User:JoaquinSorolla/sandbox

Otalo.com (pronounced ō·tal·ō)  is a travel metasearch engine for vacation rentals. It enables people to search across many different vacation rental advertising sites using a single search.

The site was launched by Baer Tierkel and Mike Giles. Giles was previously the founder of social bookmarking site Furl, which was acquired by LookSmart in 2004. Tierkel was previously the co-founder of the social citizenship site Localocracy, which was acquired by Huffington Post Media Group in 2011, as well as CMO of the enterprise software company PeopleSoft.

History
Otalo.com was conceived of by Tierkel and Giles over tea in 2009 at an Amherst, Massachusetts cafe while complaining to each other about how difficult it was to search through all the different travel sites trying to find a summer vacation rental. They came up with the name of the site, Otalo, by combining the Zen symbol enzo ("O") with the Finnish word for house ("talo") after having found so many website names already taken.

Otalo.com was launched in 2009 providing search of over 200,000 vacation rental listings. In February, 2012, Otalo increased its search index to over 1.6 million vacation rental listings in 164 countries.

Vacation Rental Search
Otalo.com is a travel metasearch engine that enables visitors to search across many vacation rental sites with a single search. The site aggregates listings from multiple vacation rental sites, eliminating duplicate information and organizes the results into a coherent collection. Visitors can either browse vacation rental listings by location or can search for specific locations, availability dates, how much they want to spend, number of bedrooms, and details about pets, smoking, and waterfront.

Otalo.com has been called "the KAYAK of vacation rentals".

Partners & Listings
Otalo.com does not take direct property listings, it only aggregates properties from large vacation rental sites.

Otalo.com's search index includes 1.6 million vacation rental listings in 164 countries.

Otalo.com searches 46 different vacation rental websites in its search index. These partners include Homaway, Airbnb, Flipkey, TripAdvisor, Wimdu, CyberRentals.com, 9flats, Roomorama, Holiday-Lettings.co.uk, Homelidays.com, Niumba.com, VacationHomeRentals.com, AlwaysOnVacation.com, VillaRenters.com, PureHolidayHomes.com, WeNeedaVacation.com, CorporateHousingbyOwner.com, OwnerDirect.com, PerfectPlaces.com, Rentalo.com, InterHome.com, GreatRentals.com, Holiday-Velvet.com, BeachHouse.com, VacationRentals411.com, FindRentals.com, RedAwning.com, VacationRentalDirect.com, Villa4Vacation.com, VacationRoost.com, VacationsFRBO.com, PerfectGetaways.com, EspañaBreaks.com, HolidayCube.com, MediaVacationRentals.com, ClearStay.com, MauiOwnerCondos.com, PackLate.com, PerfectFloridaVillas.com, SkipJump.com, AdventurePads.com, Campaya.com, HomeGetaways.com, HomeGetaways.com, LuxuryVillaFinder.com, USAResortRentals.com, and VacationAtMyHome.com.

Comparison of Sites
Otalo.com offers a comparison of the vacation rental sites that it includes in its search index. This is helpful to vacation property owners when deciding where to list their properties. If owners list on one of these sites, their property will be included in Otalo.com's search index automatically at no cost to them.

Travel Blog
Otalo.com publishes a travel blog, The Travel Skinny that describes travel destinations where vacation rentals are available around the world.

Technology
Otalo.com uses crawling technology it developed called Otalobot and direct XML feeds from source sites to populate their vacation rental index.