An Open Letter to Mark O'Neil - Chairman and CEO of DealerTrack

[Joe Pistell]

Terrence,My respect for your teams work has no bounds, you guys are the rebels and I LIKE rebels You wrote: "
Users aren't searching for "Year + Make + Model" keywords on Google because of the irrelevant and limited results. "

If I were the Google Products manager, I can't think of a more important reason for Google Products to be in the automobile retail space than is brought out by your reply.

You wrote:

"...For NEW
car-related terms, the largest volume of searches and traffic are still
based on general terms (not vehicle-specific)."

We agree that the largest volume comes from
general terms (not vehicle-specific). BUT, Google Products does not deploy into this area. We all agree and understand that Organic Short tail SEO has already suffered (from Adwords and
Google Places). Why else would major players buy adwords ads? What I am saying is that Google Products is AIMED at long tail SEO and is yet another punch in the Organic
SEO gut.

You wrote:
"...I do disagree that Organic SEO would suffer....at all."

Terrance, there is no question that we're talking about the small long tail arena only. But, when it hit's it'll be a nuke. Look at this Screen Shot (below) and you tell me that these pics won't steal
eyeballs AND create shopper interest AND new shopper phrases. http://www.dealerrefresh.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/audi_google_audi.png ALL of which will go DIRECTLY to the
DEALER.

 

[Joe Pistell]

Note to all. This is conjecture. There are a lot of loose ends that need to be tied up to make this happen. Google Products is build around ecommerce markets. Automobiles for sale are not an ecommerce product.

BUT... we're talking CRAZY LARGE CASH on the hook that can't be ignored.

15million New vehicles sold annually with an average Dealer ad cost PVR of $400ish is a SIX BILLION DOLLAR OPPORTUNITY that can't be denied.

Auto and Transportation Industry News - News, Articles, Biography, Photos - WSJ.com

Read Autos & Transportation on The Wall Street Journal

online.wsj.com

 

[Joe Pistell]

Woops, Bad timing on my part. Mr O'neil must be out of the office today. DealerTrack has just reported earnings this am and they crushed it, their stock ( TRAK ) is up 20% today on a strong quarterly report!

DealerTrak: Strong Car Market Spurs Big Q1; Stock Jumps

DealerTrak, which makes dealer management computing systems for automobile dealers, is trading sharply higher Tuesday morning on better-than-expected Q1 results. For the quarter, the company reported revenue of $77.2 million and non-GAAP fully diluted profits of 18 cents a share, ahead of the...

blogs.forbes.com

Chrome best not let this one get away! AutoData is more than capable of pulling this one off!

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

I see. You're simply saying that SEO, as a single marketing channel, is no longer valid; especially for startups.

That makes sense. As we know Google's mission in life is to provide the most relevant "thing" to a user, why would they help deliver something that isn't proven? The SEO game is changing quite a bit right now (it is always changing, but it looks a bit more drastic than usual right now). I said it in my last DealerRefresh article and you're adding more argument for it with this article.

 

[Joe Pistell]

I'll spin it another way Alex.

SEO was a gateway to stimulate and reward innovation. Startups could challenge the big boys, all they had to do was... be smarter.

Google now rewards Brand over innovation.

Before we get all misty eye'd over the death of a pioneering era, all google is trying to do is find a way to reduce the noise in searches. Google knows that car searches is Brand dominated.

Google Products is all about Brand Emphasis.

You gotta love capitalism, If Google overshoots, Bing will be working every angle to eat Google's lunch.

 

[Jeff Kershner]

Deep article Joe. We always wonder who's reading and reacting.

I've had the opportunity to sit down with the Google Automotive team on several occasions and they always reassure me they are NOT getting into the display of inventory through a Google Product like listing. Maybe they would rather not risk loosing their Paid Search revenue?

It's possible that one reason Google has not explored what you have proposed here is due to the data not being accurate and normalized to the degree that would offer the customer a great experience (Google experience) they would seek to offer for such a high ticket item.

Even with Chrome being as good as it is, it still misses the mark with colors, packages and sometimes even the right trim level. And that's before getting into Larger trucks, Heavy Duty trucks and Vans. It then becomes a real mess.

I never understood why Chrome or someone else didn't bark up the tree of each and every manufacturer several years ago to try and establish a standard for vehicle data while figuring out how to get direct VIN data from the manufacturer. Homenet scrapped the surface with this several years back with Mercedes-Benz but the relationship went sour.

To this day, our vehicle data is only as accurate as we AT THE DEALER make it. Maybe this is too far from being anywhere near what would be acceptable by Google for a product listing. We're not talking about a DVD player or Electric toothbrush.

There has to be a reason why Google has not voyaged into this ... unless it's the reason you are pointing out here in this article Joe.

 

[Joe Pistell]

Good By SEO.  Google is eating it's young. It's only a matter of time until it hits our biz.

Google Search: Pool Tables

Google

Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

www.google.com

LOOK AT THAT RESULT!

DealerTrack & Chrome, have you told Mark O'Neil of this opportunity yet?

 

[Ed Brooks]

Try this search on for size Uncle Joe! Google Search Google is getting into flight info now...

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

This could be the beginnings of "SEO" becoming more about site architecture than link building.

 

[Joe Pistell]

First Ed, we need some background music to set the stage for our Google observations...


View: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psTUiQzNoxw
(open in new tab)
Judas Priest - Breaking The Law, Breaking the Law

The remake should be
"Google's Breaking It's Laws, Breaking it's laws..."