What he explained to me was how the company Zag, which I remember coming onto the scene in 2007 around the time I had chosen to leave my post at HomeNet to start AutoConversion, was using vehicle transaction data stored inside dealership DMSes, which it was authorized to obtain, to exploit dealership costs on vehicles to list on its shopper site TrueCar.com, thus driving down the so-called market price of vehicles.

At the time I did not fully comprehend Zag’s business model, nor was I that interested in it, but the nature of the situation now and how it pertains to the exploitation of data is of interest to me, as is how this situation with TrueCar.com is affecting auto dealerships and our industry.

Last month I did a post about how dealers can use blogging to protect themselves from the TrueCar dilemma and although this post was more of a playful piece to stand up for inbound marketing, I wanted to follow up on the subject with different ideas and angles on this important matter.

The Price-only Buyer: A 12% Market Share

Back in 2007, Polk released the Dealer eBusiness Performance Study with Yahoo that drew several conclusions, one of which determined there was about a 12% market share of price-only buyers. What the study concluded was that although all auto shoppers are conscientious about the price of vehicles, only about 12% make their purchase decision based on price alone.

Ultimately the study suggested that while dealerships could base their sales and marketing strategy around vehicle price, there is more market share around other criteria such as location, brand, and probably most important, the customer experience.

About 12% make their purchase decision based on price alone. -Polk-Yahoo Study (2007)

At the time my message to dealers was that they had two choices. Choice “a” was to be a price-only dealer and choice “b” was to be about value. For dealers that want to be a price-only dealer then blogging would not be useful to their marketing strategy but for dealers that represent value then blogging would be a necessary tool.

Dealership Value Proposition

The value that an auto dealership brings to the table for auto shoppers is important and as the Polk-Yahoo study suggested, nearly 90% of car buyers want that value. What is that value?

For starters, a franchise dealership represents trust and integrity. Because it is attached to the OEM brand, the dealership has a responsibility to the marketplace, the community, and it’s employees. This perceived value is essential to the buying process because people want assurances with their purchase that franchise dealers are more able to give than independent ones.

A Simulated TrueCar Buying Experience

Building on this, let’s take a gander down purchase lane for a minute. When people enter your dealership they are typically greeted warmly, offered snacks and beverages, and taken on a personal guided tour of the showroom to look at vehicles. They get questions answered, go on test drives, and consulted about their finance options. After the purchase when the vehicle is delivered they get a crash course on how to use the vehicle and are sent off (in most cases) with confidence and joy about their purchase.

Customers understand that these amenities are rolled into the cost of their purchase, and they are ok with that. Just because they try to negotiate the price down doesn’t make them a price-only buyer. As the dealer, I don’t think you need to be shy about the enhanced value your dealership provides.

TrueCar.com shoppers however are coming in at a disadvantage. Whether they know it or not, they are basing their decision on price alone and your dealership has every right to give them what they pay for. I am not suggesting you treat TrueCar.com buyers like garbage, but I am suggesting you have a transparent process specially designed for people coming in from the TrueCar path.

Imagine the customer comes in with his TrueCar.com guaranteed purchase certificate. He shows it to upon arrival and you courteously walk him over to the cashier where people check out for parts and services, and let them attendant know that this person just purchase a vehicle from them at TrueCar.com and that he is here to pick up his new ride.

The attendant can arrange to have the vehicle brought to the delivery area while the customer signs all the necessary paperwork and when complete can drive off with is new ride. No fluff, no warm fuzzies, no ill feelings. Just his new car.

At some point the customer might have some questions or be interested in receiving some sort of assistance, at which point you can politely explain that you are sorry but TrueCar.com purchases do not come with such amenities and that they will have to direct inquiries to the OEM or back to TrueCar.com itself.

Now I realize this is a hypothetical dramatization of how this will ultimately play down, but I am hoping to make a point that there are ways for the dealership to remain in the game with TrueCar.com but play by its own rules in a way that is justified based on the TrueCar.com business model and the customer’s interests.

Of course the challenge with this is that you risk creating disgruntled customers that want their cake and eat it too. To counter this you will need to set proper expectations during the sales process which I doubt is something you can accomplish through TrueCar.com so it might require a dedicated landing page on your website that speaks to TrueCar shoppers. But again, we are speaking in hypothetical terms here.

Turn off the data

Another option you have as a dealer if you are not interested in playing the game with TrueCar.com but are interested in Zag referrals is to turn off the data that Zag/TrueCar is extracting from your DMS to obtain your transaction costs. As the rightful owner of the data in your DMS you have the right and ability to limit what information is available to each different party inside your DMS.

