• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are rewriting the rules of billionaire giving—one quietly, one strategically, one very publicly

2

After donating $48 billion to the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett is quietly ending one of the biggest philanthropic relationships in history

3

Current price of silver as of Tuesday, July 14, 2026

1

MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are rewriting the rules of billionaire giving—one quietly, one strategically, one very publicly

2

After donating $48 billion to the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett is quietly ending one of the biggest philanthropic relationships in history

3

Current price of silver as of Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Tech

How Kayak’s Engineering Team Is Making It Easier to Book Travel Online

Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
Barb Darrow
By
Barb Darrow
Barb Darrow
Down Arrow Button Icon
September 15, 2016, 10:13 AM ET
Kayak CTO Giorgos Zacharia.
Kayak CTO Giorgos Zacharia. Kaijian Gao 2014
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Kayak—the travel search site that aggregates information on hotels, flights, car rentals, and yes, now trains—from many sources is always futzing. Should photos run here or there? Should this button be green or orange? Should the font be Ariel or Helvetica?

This makes sense because very small changes can have a measurable impact on user response rates, chief technology officer Giorgos Zacharia told Fortune during a recent meeting at the company’s office in Kendall Square, a technology hub in Cambridge, Mass., just outside of Boston.

“We run tens of experiments at any one time, so when a user comes to Kayak, it’s a coin flip which feature they’ll see. Each idea can run for several weeks or sometimes a few days,” said Zacharia.

None of that is unusual for a web company where fast tweaks are necessities: If you get five paid ad conversions when the button is yellow—but 50 when it’s green—the decision is obvious.

Once an idea is hatched, it is subjected to live and onscreen testing. A button color may change for X number of users coming to the site, and their interactions are gauged against users who still see the old color. Whichever gets the best result in terms of more clicks, longer time spent on the site, etc. wins the day. This is commonly known as A/B testing, a process that serves up different versions of the same web page to users and tracks the subsequent interactions anonymously. Every click is tracked and catalogued. This is done in the background, but there are also huge screens in the company’s theater that show live interactions.

What is different about Kayak is its use of SWAT teams to bring more ideas—and thus more tests—to the table. Every staffer—not just the techies—are encouraged to contribute. Zacharia borrowed the term from law enforcement as SWAT stands for Special Weapons And Tactics. These are the teams called into resolve tense situations, save hostages, and deal with armed criminals. (You know the drill.)

The company said experiments (or XPs, as Kayak likes to call them) like this have boosted revenue by 12% this year. However, Kayak, a unit of Priceline (PCLN) since 2012, does not break out its revenue figures.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily technology newsletter.

For a year now, Zacharia has assembled teams from all parts of the company, taken them out of their normal projects and deadlines, and turned them loose on a tough problem. In April, Kayak inaugurated a SWAT Week competition during which the whole company was divvied into teams to brainstorm ideas. The group that generated the biggest revenue lift won $10,000. Zacharia would not detail the winning entry—this is a competitive industry after all—but he did say the idea helped get more users visiting to the site for flight information to add hotel reservations to their orders.

Kayak Web Page

“We are mostly known for booking flights, but half our revenue comes from hotel bookings,” Zacharia noted.

One of the most fruitful changes Kayak made was switching the button text on the bookings page from “Book,” to “Select,” to “View.”

The theory is that when a would-be customer sees the term “Book,” it indicated a degree of commitment for which the customer might not be ready, Zacharia acknowledged. “Select” was seen as less prescriptive, and “View” has been deemed completely neutral. Boom! Click rates soared.

For more on online travel, watch:

A SWAT team also developed Kayak’s Amazon “skill,” a bit of software which lets users with Amazon’s (AMZN) Echo devices ask questions like, “Alexa, where can I go this weekend for $200?”

Another change made at the suggestion of a non-technical employee was to move the hotel photos from the right hand side of the page to the left. They tried the switch, click rates soared, and now it’s the law of Kayak land—at least until a better idea comes along.

About the Author
Barb Darrow
By Barb Darrow
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • Pinterest icon

Latest in Tech

Current price of Ethereum for July 15, 2026
Personal FinanceEthereum
Current price of Ethereum for July 15, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 15, 2026
1 hour ago
Kevin Ryan’s AlleyCorp raises new $335 million fund, all in on early-stage bets
NewslettersTerm Sheet
Kevin Ryan’s AlleyCorp raises new $335 million fund, all in on early-stage bets
By Allie GarfinkleJuly 15, 2026
3 hours ago
IBM CEO Arvind Krishna looks on as U.S. President Donald Trump signs an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on June 22, 2026. (Photo: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images)
NewslettersFortune Tech
We may have just witnessed the biggest share drop in the modern history of IBM
By Andrew NuscaJuly 15, 2026
3 hours ago
New experimental Alzheimer’s drug shows potential after study shows slower cognitive decline
HealthAlzheimer's
New experimental Alzheimer’s drug shows potential after study shows slower cognitive decline
By Lauran NeergaardJuly 14, 2026
14 hours ago
U.S.-Russia space crew arrives at the ISS despite bitter space race past
North AmericaNASA
U.S.-Russia space crew arrives at the ISS despite bitter space race past
By Vladimir Isachenkov and The Associated PressJuly 14, 2026
14 hours ago
NYS Gov. Kathy Hochul standing at a podium
North AmericaData centers
‘New York will lead the way’: NYS Gov. Hochul’s data center moratorium includes a new model for funding AI infrastructure 
By Tatiana SatauaJuly 14, 2026
15 hours ago

Most Popular

MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are rewriting the rules of billionaire giving—one quietly, one strategically, one very publicly
Newsletters
MacKenzie Scott, Melinda French Gates, and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are rewriting the rules of billionaire giving—one quietly, one strategically, one very publicly
By Sydney LakeJuly 14, 2026
19 hours ago
After donating $48 billion to the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett is quietly ending one of the biggest philanthropic relationships in history
North America
After donating $48 billion to the Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett is quietly ending one of the biggest philanthropic relationships in history
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 14, 2026
18 hours ago
Current price of silver as of Tuesday, July 14, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of silver as of Tuesday, July 14, 2026
By Joseph HostetlerJuly 14, 2026
1 day ago
Current price of gold as of July 14, 2026
Personal Finance
Current price of gold as of July 14, 2026
By Danny BakstJuly 14, 2026
23 hours ago
United States' $39 trillion national debt will mean fewer jobs at lower wages for Gen Z, according to think tank
Economy
United States' $39 trillion national debt will mean fewer jobs at lower wages for Gen Z, according to think tank
By Eleanor PringleJuly 14, 2026
1 day ago
'He found their weakness. It might have been sex. It might be power': Warren Buffett stunned by Epstein pull as he snubs Gates Foundation
Banking
'He found their weakness. It might have been sex. It might be power': Warren Buffett stunned by Epstein pull as he snubs Gates Foundation
By Josh Funk and The Associated PressJuly 14, 2026
20 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.