Automotive Marketing

The page has clearly been edited since this has gone public, but this is silly. A search engine cloaking pages to rank better in search engines. What gives?

So, they are clearly serving different content to their users and to the search engines. The pages they’re serving to the bots are heavily keyword stuffed. I honestly don’t know where they could cram the word “used cars” on the page again. It’s everywhere.

http://www.agerhart.com/seo-rankings/yahoo-caught-cloaking-will-they-ban-themselves/

Update: Laura Lippay, Yahoo’s SEO Program Manager responds.

Jennifer:

I have added the verbiage you requested. There seems to a large number of dealerships in America with names that are similar to yours. To get some more web exposure, try submitting your site to these free directories:

• http://www.autodealerfinders.net/
• http://www.autoguide.net/
• http://www.cardealersnearyou.com/
• http://www.cardealersusa.com/
• http://www.carsearch.com/
• http://carsforsale.classifieds1000.com/links/used_car_dealers/
• http://www.dealerfish.com/
• http://www.motoverse.com/directory/
• http://www.mvdn.com/
• http://www.simplemotors.com/
• http://www.wheelsdirectory.com/

Let me know how it goes,

Corey

…

Thank you very much!

Regards,

Jennifer

Dear Vehix Inventory Provider:

We are pleased to announce that Vehix has selected HomeNet, Inc. to consolidate inventory polling services for our website. Vehix will utilize HomeNet’s Inventory Online (IOL) technology to upload new and used vehicle inventory data for the Vehix.com site.

HomeNet is a leading provider of vehicle inventory data solutions and has been serving the automotive industry for over ten years. They presently poll inventory for over 6,800 dealers and have more than 1.6 million vehicles in their daily inventory upload. HomeNet’s IOL software is compatible with all DMS types such as ADP, Reynolds & Reynolds, Auto/Mate, UCS, Karpower, PBS, Arkona, EDS, and more. They also are capable of receiving inventory from most third party aggregators. HomeNet will also be handling vehicle photographs as part of the Vehix process.

We will be collecting and sending inventory information to HomeNet throughout May and June with the target to switch over live on July 1. This letter serves as our authorization for you to also forward inventory for Vehix dealers to HomeNet. Please continue to also send inventory to your current Vehix address until we notify you that the transition is complete.

We appreciate and respect the trust you place in us when you provide inventory information. You can be assured that HomeNet will also respect the integrity of your dealers’ data. To learn more about HomeNet, please visit their website at www.homenetinc.com.

Again, the plan is to switch over to HomeNet on July 1. If you have any questions about the transition process, please contact me.

Thank you,

Travis Janiszewski

Manager, Dealer Services

Vehix, Inc.

(801) 401-6063

Jeff Kershner is talking about using a dealership website to bait and switch customers by keeping typical or accessible (but not on the lot) inventory online.

Bait and Switch: The Oldest Trick in the Book

CARFAX has changed the pricing of its vehicle history reports. A single CARFAX Vehicle History Report now sells for $24.99 and unlimited reports sell for $29.99.

If you post CARFAX pricing on your Web site, please update your Web site as soon as possible to reflect the new pricing.

Note that only thing changing is our pricing; your commission percentage will not change.

Feel free to contact us here with any questions or comments.

CARFAX Affiliate Marketing Team
affiliate@carfax.com

Recently, a big shot dealership from the state capitol contracted me to handle all their third party data feeds. Autotrader, Cars.com and Vehix all get fat files full of vehicle data and pictures at least once a day to populate this dealer’s accounts. While this process is largely a set-it-and-forget-it, it could hardly be as easy.

The Car Lot Camera Guy

Big shot dealership doesn’t take hundreds of photos of all the cars they sell. Instead, they pay some guy with a digital camera and a barcode VIN scanner to do it for them. Great! The more nerds the better, right? I feel that any opportunity to bring more computer people into the dealership is a good one. Man am I wrong.

For the past six months of our relationship, I’ve battled countless “where’s my car” arguments with our transmission logs and carbon copied emails. Since I’m not shooting the shit at the dealership all morning like Car Lot Camera Guy, I’m the first to blame. The data distribution service I provide has never been disrupted throughout our entire contract, and I’ve been able to consistently back that up with evidence.

Car Lot Camera Guy has, well, a camera and a barcode reader. Each time there is a problem I ask for the stock numbers in question and report back within the hour with what happened. Car Lot Camera Guy thinks he uploaded the pictures on the 13th.

Jeff Kershner has verified that AutoUSA resells the same car leads to dealers after 30 day intervals. Read about it at DealerRefresh, Jeff’s marketing blog.