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DealerRater — DealerRefresh Vendor Library
About suggest a correction →
Founded in 2002, DealerRater is the world's leading car dealer review and reputation management platform, featuring over 7 million consumer reviews across 41,000 U.S. and Canadian dealerships. The platform enables dealerships to manage their online reputation, grow their review presence, and achieve higher SEO rankings to attract in-market shoppers. It is a subsidiary of Cars.com (NYSE: CARS), having been acquired in August 2016.
Community evidence → Stable
DealerRater has 90 mentions across 20+ years of DealerRefresh dealer discussion — rated 85% · Favorite. The community includes 33 positive and 6 negative takes.
90 mentions · 33 positive · 6 negative · Scored from 20+ years of candid DealerRefresh discussion. Scores shift as new conversations happen.
POSITIVE
"DealerRater, a sponsor of the forums, ran an iPad giveaway contest requiring participants to watch a video testimonial from a successful dealership and submit their name, title, and a specific sales figure to enter."
DealerRater Drawing for an Ipad- ends tomorrow! →
POSITIVE
"making platforms like Google, Cars.com, and DealerRater more strategically valuable investments"
Facebook Reviews →
NEGATIVE
"DealerRater Ads Showcare Employee-Specific Reviews to Dealers' Review Page"
DealerRater Ads Showcare Employee-Specific Reviews to Dealers' Review Page →
NEGATIVE
"DealerRater's Facebook integration was auto-posting customer reviews as clickbait, resulting in Facebook flagging the content and suppressing organic reach"
Cars.com/DealerRater - Dealers Facebook Posts are ClickBait →
NEGATIVE
"DealerRater is manipulating schema markup by using all 88 lifetime reviews to rank high in Google search results while only averaging the last 24 months of reviews (18 in this example) to calculate the displayed star rating—effectively showing "2.0 / 88 reviews" but only basing the 2.0 on a subset"
Is DealerRater breaking Schema rules for leverage against dealers? →
NEGATIVE
"DealerRater only counts reviews from the last 24 months (creating a "reset" for poor performers), but more importantly, dealers actively solicit positive reviews from satisfied customers on DealerRater while avoiding asking dissatisfied customers to review there—a practice less common on mainstream platforms like Google and Yelp"
DealerRater Credibility →
NEGATIVE
"Dealers are increasingly using fake reviews on sites like DealerRater, Edmunds, and Yelp to mask poor reputations"
Dealers flooding review sites with fake user reviews →
NEGATIVE
"if my site and my little army of micro sites can rank 3 of the top10 for "used ford 500 dealer near [city, state]" then thats 3 less spots for dealerrater.com, autotrader.com and the rest"
To Micro-site or not to Micro-site? →
MIXED
"while some advocate for DealerRater's new "push" feature to migrate reviews to Google, others argue that DealerRater itself remains superior for conversion rates and building dealership culture around review collection"
Google Reviews →
MIXED
"DealerRater's lack of impression and click-through rate reporting for their paid banner ads, questioning how dealers can measure ROI without this data. Ryan Leslie from DealerRater responds that analytics capabilities were recently added post-site relaunch and promises to provide the needed data"
DealerRater Analytics (Or lack thereof) →
MIXED
"DealerRater's mobile app designed to streamline review collection by making it easy for salespeople to request customer feedback via photo-embedded emails"
DealerRater Mobile App - LotShot - are you using it? →
MIXED
"DealerRater Employee Certified - help me understand... review quotas reset by calendar quarter (Jan, Apr, Jul, Oct) rather than on a rolling basis"
DealerRater Employee Certified - help me understand... →
MIXED
"DealerRater's "Certified Dealer" subscription—which gives dealers a 2-week grace period to respond to negative reviews before they go live and potentially convince customers to edit or remove them—undermines review integrity or provides a legitimate opportunity for service recovery"
Dealer Rater Question →
MIXED
"Dealers discuss their frustration with DealerRater's advertising model, specifically the practice of selling ad space on competitors' review pages at relatively low cost ($99/month for certification). The original poster feels pressured by the site's sales tactics—being told competitors are interested in buying the ad slot on his page—which he views as extortion, while other participants acknowledge the practice is ethically questionable but strategically sound in a competitive marketplace."
Dealer Rater Ad Policy →
MIXED
"Cars.com is testing a new VDP lead form feature (via DealerRater's "Connections") that allows shoppers to select specific sales professionals before submitting a lead"
Cars.com testing VDP lead form featuring dealer sales people →
NEUTRAL
"Gary Hopkins asked for pre-built, easily customizable code to display DealerRater Service reviews on his dealership websites using their API"
Need help with DealerRater API →
NEUTRAL
"DealerRater Poll - Consumers Want More Facebook Car Promotions"
DealerRater Poll - Consumers Want More Facebook Car Promotions →
NEUTRAL
"A dealer asks whether to organize three types of testimonials (video, DealerRater, written letters) across separate pages or consolidate them on one page with sections."
Testimonial Page →
NEUTRAL
"potentially ranking higher than traditional review sites like DealerRater, Cars.com, and Edmunds"
Facebook Reviews now showing up in Google Search Results →
NEUTRAL
"Mike Lauf from DealerRater raises the problem of leads being assigned to the wrong salesperson when customers select a specific rep during lead submission"
How are your CRM's routing leads to a salesperson? →
NEUTRAL
"DealerRater Reviews on Google - What Happened? A Quick Q & A"
DealerRater Reviews on Google - What Happened? A Quick Q & A →
NEUTRAL
"DealerRater Offers PrivateBuy in Association with CarWoo!"
DealerRater Offers PrivateBuy in Association with CarWoo! →
NEUTRAL
"platforms like Google, DealerRater, and the BBB"
Reputation Conversion, What’s Your Success Rate? →
NEUTRAL
"DealerRater Adds Contact At Once Dealer Chat to Dealer Rating Pages"
DealerRater Adds Contact At Once Dealer Chat to Dealer Rating Pages →
NEUTRAL
"Mitch Gallant struggled for weeks to get DealerRater reviews syncing with his Google Places listing, but discovered the solution was ensuring his Name, Address, and Phone number (NAP) matched exactly across both platforms"
DealerRater not syncing with Google Places →
NEUTRAL
"And here is another way to promote your DealerRater reviews"
And here is another way to promote your DealerRater reviews →
NEUTRAL
"third-party sites like CarFax, DealerRater, and Edmunds"
Google Places Review Response (NEW) →
NEUTRAL
"DealerRater is hiring a Product Manager to develop dealer-facing products and tools, reporting to the Product Director."
Seeking a Product Manager →
NEUTRAL
"The feature integrates DealerRater review data with Cars.com's Vehicle Details Pages to personalize the car shopping experience"
Cars.com Announces Latest Feature to Enhance Car Shopping Experience →
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