I agree if you post an average rating score - you should show the total # of reviews used to calculate that avergae rating score. Personally, I'd rather see all reviews and then have the ability to filter to most recent reviews to read
Is DealerRater breaking Schema rules for leverage against dealers?
- Thread starter George Nenni
- Start date
I agree if you post an average rating score - you should show the total # of reviews used to calculate that avergae rating score. Personally, I'd rather see all reviews and then have the ability to filter to most recent reviews to read
- Apr 13, 2012
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- George
Hey Brian, Win Chevrolet is not a customer. I found them looking for examples of dealers being penalized, and there were plenty of them. We have customers with strong Google reputation, who are in markets where DR is less relevant. They don’t see that many DR reviews, but they build a good reputation over several years. They may go 1-1.5 years without a DR review, and then get a negative one that sinks their DR average score (which is misrepresented to the shopper). It is frustrating for me because I know the dealership is a top operator, and deserves better, but just because DR doesn’t score consistently across the country, and this dealer may go long period of time without a DR review, they are penalized. The two-year window is inappropriate in my opinion because DR’s coverage is not consistent enough across the U.S., and thus doesn’t do good service to the dealer community.
- Apr 13, 2012
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I did some quick searching this morning, not too hard to find offending examples. These are dealers with overall DR scores that would be much, much higher. Their Google My Business pages have DR listing 1.0 star ratings with several hundred reviews. Misleading to shoppers, and unfair to dealers.
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- May 12, 2016
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- Heather
George, I have to respectfully disagree with you here. Just using one of your examples above, Paul Cerame Ford, when a consumer performs a Google search for this dealer, DealerRater ranks #2 organically in the listings (right beneath their own URL). in 2020 any business, automotive, or otherwise should have the good sense to perform periodic Google searches of their business name to understand exactly what their consumers and prospects see on that page 1 search. This is oftentimes what gives the consumer their first impression of any business therefore it's vital to pay attention to whatever review sites appear on page one. If I was to advise this dealer, I'd recommend that they focus their review efforts on Google, Facebook, and DealerRater. If this dealer is managing their own reputation or had hired a consultant to do so, then the oversite IMO, is on their end. To blame DealerRater for an algorithm that weighs reviews and experiences that have taken place over the past 24 months seems misdirected.
- Apr 13, 2012
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- George
The problem is, Dealer Rater is ranking on page 1 based on faking out schema for reviews. If you go to DR's site you can see they should be a 4.9 star rating. their review breakdown looks like this:
- 248 5-star ratings
- one 3.5 star rating
- one 2-star rating
- two 1.5 star ratings
DR has made it onto this dealer's Google My Business page by having 253 reviews, but their math doesn't average all reviews. Why? Because over the last 3 years they've only gotten one new DR review, and it is a 1-star rating. The data on the dealer's GMB is not accurately represented, and is not fair to this dealer. Sorry Heather, I feel this is very anti-dealer. I'm siding with the dealers!
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- Oct 10, 2012
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- Jamie
George, we're not trying to "fake out" Google here, and we are using the schema correctly (you're confusing "reviewCount" with "ratingCount"). And Google does not prescribe a particular methodology for rating calculation. Google is a partner of ours and they know we back it up with actual review data on our site that they can crawl. If any review site could just "claim" a review count without backup and use that to index well in search then the internet would probably break. Our search equity and SERP placement is built on 20 years of authentic consumer review collection (6.5 million reviews and counting), not on a number that we give to Google. Feels to me like you're trying to manufacture a conspiracy where there is none.
Most importantly, we will always preference recent review data left on our site as the best proxy for current experience quality at a dealership. This is standard practice for most review sites. Exactly how we calculate it may change over time as needed to best serve the consumers that visit our site for research. As you know, Google also heavily weights review recency as well in their calculation, it's not a straight average of lifetime Google reviews.
As I mentioned earlier however, I do get your point about potential consumer confusion with the display and we're now discussing that internally as we're always looking for ways to better serve consumers' research needs and fairly display our data. And you won't find another automotive-focused review site that invests more in fraud detection to protect dealers.
In the meantime, dealers with no recent reviews on DR and with minimal effort can ask a handful of customers to share experiences on DR to inject some fresh content that helps consumers get smarter about their current state of customer service. It's free, and so is the ability for dealers to respond.
Most importantly, we will always preference recent review data left on our site as the best proxy for current experience quality at a dealership. This is standard practice for most review sites. Exactly how we calculate it may change over time as needed to best serve the consumers that visit our site for research. As you know, Google also heavily weights review recency as well in their calculation, it's not a straight average of lifetime Google reviews.
As I mentioned earlier however, I do get your point about potential consumer confusion with the display and we're now discussing that internally as we're always looking for ways to better serve consumers' research needs and fairly display our data. And you won't find another automotive-focused review site that invests more in fraud detection to protect dealers.
