Cars vs. CarGurus Saga Highlights the Impact of SEO and the Downsides of Google Updates
For Cars.com, the popular automotive marketplace, the March 2019 core update was beneficial: the company has seen a 49% increase in search visibility since. SEO Director David Greene attributes this success to their SEO strategy focused on content and site performance updates. However, there was another factor at play. While Cars.com saw a post-update bump, one of its biggest rivals, CarGurus.com, saw the opposite happen.
CarGurus.com lost hundreds of thousands of top placements in Google after the March update. About 30% of their keywords dropped significantly. The SEMRush chart below shows that their visibility in Google has returned to December 2017 levels:
CarGurus.com declined to comment for this story. Greene believes that the decline in CarGurus.com’s rankings helped Cars.com gain more traffic.
SEO in the Spotlight
The financial results for Cars.com were not promising in the first quarter. The company’s revenue fell by nearly $6 million, and it reported a net loss of $9 million for the period. However, one line in the earnings release stood out: “SEO traffic grew 49% year-over-year, driving record traffic and leads; material shift in SEO competitive share continues to accelerate.” According to Greene, Cars.com’s top traffic driver is search, and the increase in visibility led to a direct rise in advertiser impressions and qualified leads for their dealership partners, resulting in overall growth in conversions and leads.
“In the first quarter, our total leads grew 15%,” Cars.com CEO Alex Vetter said in the earnings report. “Keep in mind, the most material shift in SEO market share took place just at the end of the first quarter and continues to accelerate into Q2,” he added.
The company also presented a slide in their earnings report showing the post-update swap between the two rivals, while other competitors mostly remained flat.
What Happened to CarGurus.com?
CarGurus.com declined to comment, but there was a noticeable increase in their link-building activities in December 2017. Shortly after, their Google rankings began to rise sharply, until the March 2019 core update caused their rankings to drop. It appears that Google decided to disregard the links they built since December 2017.
According to a leaked internal presentation by Cars.com, the company revealed significant “blackhat” linking tactics by CarGurus.com. The presentation alleged that 66% of the links they uncovered were from India and were low quality. It also suggested that CarGurus.com was using cloaking techniques, disguised as dynamic rendering, to hide content, remove ads from Google’s view, inject more keywords, and manipulate crawl budget. These tactics are against Google’s guidelines but are considered poor practice rather than deceptive.
It remains unclear if the site was affected by the March 2019 core update or if a manual action was taken around the same time.
This drop resembles one caused by the Penguin update, which penalizes sites for spammy link practices. While Penguin operates in real-time, the timing of the drop aligns with the March 2019 core update. During CarGurus.com’s earnings call, CEO Langley Steinert mentioned that Google isn’t everything to the company’s success.
“Over the last 12 years, we’ve experienced highs and lows with different Google algorithm changes. Our success has been built on creating a good product, and organic traffic from any given search engine is not a large part of our business,” he said. “We’ve diversified our traffic sources, so we’re not dependent on any one source.”
CarGurus.com stock was over $40 per share and is now trading at $36 per share. Additionally, the SEMRush chart indicates that the company increased their paid search spend as their Google organic search visibility dropped.
The Lesson Here Is…
Yes, CarGurus.com took a major hit with their Google rankings, while Cars.com benefited from the March 2019 core update, winning big as a result.
Greene mentioned that Cars.com’s strategy will remain consistent, with over 100 SEO projects focused on creating great content and enhancing site performance.
Your Google traffic can fluctuate. Successes can be a big win for the company, while downfalls can have serious repercussions. Always ensure that you perform SEO within Google’s guidelines and avoid manipulating the algorithm.
Moreover, as with many algorithms, there can be false positives. Even if you do everything right, have a backup plan and diversify your traffic sources.
