Websites, SEO, SEM, Display, Social, Marketing

Automotive professionals discuss Yelp's effectiveness as a review platform, with particular focus on its aggressive filtering system that hides reviews from new or less-active users, even when they come from legitimate customers. While acknowledging Yelp's popularity and free listing benefits, users highlight frustrations with the inability to moderate content and the platform's opacity around review visibility. A practical workaround emerges: dealers can screenshot filtered reviews and republish them on their own websites and social media to ensure positive customer feedback reaches potential buyers.

The original post criticizes Google's Farmer Algorithm update for disproportionately penalizing legitimate, original content websites while failing to effectively target scrapers and spam sites. The poster argues that Google should have provided advance notice and clearer guidelines before rolling out such a significant algorithm change that negatively impacted major players' search rankings and revenue.

A new Ford dealership ISM seeks recommendations for website providers and asks whether to use the same vendor for both website and CRM/ILM services or separate providers. Responses suggest that website and CRM/ILM providers are increasingly partnering, but dealerships have more options for website selection and should evaluate providers independently based on features like inventory management, SEO performance, and customer service rather than defaulting to an all-in-one solution.

A dealership seeking to replace Facebook's removed "suggest to friends" feature in their salesman bonus structure solicited ideas for alternative marketing activities that would incentivize salespeople to contribute to the store's online presence. The community suggested video-based content (walkarounds and testimonials) as the most viable replacement, with one user recommending a gamified contest approach using third-party apps to maintain engagement and virality. The thread concluded with a broader suggestion to rotate between multiple bonus categories (emails, inventory management, etc.) and implement a ranking system across all metrics to create comprehensive monthly incentives.

A dealer discusses Google's February 2011 algorithm update and its dramatic impact on search rankings, noting that many well-established websites experienced significant drops while the change's actual quality benefits remain unclear. The poster questions whether scraper sites and blogs are unfairly outperforming original content creators and suggests the community monitor Google's future moves. The thread touches on broader implications, including potential job losses in SEO-dependent businesses, but appears incomplete.

Google announced a significant algorithm update affecting 11.8% of queries, designed to penalize low-quality sites with duplicate content and minimal user value. The original poster noticed major SERP changes and shared Google's official confirmation, though discussion about which data centers were affected and the actual ranking impacts remained unclear. The thread provides limited actionable insight beyond awareness of the update itself, with no concrete conclusions about how dealers should respond.

A dealership owner asks whether to expand from Facebook to Twitter, prompting experienced dealers to advise that social media presence is less important than foundational business practices like customer service, Google Places optimization, and online reviews. The consensus is that pursuing social media without first fixing internal operations and reputation will only amplify existing problems to a wider audience. While Twitter can be useful for monitoring mentions and networking, dealers should prioritize getting their customer experience and online reputation right before investing heavily in social channels.

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The thread debates whether encouraging customers to post reviews on their personal Facebook walls is valuable for dealerships, with Andrew Ward arguing that personal recommendations carry more influence than public reviews while Jerry Thibeau counters that review volume on Google and third-party sites is more important for attracting new car buyers. The discussion pivots toward practical alternatives like having dealers share delivery photos on their Facebook pages or asking satisfied customers to post reviews across multiple platforms simultaneously to leverage both social word-of-mouth and review site visibility. The consensus suggests that encouraging organic customer advocacy on personal social feeds, combined with strong Google review presence, offers better ROI than relying solely on either channel.

The thread discusses Google's penalties for websites that build backlinks from irrelevant sources, using JCPenney's public penalization as a cautionary example of black hat SEO tactics backfiring. The original poster emphasizes that link-building strategy should prioritize relevance and compliance with Google guidelines to avoid search ranking penalties. One commenter suggests such penalized companies should shift their focus to paid search (PPC) instead of organic strategies.

Stefan shares a video about Google's integration of social media results into organic search for logged-in users, asking if this is a recent development. Jeff explains that Google introduced Social Search in 2009 but recently expanded it to include publicly shared links from Twitter and other sites that appear annotated only to connected users. Stefan's key concern emerges: many dealers still struggle to understand why social media, reviews, photos, and descriptions matter for their online presence, despite these growing search integration features.

The thread discusses whether creating a separate mobile version of a website with a different URL (e.g., mobile.twitter.com) constitutes duplicate content that could penalize SEO rankings. The consensus is that Google recognizes mobile versions as legitimate and valuable for user experience rather than duplicate content, especially when properly implemented with separate URLs. Participants conclude that a dedicated mobile site should not trigger penalties and may even generate additional backlinks to the primary site.

