What in the Heck is Going On With my Dealer.com sites in Google SRP's?????

[Alexander Lau]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cobra_effect
The cobra effect occurs when an attempted solution to a problem makes the problem worse.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Hummm.... do you guys think that this could partially be part of the problem??? Good thing jksubaru is only linking to 7 pages and not 15 or 20. @kevinfrye, jeffwylerspringfield.net has a pretty strong hold on 2nd place for most linked to our website. LOL

 

[Alexander Lau]

Hummm.... do you guys think that this could partially be part of the problem??? Good thing jksubaru is only linking to 7 pages and not 15 or 20. @kevinfrye, jeffwylerspringfield.net has a pretty strong hold on 2nd place for most linked to our website. LOL

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JMJ, what the hell is really going on...? So, you're seeing referrals from other Dealer.com hosted dealer sites? LMFAO!

I don't think it's the causation on why Google is misinterpreting (still very much the fault of DDC) the structure of the websites, but it's interesting. Might be a blessing in disguise, but I doubt it (once Google figures this out. Again, what a total clusterf*ck!

 

[John V.]

Hummm.... do you guys think that this could partially be part of the problem??? Good thing jksubaru is only linking to 7 pages and not 15 or 20. @kevinfrye, jeffwylerspringfield.net has a pretty strong hold on 2nd place for most linked to our website. LOL

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I just went through my Search Console and did the same thing. I found 19 different dealerships with links to three of my DDC sites. Think I am going to call a few and let them know, see how that goes.

 

[John V.]

Apparently my Honda staff page is super popular with a Toyota dealer in California

 

[GerryFoster]

So, wait...Dealer.com is building sites that have backlinks to competitors? That is shady, not a mistake, and was likely done to boost link signals for their sites in an attempt to game the system.

I like the support I get at dealer.com, love our reps...but this...this is not ok.

 

[Alexander Lau]

So, wait...Dealer.com is building sites that have backlinks to competitors? That is shady, not a mistake, and was likely done to boost link signals for their sites in an attempt to game the system.

I like the support I get at dealer.com, love our reps...but this...this is not ok.

I don't think that's their motive. It probably has more to do with content mix-up (bad dynamic insertions of links) and how various (same DDC clients) websites point to each other, but I could be very wrong, LOL! Something stinks there too...

 

[Cody Teegerstrom]

So, wait...Dealer.com is building sites that have backlinks to competitors? That is shady, not a mistake, and was likely done to boost link signals for their sites in an attempt to game the system.

Second that

 

[Kathryn Lemoine]

Shoutout to @Rick Buffkin for starting this thread and continuing to update...

We also have had several (44%) of our dealer DDC websites having similar issues as previously mentioned (wrong dealer mentioned when looking at "site:" and links from other dealerships showing up in Search Console).

Additionally @Andy MacLeay we also had a dealer see the incorrect dealer name on his listing in a regular search (screenshot below - "BMW of San Antonio" incorrectly showing). As of today though we could not replicate the incorrect search result.

The last response we received from Dealer.com is below (from Friday):
Google had made a change that is not working with our platform and our team is working to catch up as soon as possible. I have learned that as of last week the percentage of our impacted sites has dropped from about 60% to less than 30%, and when it does occur (it is an intermittent failure), it has dropped from having multiple discrepancies on page 1 to only having one or less issues on the first page and mostly commonly not until page 3 of the search results. Of course I'm not trying to explain that this is OK, but just being candid regarding what we are doing to fix this. Our engineering team actually has a meeting with Google next week to further diagnose this issue and get the percentage of impacted sites down to 0.

 

[GerryFoster]

This is unethical. How are you going to link to other dealers without permission? Has anyone tried to remove these backlinks through google? Do they just show back up?

The Car industry is so strange. Everyone is holding the dealers' hostage. OEM rules, co-op rules, etc etc. Add in that there are several 3rd party platforms in which companies (cars.com - DeaerRater.com etc) can hold reviews hostage for INSANE amounts of money monthly -- Reviews that show up in SERPs and knowledge panels, reviews that we the dealership can't respond to unless we pay exorbitant monthly fees....

It's a racket. The whole thing. It's frustrating, counter-productive and quite silly.