Do you want to know how much that vehicle costs that you have your eye on? Well, Google definitely wants you to know, and has made it so there is no way to miss it – or click on any other result on the page to discover that fact for yourself.
Google is testing a brand new knowledge graph feature for vehicle pricing searches, which Samuel Edwards from Tenth Wave spotted recently. When you search for “car name” plus “price” it shows a massively large price on the screen.
Previously, Google displayed pricing on the right side knowledge graph, but it definitely didn’t stand out the way this huge font for pricing does. And they changed the side knowledge graph to require users to click to expand it.
Since Edwards spotted the change, Google has been further enhancing this knowledge graph by not only including the Tesla price, but pricing – with links – to competitor’s products.
When you click to one of the competitor’s links – I clicked on the Nissan Leaf link – it changed the search query to “2015 nissan leaf msrp” which included a carousel, advertisements, and below the advertisement, another large knowledge graph block with the pricing.
This knowledge graph appears to be US only, as a similar search on the UK site produced this version of the knowledge graph.
For unknown reasons, the exact same search query in Google.ca shows horrendous results. They show the info in the knowledge graph as an excerpt from a page – but it was a pretty disappointing link they used, as it was linking to a page for last year’s 2013 model talking about the price increase.
Definitely not what a searcher would be looking for when searching “Tesla price”, however it IS the first result in the search listings – but only for the Google.ca version of that search query.
Here is the Google.ca query “tesla price”.
The Google.com AND Google.co.uk versions of that query are great. Which raises the question about why the results are so completely different in the Google.ca results, except for the possibility that it is due to the geotargeted www.teslamotors.com/en_CA/models/design not ranking as high as its non-geotargeted counterpart on Google.com
Google has been making changes to the automobile knowledge graphs since late last year. They were first spotted in December 2013 and raised concerns about whether it would enhance interest in vehicles or simply mean searchers wouldn’t go to their local dealership for information or go to the official website for the vehicle.
I suspect when dealerships realize this is happening, they won’t be happy, since many car buyers will visit the website for their local dealership to get pricing, especially for new vehicles. It is great and convenient for searchers, and it helps those who are simply curious about the price of a car but who don’t want to have to go through the hassle of a dealership website.
Jennifer Slegg
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AutorgyV8 says
Seems convenient, isn’t it? But there is a catch. The dealer will be certainly charging you more for your car finance. Usually car buyers are overcharged by 3% on their car finance. A great number of complaints about car financing are related to dealers. 0% APR is not only attractive but lures the buyers to acquire up car finance not meditating if it is feasible for them. There are very few people who can actually get a 0% APR. Thus car finance deals usually fall midway thereby making car finance experience an extremely distressing one. You are buying a new car and probably for the first time, you certainly want it to compliment your enthusiasm. There are few elementary things that need to be kept in mind before taking that crucial primeval step in car buying.