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

[Alexander Lau]

We only do PPC for the co-op. I want to invest into doing adwords express through GMB but already don't have the bandwidth to handle whats on my plate. SEO is time-consuming and with 7 websites to manage that's essentially where my time goes. Could our PPC be more effective? Maybe...but honestly, I don't totally know that to be true. We're in a small state(s). DDC provides us with a service I don't have time to manage alone, and the CTR is higher than national averages and the CPC lower. My rep is always available and they are great people who treat me well.

If you want stellar PPC and SEO management, you may be better off going with a non-auto industry-specific company? Then again...who knows.

I agree and disagree. You are strapped for time and that's a lot of content work for one dude alone, totally agree. As for PPC and this is where I disagree, there are countless of excellent automotive agencies that provide excellent PPC wares. Strong Automotive, Sokol, Stream, etc. If it's about co-op move money around elsewhere. How are you measuring your success with PPC? There are also systems to take your inventory to ads, talk to the guys at Hoot Interactive and this forum's @Miles Olson.

 

[Alexander Lau]

We are also seeing our product installed on a lot more fusionZONE sites lately.

Indeed, I should have mentioned them (I have in the past), as they are a decent web provider IMO. GOOD CALL!

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Tarry Shebesta and @Alexander Lau, What you two are speaking of is a prime example of OEMs and website providers jumping in bed together!! Anytime the OEM partners up with specific providers, the dealer mostly always loses and is the 3rd wheel in the relationship. The ironic part is, the dealer is the one paying the freaking bill though. You can probably find and see a trend for website providers based on the OEM rep that is servicing that specific area / region as well because the OEM reps are peddling digital products for the manufactures to boost these relationships between the digital provider and OEMs.

 

[Alexander Lau]

@Tarry Shebesta and @Alexander Lau, What you two are speaking of is a prime example of OEMs and website providers jumping in bed together!! Anytime the OEM partners up with specific providers, the dealer mostly always loses and is the 3rd wheel in the relationship. The ironic part is, the dealer is the one paying the freaking bill though. You can probably find and see a trend for website providers based on the OEM rep that is servicing that specific area / region as well because the OEM reps are peddling digital products for the manufactures to boost these relationships between the digital provider and OEMs.

Precisely, which is why rival groups should be licking their chops. Excellent assessment, the dealers are getting screwed. Give me a break...

Too large to scale; shit got stale.

 

[Andy MacLeay]

I promised with you guys I would share as we had informative updates.

We heard back from Google and it's kind of the best we can hope for at the moment from a team that usually says NOTHING.


"Hi XXXX

Normally we forward these kinds of issues to the engineering teams to review, and tend not to have any feedback to share back with the reporters (unless there's something you'd need to do differently). So likely you won't hear much back from us about this, if all goes well .

Cheers,

John"

Now, I realize...that this will not quell the folks that are hoping for immediate and definitive answers. If they tell us we need to do something different. We will inform the post. THAT SAID. We will ALSO inform the post if Google begins quietly resolving this issue, it wont happen overnight if they do, they index data all over the country and world could be weeks or months there is no timeline.

Our teams have a laser focus on this now and we are continuing a significantly energized effort on rolling out new changes to our platform. I hope folks realize we take this stuff seriously, there are human beings working on this who care A LOT about our dealers and we will continue to be relentless in trying to be better.

AGAIN, anyone who wants to reach personally:

Andy MacLeay
[email protected]

Will let you guys know if we hear anything further.

 

[craigh]

@Andy MacLeay are you not concerned about the side effects of blocking the Google Bot user agent?

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Andy MacLeay are you not concerned about the side effects of blocking the Google Bot user agent?

View attachment 3868

 

[Andy MacLeay]

We only block the Googlebot user-agent when someone is pretending to be Googlebot.

We use Akamai’s Bot Manager product as part of our configuration to help manage the impact of both trusted & malicious bot traffic to our platform. One of the things this product does is block all attempts to spoof Googlebot. Lots of malicious traffic comes in with a spoofed Googlebot user-agent so it’s in our, and our client’s, best interest to block traffic that pretends to be Googlebot. Since you arent actually a Googlebot @craigh, we are blocking you from accessing the site. This is normal behavior for a user/tool that spoofs being Googlebot. All actual Googlebot traffic flows as normal – our reporting shows that Googlebot is serving somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 million webpages per week.

 

[Alexander Lau]

@Rick Buffkin curious to see if your sites are still doing this. I still see a few client sites with the wrong metadata showing.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

@Alexander Lau , No changes bro. Ya know, I've had other dealers, marketing companies and OEM reps to contact me about this issue directly as well, with these messed up listings showing in organic search without using search operators. It's just easier to spot with a search operator. There's a ghost in the DDC machine. They simply can't find it and it's attacking the core of their product. Their website platform. 3,4 or 5 years ago this would not have carried on for 10 months without a resolution. DDC... How long do you think dealers will allow this to carry on? How long do you think OEM's will allow this to carry on? How long do you think Toyota, Ford, Chrysler, Hyundai or Subaru will continue to allow other manufactures names and branding to show in Google search results for their dealers websites??? The excuses and finger pointing will get old!!