By shutting of the data in your DMS such as invoice price, shop costs, etc. you limit TrueCar’s ability to exploit your margins. This of course takes you out of the game somewhat, but does that really matter? Are you really concerned about the small handful of cars you might sell from TrueCar.com that cut so deep into your margins you can’t stand it?

Play by your own rules

I realize this is a difficult situation for many dealers and that TrueCar has left a bad taste in the mouths of a lot of people, but I don’t see dealers being powerless about the situation either. Your business is not going to be hurt by pulling out of the game TrueCar.com invented and there are certainly ways to go along with the game without losing your foot. You just have to be willing to try something new and different.

By doing so, you might even find that it isn’t so bad flipping cars through the cashier based on price alone like a high-volume consumer retail store. Not everyone wants this but some do and if you play your cards right then you can protect your gross by reducing the conveniences and amenities that are increasing your costs. If you have the product to offer these buyers, go for it.

While researching, I came across Brian Pasch’s article on DrivingSales.com titled, “Is Your Advertising Strategy Based on Fear, Data, or Blind Faith?” In his article, Brian builds a good case around the thinking that TrueCar is more of a symptom or product of an addictive  tendency repeatedly displayed by auto dealerships. I agree with Pasch’s point.

What Brian is getting at is something I believe is true. I built my business around it blogging for car dealers. It’s how companies like HubSpot have achieved great success. It’s the reality that Internet marketing today gives essentially all businesses, including auto dealerships, the ability to establish their own marketing pipelines to drive sales and stop relying on outside sources for all of their business.

To be clear, the argument is not against using third-party lead generators and partners to drive sales, but to build your own sales machine so that you can keep your third-party partners selective and minimal, and ultimately avoid the dilemma of feeling forced to work with businesses such as TrueCar.

Build Your Own Inbound Marketing Machine

The idea here is to build your own inbound marketing system. Inbound marketing is a term coined by HubSpot that refers to the practice of using content and advertising to educate and inform your target audiences through free and easily accessible content persistently over time to establish and build trust and ultimately sales of your product.

This, as opposed to traditional marketing practices of splattering your name and logo everywhere with the hope and expectation of it magically turning into sales, is necessary today primarily due to the role of search engines and Internet marketing. You can still advertise your business using traditional media. The problem is the cost and the ROI of it if that is your primary or only approach. When you do the math it just doesn’t add up.

Google AdWords vs. Traditional Media

Refer to Brian’s example in his article where:

• The cost per visitor for their Adwords was: $1.50
• The cost per visitor from their Traditional Media was: $18.65

Technically, Google AdWords is not inbound marketing but it is search engine marketing.  If you look at Google’s ZMOT (Zero Moment of Truth), one thing you will see from the research is that the primary stimulus points for auto shoppers IS NOT traditional media. It’s the Internet and search engines are the gateway to the Internet.

It is easy for Internet marketers to challenge why you would invest the majority of your advertising dollars into traditional media. We are bias. But traditional advertising sales reps will argue that if you want to reach the masses then you need to spend on traditional media.

I understand that dealers continue to spend on traditional media because it is what they are familiar and comfortable with. But as Pasch suggests, that is fear-based thinking and eventually it will be to your detriment if it isn’t already.

How Blogging Benefits Your Dealership Digital Strategy

I am not here to convince you that traditional media is not the best use of your advertising dollars. I am not here to tell you that TrueCar is bad for the auto business either. What I am here to share with you is why and how blogging is an important part of your marketing strategy, and how it can help dealers that feel forced into a corner about using TrueCar.

Blogging is about producing content for two primary purposes:

1. For SEO
2. For Relationships

In my early days of blogging for car dealers I would say that you are blogging for people (relationships) and for robots (SEO). Blogging still is about these two things and it’s important not only to understand this but to have a strategy for it.

A blog marketing strategy is tricky. There are numerous aspects to it.

• The strategic aspect
• The technical aspect
• The executive aspect
• The analytical aspect

All this is a lot to juggle for most auto dealerships, but not all of it needs to be managed by the dealership. Some of this process can be outsourced, and quite frankly some of it should be.

Download Free White Paper

Details can, should, and do not need to be outsourced by dealers that want to blog are outlined in my White Paper Blogging 101 for Car Dealers. In this white paper we explain the role that content marketing plays for auto dealers and we introduce 5 different types of content that auto dealerships can produce to promote their blog and website. We also dive in to why auto dealerships want to have a blog marketing strategy and which parts make sense to outsource.