In the meantime, dealers with no recent reviews on DR and with minimal effort can ask a handful of customers to share experiences on DR to inject some fresh content that helps consumers get smarter about their current state of customer service. It's free, and so is the ability for dealers to respond.
- Apr 13, 2012
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Jamie,
Thank you for staying engaged on this. I don’t feel I’m confused on the difference on reviews vs ratings counts, they are pretty straightforward. And I appreciate that you feel you are using schema correctly, everything I find online says that is not the case. See attached. It should be a straight average of all reviews or ratings displayed. In the examples I provided you are only averaging one or two reviews, I think the consumer should know that. I think the
dealers deserve that.
It is good to hear that you guys are considering changing the way you communicate this to shoppers. The dealers in markets that don’t naturally generate many DR reviews will appreciate that.
Thank you again,
-George
@oldershawj02 when did Cars.com Reviews start adding DealerRater Reviews into their ratings?
Reviews are of extreme importance to us, as they should be to all dealers, and managing all locations and all departments is literally one of the most challenging tasks within our auto group. In full disclosure, my feelings toward Dealer Rater are a little sour as I felt (my opinion) it was a product created to leverage dealers' growing awareness, urgency, and lack of vendor discernment at the time in the industry when everyone was preaching this hard (kinda like digital retailing is in recent years). I think Dealer Rater would have been better structured if it had started out like a Podium product; aligning with dealers to aggregate and manage reviews as an unnamed non-customer facing tool. Fast forward to the sale to Cars.com. Cars should have taken the DealerRater product and rebranded it as a Cars.com customer-facing feature along with bundling some aspects within Cars.com classified packages. Why would Cars.com dilute its brand with a 3rd party that shoppers have no recall on? We honestly would be more aligned with a robust Review product from Cars.com than we are paying for Cars.com AND DealerRater.
I realize this review just fell off the rating but answer this question:
Why the difference in Star Rating? Posted on DealerRater, shared to Cars.com, but lowered the Star count on Cars.com... Issues like this don't help dealers. And why is "Quality of Work/Repair" even an option on a Sales review?
Oh, and I agree that the 24 month thing should be disclosed along with "Lifetime Rating" as a second line and calculation OR add in the Google Rating on your site...
Reviews are of extreme importance to us, as they should be to all dealers, and managing all locations and all departments is literally one of the most challenging tasks within our auto group. In full disclosure, my feelings toward Dealer Rater are a little sour as I felt (my opinion) it was a product created to leverage dealers' growing awareness, urgency, and lack of vendor discernment at the time in the industry when everyone was preaching this hard (kinda like digital retailing is in recent years). I think Dealer Rater would have been better structured if it had started out like a Podium product; aligning with dealers to aggregate and manage reviews as an unnamed non-customer facing tool. Fast forward to the sale to Cars.com. Cars should have taken the DealerRater product and rebranded it as a Cars.com customer-facing feature along with bundling some aspects within Cars.com classified packages. Why would Cars.com dilute its brand with a 3rd party that shoppers have no recall on? We honestly would be more aligned with a robust Review product from Cars.com than we are paying for Cars.com AND DealerRater.
I realize this review just fell off the rating but answer this question:
Why the difference in Star Rating? Posted on DealerRater, shared to Cars.com, but lowered the Star count on Cars.com... Issues like this don't help dealers. And why is "Quality of Work/Repair" even an option on a Sales review?
Oh, and I agree that the 24 month thing should be disclosed along with "Lifetime Rating" as a second line and calculation OR add in the Google Rating on your site...
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- Oct 10, 2012
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@Dan Sayer Thanks for sharing those screenshots - we're asking the team to take a look at that now. There should absolutely be consistency there between Cars/DR.
I also appreciate your candid feedback on DR and I'd love to connect offline to chat some more if you're open to it. Our reviews have been syndicating to Cars for mutual customers since early 2017. However, we're working on some broader integrations that will make consolidated review management easier for dealers (particularly in today's environment), as well as better review visibility/display for consumer benefit, much in the sense that you describe above. Stay tuned and thanks again.
I also appreciate your candid feedback on DR and I'd love to connect offline to chat some more if you're open to it. Our reviews have been syndicating to Cars for mutual customers since early 2017. However, we're working on some broader integrations that will make consolidated review management easier for dealers (particularly in today's environment), as well as better review visibility/display for consumer benefit, much in the sense that you describe above. Stay tuned and thanks again.
That's one of the questions I have had as well - regarding dilution of reviews - why have two different portals. I see the other response about sharing reviews with "mutual customers" - still seems like more beneficial for those seeking reviews to not have to worry if someone was just a Cars or just a DR user that left a review.
