Automotive Shopping Sites Take Major Plunge In Web Traffic, User Visits for 4th Quarter of 2016
COMMACK, NY – Something happened out there in traffic land, beginning sometime in September 2016, which has sent the worlds top 10 automotive shopping sites into a complete nose dive when it comes to traffic, page-views, and likely, revenue. Something is definitely happening in the automotive shopping space, and potentially across the board effecting multiple industries.
Why Are Auto Shopping Sites Taking A Major Plunge In Traffic?
- Was it the returning school year [as usual] in the beginning of September?
- Was it the ‘insane‘ U.S. presidential election that was taking place?
- Is this a general indication of the state of the economy declining?
- Is this now an extended decline due to the entering of the Holiday Season?
- Is this a combination of ALL of these things at once?
Looking at these graphs below, something is happening out there, and it’s not looking good.
Below are snapshot graphs which are now frozen in time; taken today, 12/01/2016, which indicate that pretty clearly, all automotive shopping websites have seen a tremendous loss in the amount of web visitors and page-views for Q4, something which looks to have began to take root, mid September.
#1) AutoTrader.com – Rank in United States: #452nd Place of All Sites Online
#2) CarGurus.com – Rank in United States: 582nd Place of All Sites Online
#3) Edmunds.com – Rank in United States: 638th Place of All Sites Online
#4) Cars.com – Rank in United States: 644th Place of All Sites Online
#5) CarFax.com – Rank in United States: 1,280th Place of All Sites Online
#6) TrueCar.com – Rank in United States: 1,577th Place of All Sites Online
#7) CarsDirect.com – Rank in United States: 5,495th Place of All Sites Online
#8) AutoBytel.com – Rank in United States: 7,275th Place of All Sites Online
#9) Car.com – Rank in United States: 7,532nd Place of All Sites Online
#10) UsedCars.com – Rank in United States: 57,635th Place of All Sites Online
If you are an automotive dealer whose phone and email leads seem to have slowed down some, it appears to be a near guarantee that you are not alone in the world.
Nope, beginning September 2016, it seems that there are just less shoppers in the market, less searchers seeking vehicles to purchase, or somehow, someway, search engines has found an additional avenue to gobble-up web traffic, intended for you, for themselves. There is no way to know yet [at least that I can think of], but I will sure be keeping an eye on this mess into 2017.
On another note, an interesting and additional takeaway from the above graphs is that Massachusetts based CarGurus.com, a privately owned website created by the co-founder of TripAdvisor, is very close to becoming the busiest automotive shopping site on the Internet. According to these graphs, CarGurus.com is in second place, just outside of industry veteran AutoTrader.com [As of today’s date, Alexa places the site in 582nd place of all websites in the United States] Not bad for a company Founded in 2005.
About The Author: John Colascione is Chief Executive Officer of SEARCHEN NETWORKS®. He specializes in Website Monetization, is a Google AdWords Certified Professional, authored a how-to book called ”Mastering Your Website‘, and is a key player in several online businesses.