The challenge dealerships face today is how to form a process around blogging that produces all this type of information in a way that is profitable for the dealership by being efficient and effective at selling cars and driving new business from current and non-existent customers. Blogging does not close deals and sell cars, but it certainly contributes to the process of driving the best traffic to your website and building trust and loyalty with potential and existing customers.

Download your free copy of our white paper by signing up for our site. If you are already a free member and have not received your copy then contact us at 1-877-873-0583.

You can see it in the data when you do your research. You hear it at conferences you attend. You see when you watch peoples’ presentations. You see it with those around you, and most likely you see it in your own behavior as it too is shifting towards mobile.

This natural evolution of how we access the Internet and communicate has been prophesied in sci-fi stories for decades. The “future” that we have always anticipated really is here and it is drastically affecting each of us in how we live, shop, share, and conduct business.

Evidence of this trend was revealed this Fall during conference season when Dataium co-founder Jason Ezell shared slide #20 of his presentation deck called “Betting on Your Future Business Using Predictive Analysis”. In this presentation you see that the trend towards mobile began around April 2011 and that it shows no sign of leveling off or declining. Logically, why would it?

There is also evidence of this in the data that was accumulated by Shopper Sciences while performing the now infamous Google ZMOT study. In their research, mobile use, while not yet a leading stimulus or communication source for auto shopping is clearly a growing trend that experts do not disagree is on track to be so by the end of 2012.

The significance of this information was supported at this year’s JD Power Automotive Internet Roundtable (#JDPAIRT) where Tier I organizations participated in numerous sessions and breakouts on the subject, and industry vendors are scrambling to respond to this quickly growing need.

The question for me isn’t whether mobile will be embraced by auto dealers, but how will it be embraced and will it be implemented effectively.

Early on, that is the past couple of years, the most effective way for dealers to utilize mobile marketing was by sending coupon and specials alerts via SMS. But now, people are being inundated with specials and savings on their mobile phone, so it is likely that the game will have to change.

Some companies, like AutoMotion TV for instance, are banking on people embracing the dealership experience by installing a mobile app for the dealership. I personally am skeptical that this use of technology will be accepted by people, but the mobile app provider has proven success with auto dealerships that you can read about on their site.

The philosophy behind AutoMotion TV’s dealer apps is to make them part of the shopping experience and to communicate with them via push messaging. Most mobile apps I have seen offered by automotive website providers fall short on the vehicle and inventory front, with limited or minimal ability to experience virtual vehicle tours or browse inventory with rich media. This is one are where AutoMotion TV stands out.

More importantly is AutoMotion TV’s push messaging, which is their ability to send messages to users via SMS that have their dealer apps installed. The question is, what is the right information to push? Is it coupons and special offers? Is it service reminders? Or maybe it’s more engaging content such as questions, surveys, polls, or even contests?

These are all important things to consider. There is no doubt you want to have a mobile strategy. In my opinion I would be less concerned with what and how you do it and more concerned with just doing it. From this you will find what works best for you, your team, and most importantly for your customers.

Dataium, a “data utility company,” is poised to revolutionize automotive CRM. Dataium’s cloud intelligence data and reporting tools can significantly enhance your lead generation and conversion numbers, in ways you always dreamed were possible.

Dataium gathers data about people, anonymously and individually, to help auto dealers better understand people’s behavior and interest level before and after they visit a dealership’s website.

Unworkable leads now become workable again.

Think of all the consumers who show interest in a certain vehicle and then walk away, not yet ready to buy. Now imagine being able to learn when each consumer is online looking at cars again sometime later, and what cars they are looking at, giving you the perfect timing and information needed to place that follow-up call.

This is just one small example of how Dataium can work for auto dealerships. As Dataium says on its website:

“With each click, search, and submission, consumers leave behind valuable and insightful data and statistics about their habits, interests, and future behaviors.”

This data is like a digital footprint, containing valuable information on online purchasing behavior and activity, consumer trends, buyer intent, and the effectiveness of promotions and web design.

In other words, you now have a new way to keep up with consumer interests and demands. With the result being:

• More of the right traffic to your website
• Fewer unworkable leads
• Better ability to predict a buyer’s intent
• Higher close rates

As consumers submit lead forms, their IP address is associated with a data record, including phone numbers, email addresses, etc., and cookies that help track online activity. Dataium connects thousands of websites including OEMs, dealers, social media platforms and automotive websites that collect user information to provide authorized businesses access to a rich stream of data that will transform the way market to car buyers.

