Is Google looking to penalize 3rd Party sites that scrape like CarGurus?

[kevinfrye]

If you submit almost any used car search query in your market, odds are that CarGurus is dominating the results - pretty impressive. In fact, you might even remember this DealerRefresh article about CarGurus from 2011, they have come a long way.

Matt Cutts sent out the following tweet below:


Matt is asking folks that see this problem to report the offender to Google. The primary question for CarGurus is - do they acquire dealers' inventory by scraping dealers' websites? If so, it appears that CarGurus, as well as other sites that scrape dealers' inventory could have some issues with Google. Thoughts?

 

[joe.pistell]

Kevin,

I believe GOOG's after creative or journalistic content being scraped, especially after black hat affiliates in high PPC$ verticals (sex, re-finance, insurance, health, etc). Scraping is everywhere. Google your 07 Acura MDX, stk#J3973a VIN 2HNYD28587H529859 GOOG shows 2,100 URLs.

 

[Daniel J. Mondello]

Getting popcorn

 

[PatrickWalker]

Does CarGurus list fresh inventories of non-customers and then lead users to paying CarGurus customers? i see no issue otherwise.

Developers just need to keep up with what google wants to see when they crawl/scrape the internet

 

[yagoparamo]

Somewhat related but we started adding copyright notices to the custom content that we create for dealers to try to avoid or at least discourage others from coping the text from our clients. In a world that is going towards a higher value for authenticity we felt it was a necessary first step.

 

[kevinfrye]

Does CarGurus list fresh inventories of non-customers and then lead users to paying CarGurus customers? i see no issue otherwise.

Developers just need to keep up with what google wants to see when they crawl/scrape the internet

Patrick, from Matt Cutts' quote, it would appear it is an issue with Google.

Many of these sites scrape our inventory, then monetize it on their sites by selling digital ad space, and also getting dealers to pay them for leads. If Google takes the approach that the actual owners of the content are prioritized in the search results, then it would be very beneficial to dealers.

 

[joe.pistell]

Kevin,

I wrote that Refresh article on CarGurus about 4 years ago
CarGurus.com Takes on AutoTrader and Cars.com in the Local SEO/Search Results



For the used long tail SERPs like "used Chevrolet Equinox near [city] [state]". If your game plan is to mark cargurus as a scraper to free up some organic SERP real estate for your website (a great idea), it won't work >:-p. I have found:

1. #1). Google "hard codes" National Classified sites over dealer sites 4:1
2. #2). Top 5 SERPs are almost always the same across the entire nation. They are: 4 Local/National Classified sites and 1 Local Dealer.

Every where I look, Google "hard codes" top SERP results to control the Google UX. When you think about it, it's perfectly logical (from Google's POV). So, if you flag and remove any National or Local classified site from the Top5, it'll just open up the door to another Nat'l or local classified site into this gap.

 

[kevinfrye]

Kevin,

I wrote that Refresh article on CarGurus about 4 years ago
CarGurus.com Takes on AutoTrader and Cars.com in the Local SEO/Search Results





For the used long tail SERPs like "used Chevrolet Equinox near [city] [state]". If your game plan is to mark cargurus as a scraper to free up some organic SERP real estate for your website (a great idea), it won't work >:-p. I have found:

1. #1). Google "hard codes" National Classified sites over dealer sites 4:1
2. #2). Top 5 SERPs are almost always the same across the entire nation. They are: 4 Local/National Classified sites and 1 Local Dealer.

Every where I look, Google "hard codes" top SERP results to control the Google UX. When you think about it, it's perfectly logical (from Google's POV). So, if you flag and remove any National or Local classified site from the Top5, it'll just open up the door to another Nat'l or local classified site into this gap.

Great insight Joe, well appreciated!

 

[Karen Ann]

https://twitter.com/danbarker/statuses/439125570115223552

 

[kevinfrye]

Priceless, thanks for sharing Karen, lol