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

[John V.]

I don't know what is more shocking........
The fact that this issue is going to follow me even when I switch to another website vendor.....OR....
how much a new Harley Davidson costs....are you kidding me?

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Dealer.com... Still gonna try and convince us to think the listings don't show up in a standard search or they're completely unrelated????



Remove the word "bike" in that search and it shows up here..

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Lets check google maps!! Now, I did add KS on the end of that search in Google maps. But, Is it a coincidence that the results included the same location as the web results included?? This crap is bleeding over into everything guys!!!!!

 

[Andy MacLeay]

Hey @Rick Buffkin - thanks for the examples, our teams are documenting each one and investigating.

Nobody is trying to “convince” anyone of anything. We don’t have a concerted marketing campaign to try and put some sort of spin on this, it’s frustrating and weird behavior that’s occuring on Google for sure, however, we’ve been at this game for 20+ years and if people think that folks are sitting around on their hands praying this will just go away (as some of the memes and other posts have suggested) then that would be a mistake. We have significant resources dedicated to this project and trying to help ALL providers with the work and resources we can bring to this.

Again, want everyone to feel free to reach out to me personally. I’ve commited that we continue to update the forum with the relevant bits as we begin to understand them. Much love and thanks for the patience!

Andy MacLeay
Director of Digital Marketing
[email protected]

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Andy MacLeay, I honestly believe that there are folks there that are working extremely hard to get this issue corrected. Although it seems like there isn't a collective effort from everyone to fix the problem. I hear from you and @Bob George here in the forums that its being addressed and then ppl in the SEO dept that I've spoken with tell me that the searches (search operator vrs standard search) are unrelated to each other and that these results via search operator don't show in a standard search. From an outsider looking in, It seems like people there are seriously disconnected. Maybe a disconnection between depts. Maybe they're not. But, It certainly seems that way though!

As for me, after being a customer of DDC's tools and websites for over 10 years, I've pretty much made my decision to move on. The question you and the rest of the ppl there at DDC are going to have to ask yourselves is, how many more customers like me your willing to let move on before your really ready to get this issue addressed? The problem is only going to keep bleeding over into other Google tools and get worse until it gets fixed! How bad does it have to get because the problem is well on it's way to that point!

 

[Alexander Lau]

Hey @Rick Buffkin - thanks for the examples, our teams are documenting each one and investigating.

Nobody is trying to “convince” anyone of anything. We don’t have a concerted marketing campaign to try and put some sort of spin on this, it’s frustrating and weird behavior that’s occuring on Google for sure, however, we’ve been at this game for 20+ years and if people think that folks are sitting around on their hands praying this will just go away (as some of the memes and other posts have suggested) then that would be a mistake. We have significant resources dedicated to this project and trying to help ALL providers with the work and resources we can bring to this.

Again, want everyone to feel free to reach out to me personally. I’ve commited that we continue to update the forum with the relevant bits as we begin to understand them. Much love and thanks for the patience!

Andy MacLeay
Director of Digital Marketing
[email protected]

Haven't you guys been saying that for three months? I have clients with similar issues with their DDC sites. Duplicate content issues as well.

 

[craigh]

We have significant resources dedicated to this project and trying to help ALL providers with the work and resources we can bring to this.

Again with the misdirection to other providers.
Sounds like PR company spin.

 

[Andy MacLeay]

@Rick Buffkin thanks for the reply...If you are feeling there is a significant disconnect from what you are hearing between the folks in the forum EG Bob/Myself and our analysts that is a fair critisim, I’ll own that make you a promise our teams will talk with a unfied voice when it comes to this (to the best of the ability a large team of humans can!) I’m bummed you lost some faith in the platform, we’ll grind and hopefully win you back!

@Alexander Lau I’m not 100% sure what you do for work, so I’d have a tough time knowing what you are advising your clients on, but for sure it’s been super frustrating for us too. However, we can only QUICKLY solve for one half of the puzzle as the issue also involves Google’s AI/Algorithm. We are totally open, if you feel like you have a suggestion on what is happening with your clients that we are missing, hell, I’d fly you up to Burlington VT if you think that there’s an answer we haven’t dug in on! We will for sure publish our results in the webmaster forum for people experiencing the same issue...or if you want to reach out my contact info will be below.

@craigh It’s happening to other providers. Truth does not equal spin, I also don’t want/need to publiclly drag competitors into this. Like I said above, we will publish findings in an open and public webmaster forum, but if you want to chat and get my opinion on this happy to do so in person or on the phone, just shoot me an quick email and I’ll give you my cell, it sounds like we are talking semantics apologies if it’s sounded “spinny”

I always like to think forums like DealerRefresh are here to help everyone be better Automotive digital marketers and as much as this has certainly been painful, I think our teams have made some platform improvements, because we’ve had so many eyeballs on this, that it will help with SEO in very near term even outside the indexing weirdness. At this point our teams are working on a number of solutions that work on a case by case basis and continuing to work with Google as much as they permit us!

Thanks everyone!!

Andy MacLeay
Director of Digital Marketing
[email protected]

PS I’m typing this like a T-Rex on an airplane somewhere over the midwest...so if there are some grammar funks or typos...apologies!

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Andy MacLeay

This may help or it may not. Just doing some digging over here at the end of a long Monday!

Have your guys to investigate ( rel alternate hreflang x ) as seen here. It may not be anything but, it may well could be the culprit.

https://inchoo.net/online-marketing/google-shows-meta-description-wrong-website/





I don't know if DDC auto generates diff language sites and then the dealer has to subscribe to them or not. After reading that article and looking at the warrenhenryinfiniti example, there's very strange similarities to that article. I realize it's not a diff country but, take a look and you'll see the similarities as well since the DDC sites are sitting on the same servers and most appear to be on the same website version with similar content. The hreflang markup ref isn't on the sites with a diff language. If you click the link, your taken to a Spanish version of warren henry infiniti but if you click the cache, you'll see the English version of the other dealers website. Not all of the examples I tested have a spanish version. Thats why I'm wondering if DDC auto creates a spanish / diff language version that is sitting off in the background somewhere???




Also, https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/189077?hl=en

 

[Tarry Shebesta]

Since Google has gone to mobile first indexing, and the majority of users are now mobile, you may want to focus on what your mobile results look like.