… it gets double-special treatment:

Further poking around revealed that hotels seem to have to have more than one photo to trigger the drop down. For example, a search for “hotel nyc” returns The Hudson Hotel as the first result. It has it’s own URL, it has reviews on Yahoo! Local, and it has one picture. But it doesn’t get the drop-down treatment. Instead, the SoHo Grand Hotel (result #6) gets the drop down… and it has multiple pictures.

Take this example search for “las vegas hotels“. The Luxor, Venetian, MGM Grand, and Bellagio all show up in the results. But only Lurxor gets a drop down. Is it because it’s the first result listed that meets all three criteria? Looks that way.

So it appears that Yahoo! is looking for these specific criteria before adding a drop-down menu to the results:

1. The hotel must have it’s own URL
2. It must have reviews on Yahoo! Local
3. It must have more than one picture on Yahoo! Local

And once these criteria are met, only the first result to be listed gets the special treatment.

Hotel owners/managers… you know what to do now, right?

(Via locallytype and Search Engine Land)