Dealers discuss the merits and mechanics of automated PPC platforms like Haystack that dynamically generate search ads based on used vehicle inventory, with debate centering on whether highly specific long-tail keywords (e.g., "2005 White GMC Sierra") or broader match terms (e.g., "sierra") drive better ROI. The key insight is that Haystack's effectiveness depends entirely on how dealers configure it—the tool can execute any search strategy from ultra-generic to hyper-specific—but participants remain divided on whether searchers actually hunt for individual vehicles by detailed specs or use broader automotive terms.

A dealer seeks recommendations for an app or service to improve customer communication around service departments. One vendor suggests Teletext Solutions, while another hints at an unreleased product launching that month, and a third asks clarifying questions about whether the dealer wants a mobile phone app versus a broader service communication platform. The thread remains inconclusive with no clear consensus emerging on specific solutions.

Chris Fousek asks how to receive notifications for comments and posts on his dealership's Facebook business page, noting that Facebook doesn't natively offer this feature for business pages like it does for personal accounts. After several participants confirm that no built-in solution exists, the thread pivots to discussing workarounds including third-party apps (PageNotifier, NutshellMail, fanpagenotifier.com) and RSS feed services that can send email alerts for new wall posts, with mixed effectiveness depending on the specific notification needs.

Anirban explains the importance of meta title tags for on-page SEO optimization, defining what they are (the text that appears at the top of browser tabs) and outlining best practices such as keeping titles under 100 characters and incorporating 8-9 key phrases. The thread establishes that proper title tag creation is a fundamental SEO practice that significantly impacts search engine visibility for web pages.

The thread emphasizes that organic SEO is an effective and affordable marketing strategy, but requires patience and time to deliver results—unlike immediate-impact channels such as TV advertising. Anirban addresses a common client complaint about not seeing first-page Google rankings after just one month, setting up an explanation that SEO is a slower-moving but ultimately more valuable long-term investment.

A dealer asks about FanBullet, a service offering to generate thousands of Facebook and Twitter followers for a fee. The community consensus is strongly negative, with responders arguing that bulk-purchased followers lack genuine value, are likely sourced from foreign countries or contest-harvesting schemes, and won't convert to actual customers—ultimately emphasizing quality engagement over vanity metrics.

The thread discusses long tail keyword optimization as a cost-effective SEO strategy for automotive dealers with limited budgets, positioning it as an alternative to competing for expensive, high-volume keywords that require significant backlink investment. The poster argues that targeting long tail keywords and local search terms can deliver targeted traffic without the high costs associated with competitive, broad-match keywords. The key insight is that budget-conscious dealerships can achieve better ROI by focusing on less competitive, more specific search phrases rather than trying to rank for popular industry-wide terms.

Jeff Kershner announces that Cars.com Dealer Advantage is hosting Reputation Management workshops and mini labs at NADA 2011, with a lineup of automotive and online reputation professionals. The thread draws brief enthusiasm from attendees and participants, including a noted session featuring Jeff alongside moderator Jack Simmons. The post primarily serves as a promotional heads-up for dealers planning their NADA schedule.

Shereef introduces Dealer Mouth, a platform that enables dealership salespeople to create individual personal websites and social media presence while maintaining management control, with integrated client communication tools. The thread reveals initial skepticism about the intentionally vague product website, but the company defends this strategy to avoid shortening the learning curve for competitors, while offering direct demos to interested dealers. A key concern about duplicate content hurting SEO is addressed by clarifying that these individual sales rep sites are marketed through social channels rather than search engines, with the dealership's main site handling SEO efforts.

The thread discusses Google's efforts to reduce spam in search results, citing Matt Cutts' statement that spam results dropped by more than half over five years. The post highlights Google's focus on eliminating content from automated sources and hacked sites while improving overall search quality through updates like Caffeine.

Joe Pistell recommends Dan Zarrella as a valuable resource for data-driven social media marketing, sharing an infographic on Facebook marketing tactics and highlighting Zarrella's article distinguishing between legitimate social media science and questionable "snake oil" approaches. Craig amplifies the recommendation by endorsing Zarrella's parent company HubSpot, praising their free tools and training resources like Inbound Marketing University. The thread's consensus is that Zarrella and HubSpot offer credible, research-backed social media guidance worth exploring for automotive professionals seeking legitimate marketing strategies.