Over the last month, we’ve seen a number of announcements and changes being made in the world of automotive SEO, from Google switch-ups to artificial intelligence moving further into search to Google Business Profile (GBP) scams. Some of these won’t have much of an impact on dealers, while others certainly will. So, here’s everything you need to know after this whirlwind of a month.
A Goodbye to Continuous Scroll
Remember when Google announced that it would be implementing “continuous scroll” on search engine results pages (SERPs)? Starting on mobile devices and then moving to desktop, this change removed “pages” from Google search results. We chatted about this back in late 2022 when it was announced, stating that we weren’t sure how or if this would impact dealerships. Well, I guess it doesn’t matter anymore–Google has killed it.
After about a year and a half of having this feature, which allowed users to sift through all results from their search without the need to navigate to another page every ten results, enabled, Google announced in late June that they would be reverting this change. The reason? Load speed. Not only was the search engine moving slower, trying to load so many results at once, but adding continuous scrolling also didn’t really change user behavior anyway.
The good news is that since the implementation of continuous scrolling didn’t change much in terms of which results users landed on, its removal isn’t likely to have an impact either. But if you’re like me and you got used to scrolling to results 20, 30, or further for SEO research purposes, you will need to start flipping through pages again.
Another Spam Update Rolled Out
In their continued effort to serve only the highest quality results to users, Google rolled out yet another spam update, completing it on June 27th. These updates, which have been rolling out every few months for the last couple of years, aim to penalize spammy content marketing practices, or, similarly, reward non-spammy content.
Today’s world of artificial intelligence and marketers trying to take shortcuts through mass content production and link purchasing requires these updates.
Dealers can make sure they’re on the right side of things during these anti-spam updates by:
- Focusing on human-written content – Google will reward human-written content, whether directly or indirectly, through the penalization of other content. AI-generated content is often unhuman-like and riddled with factual inaccuracies; Google will identify and penalize this during these updates.
- Writing unique content – Often, we see dealer sites with tons of similar landing pages, identical content-wise with only a couple of words or city names changed. This is what I’d call using a content “template,” and it can lead to serious duplicate content issues, which will be penalized. Every single page on your site should be unique.
- Earning backlinks organically – A common mistake made when it comes to building authority for dealer sites is buying links. But link purchasing is actually against Google’s guidelines and will have negative consequences. Instead, focus on organic link-building tactics, such as being an authoritative online source.
When push comes to shove, the best way to have a positive outcome from each of these spam updates is to focus on creating high-quality content for your website and avoid the pitfalls of, well, spammy practices.
OpenAI Is Creating a Search Product
There’s no denying the fact that artificial intelligence has been a hot topic for the last couple of years. ChatGPT, owned by OpenAI, took the world by storm and became an instant hit for users worldwide. Of course, the initial tool had serious limitations, such as a knowledge cutoff date. As the model has continued to evolve, though, it has become more helpful and knowledgeable. Seemingly in hopes to keep this momentum going, OpenAI has recently announced that they are working toward developing their own search product.
Of course, we don’t know exactly what they’re planning on building or what it will look like, but there is potential for this to have a major impact on SEO if it continues forward. Will users ditch Google for OpenAI? Will a different platform mean a different algorithm to optimize for? It’s hard to say or even guess, especially without knowing whether this is going to be an iteration of Google’s AI Overviews, like their current “Search With Bing” feature, or whether it plans to offer true SERPs. Either way, this is definitely something to look out for, as OpenAI gives us more information. For now, though, we sit and wait for more.
Google Maps Pin Scam
The last, but certainly not the least interesting, major automotive SEO happening in the last month: scams are brewing. You know how time and time again, we’ve preached the importance of keeping your Google Business Profile (GBP) accurate and up to date? Apparently, there are now some not-so-nice people working against that.
Google Maps currently accepts pin movements from anyone through the “Suggest an Edit” feature, meaning your competitors can shift your pin on the map. This can cause you to lose your map pack position in places where you were previously performing well and, in turn, lose traffic to your site. Oh, and Google will not let you know the pin has been moved. A little overly trustworthy of the general public, in my opinion. What’s worse is that many people who have manually edited their pins back to the right location have had their accounts suspended for nefarious activity.
What’s being noted as the best course of action now in order to avoid GBP suspension is to log into Google from an account that is not connected to your GBP account. Then, you can make another suggested change, moving the pin back to its original and correct location.
All in all, this goes to show that consistent monitoring of your GBP is essential; don’t let yourself miss out on business because of this!
Stay in the Automotive SEO Loop With Wikimotive
With the execution of continuous scroll, another Google algorithm update, OpenAI’s latest announcement, and talks of a Google Maps scam, this last month has certainly been a busy one. This isn’t uncommon when it comes to SEO, though.
At Wikimotive, we understand that the constant change and dynamic nature of SEO can be a challenge to keep up with; car dealers are busy! That’s exactly why we are here to keep you in the loop. So, keep up with our blog to make sure you know the latest happenings, or contact us to learn more about how we can help your dealership excel through every change.