I visited a website called Car Dealer Check (CarDealerCheck.com) by a Twitter comment on an unrelated topic and when I landed on the page for a Nissan Dealer in Florida.

I was taken back by how many paid ads were running on this dealership listing page. Take a look at the page that I found for Sutherlin Nissan of Fort Meyers below:



The page is organically optimized for the dealership name, as shown be the META tags for this page:

Money Making On Dealers Brand Name

And I highlighted the paid ad sections (in pink) that lead consumers away from this dealer's review page to provide leads for related automotive services and their local competitors. There is nothing illegal about what Car Dealer Check is doing since they are not using the dealers name in the main URL and only in the page tagging.

This however, is just another confirmation that companies are using the guise of consumer reviews to produce Page One organic results that leak brand equity away from car dealers. If someone was looking for information about this dealer, you can see by the pink box how many "land-mines" are in key areas to generate revenue for the website owner.

Push This Off Page One

If you are paying CarDealerCheck.com for their service, they may be willing to take off the paid ads from your listing page. If you are not using CarDealerCheck.com I would request that your dealership name be removed from their database. There is no law that says that they have to comply but I would ask out of professional courtesy.

Attacks on a dealer's brand name is the reason why POD Score™ was introduced. Dealer's need to understand that their brand name is under attack and that they need a Page One Defense (POD). Dealers need to make sure that sites like this do not easily divert their in-market customers to their competitors.

Advice to dealers: This website, if it is running Google Adsense on your review page, it should not be on Page One for a search on your dealership name. You should push this website off Page One using better optimized content and microsites on your dealership name.

If your branding and advertising dollars drives consumers to this site, there are too many ways that leads can be generated that fund YOUR COMPETITION.