Michelle Higgins

Searching for a hotel online has long been limited to plugging in your travel dates and destination and then sifting through star ratings and prices. But there are other factors involved. Is the hotel in a convenient location? Is it child friendly? Will the room have a view of a brick wall or the sea?

Now, a number of websites are attempting to answer these questions with tools including photo-based searches and maps that show where a town?s hot spots are.

Google.com/Hotelfinder

Google?s experimental hotel search site, which started in July, focuses on where to stay and finding a good deal.

After entering your destination, dates and price range, HotelFinder delivers its top recommendations (for cities within the US) in a list or on a Google Map. A blue perimeter delineates the area, with less-popular zones shadowed in gray.

In addition to the current price of a hotel, the site offers the hotel?s historical average so you can tell if you are getting a deal or not. For example, a $144 nightly rate for the Latham Hotel in Washington in early September was 11% less than usual.

Clicking on a hotel brings up a collage of images, reviews by Google users and basic hotel information so you do not have to leave the page to do more research. You can also create a list of hotels you would like to compare further.

Best feature: You can redraw the perimeters on the map to narrow your search. So if you want to look at hotels only in, say, the Georgetown neighbourhood of Washington, you can manipulate the blue lines to home in on it.

Worst feature: The so-called ?tourist spotlight? designed to shine a light on popular zones isn?t very enlightening. In a search for New York City hotels, for instance, practically all of Manhattan was highlighted.

Hipmunk.com

Similarly focused on finding a good deal in a good location, Hipmunk?s hotel search, which made its debut in March, is best for Web-savvy travelers. After you type in your dates and destination, the site plots results as color-coded dots on a map: green for cheap, blue for average or pink for pricey.

Like this website?s clever ?agony? flight index, which sorts fares by price, length of flight and number of connections, its hotel search ranks hotel results by ?ecstasy?, a combination of price, amenities and TripAdvisor reviews. Clicking on ?heatmaps? allows you to see if your hotel is in a lively part of the city for food, shopping, nightlife; ?vice? shows bars and casinos.

Best feature: The colour-coded heatmaps, which go beyond Google?s ?tourist spotlight? by showing users which areas of the city are best for their individual interests. For example, by zooming in on the Mandarin Oriental in Washington, you can see that it is not near many restaurants or attractions.

Worst feature: If you are not very Web-savvy, Hipmunk?s visually oriented interactive design may be confusing. There are no adjustable tool bars for sorting price and distance, for instance. Instead, Hipmunk assumes its users will click on categories like ?cheap,? ?average? and ?pricey? to narrow their search.

CheckYourRoom.com

This website, which went live in March, is a good one for the room-obsessed. You can easily sift through roughly 200 hotels, mostly independent and primarily in Europe, by destination and budget or by typing in key words (suite, fireplace, view). Results range from quirky to minimalist chic.

Best feature: The key word search, which lets you find a room simply by typing in a description of features you want (fireplace, Wi-Fi, red d?cor).

Worst feature: Currently only 10 percent of hotels on the site offer live bookings. To check dates and prices for the others, you must either fill out a booking request form and wait for a response, or surf the hotel?s site.

Room77.com

Designed to uncover the best and worst rooms in a hotel, Room77 allows you to view the layout of every floor in a hotel and see a simulation of the view from the window. Since the site went live in February, Room77 has compiled hotel maps, blueprints and other records into a searchable database of more than 500,000 rooms in about 2,500 upscale hotels in 29 cities in North America and London.

Best feature: Google Earth simulations offer a virtual view out the window of a given room so you can ask for the best one. For example, Room 1724 at the Westin Chicago River North, according to the site, offers a view of the water, while a room in the same category on the same floor looks at office buildings.

Worst feature: There is no seamless way to request the hotel room online. Once you have decided on the room you want, you have to contact the hotel directly.