Car dealer SEO for used stock, VDPs and dealer groups

A dealer website has two page types that matter for search: the vehicle detail page (VDP) for each car in stock and the search results page (SRP) for each make, model and body type you sell. Most dealer platforms get both wrong. VDPs are rendered from a stock feed with a templated title, no unique content and no structured data, then vanish when the car sells, leaving a 404. SRPs are filtered views with parameters in the URL that Google either ignores or indexes in thousands of duplicate versions.

Our approach is to treat stock as content. Every VDP gets a title and description built from the vehicle's real attributes, Car and Offer structured data, the dealer's own photos and a written description rather than the feed's boilerplate, and a sensible end of life when it sells: a 410 for one-off vehicles, or a redirect to the matching SRP with similar stock. SRPs are indexed only for combinations that have stock and demand (make, make and model, body type, price band where volume justifies it), with clean URLs, canonical rules for filters and a paragraph of real content per page. Everything else is noindexed.

For groups, each physical branch gets a page with its own NAP, opening hours, Google Business Profile link, staff, reviews and the stock at that site. These are branch pages, not city doorway pages, and they are what makes a group rank for the make and town searches that Auto Trader does not own. On top: brand and model landing pages for franchised sites, buying guides and walkaround video, and the technical hygiene (speed, crawl control, redirect map when you change platform) that dealer sites usually lack.