Now the question is, how will YOUR DEALERSHIP use this information? How can auto dealers benefit from Dataium?

Key Takeaways

There were two key messages I heard across the handful of sessions and breakaways I attended. One was regarding the rapid acceptance of Mobile Computing and the other was the increasingly vital role of Social Media.

Social Media

Social media is not only a new frontier in marketing for automotive, but for all industries and for consumers too. While this might be obvious to some, to see the top tiers of the auto industry preach about social media in absolutes means that it is only a matter of time before this level of acceptance can be expected at the dealership level. Auto dealers are already embracing social media. It is an obvious choice.

The goal for car dealers is shifting from generating leads to something more broad, stickier, transparent, and mutually beneficial for everyone.

The nature of a lead is evolving into something more broad and generic, elusive in a way. I heard one presenter talk about how dealers want to expand their ideas about what a lead is and how much it is worth. There is now doubt that having people in your dealership looking at vehicles is ultimate measuring stick for the effectiveness of your marketing. Everything else is just TOMA.

Mobile Computing

A second key message was that all the new platform distribution mechanisms such as Droids, iPhones, iPads, etc., are bringing new challenges to auto dealers, but also new possibilities that were unheard of fewer than five years ago. This is something that has been developing over the past couple years, and which started accelerating earlier this year. In fact, one company, Dataium, showed data suggesting this acceleration beginning in April 2011.

Of all the companies out there, Dataium, co-founded by Jason Ezell, is the one that sticks out the most for me. What Dataium does is distinguished in its name.

Dataium gathers data about people, anonymously and individually, to help auto dealers better understand people’s behavior and interest level before and after they visit the dealership’s website.

What Dataium is able to know about you is unprecedented, and ethical. I plan to get more into this in future posts and I suspect you will begin hearing more and more about this company as they dig their heels into the auto biz. In fact, DealerRefresh did a post about Dataium after the 2011 Digital Dealer conference which is actually where I first got to see what Dataium is all about.

I have every bit of confidence in the dealer-vendor community to continue coming out with products that address the ever-changing, growing, and challenging needs of auto dealers when it comes to mobile computing and social media. For those that closely follow what I do you know that we have been hot on these trails now for several years, and you know that I am committed to remaining on those tails.

(Yes I dropped the “r” in trails.)

These were my key takeaways. I was not able to attend as many sessions and breakaways that I would have liked, but I am glad to have been there to attend the ones I could.

NEW YORK – October 4, 2011: Adding momentum to its innovative solution set for automotive dealerships, Jeff Kershner will join HookLogic’s automotive team in a senior sales management position. Kershner is one of the most influential voices in the automotive online marketing world and one of the top bloggers in the space. His move to HookLogic comes on the heels of a $9.5 million round of funding from Bain Capital and raises HookLogic’s profile in the automotive e-commerce space.

Kershner has established himself as one of the most knowledgeable, passionate voices in the auto industry as founder of DealerRefresh, which is the leading thought leadership and strategy source for car dealers and manufacturers. He is a lifelong and experienced automotive professional, starting in the car dealership business at 18 and serving in almost every area of the business, from parts, to sales, to writing. Kershner has been one of the leading industry proponents of capitalizing on digital marketing, media and e-commerce.

“This new role allows me to fuse my passions for online marketing and selling cars,” Kershner says. “I absolutely love this business and the challenges it brings. HookLogic’s incentive solutions for driving in-market shoppers to dealerships make it the company to watch because, while dealers have become experts at generating leads, HookLogic is an expert at converting those leads into showroom visits.”

The move reunites Kershner with David Metter, president of HookLogic’s automotive division, giving the company two of the best known marketing professionals in automotive. “Jeff adds credibility to our automotive offerings and reassembles a team that had great influence in the retail automotive e-commerce space,” said Metter. “I never envisioned anyone other than Jeff in this role. It’s another proof point for HookLogic’s automotive solution.”

HookLogic’s targeted incentive programs and partnership with lead-scoring solution provider RL Polk have helped clients achieve an average 20 percent increase in close rates by converting more consumer leads into showroom visitors. Clients include Germain Motor Company, Suburban Collection, Herb Chambers Auto Group, and AutoTrader. Kershner’s addition concurs with a hugely successful first half of 2011 in which it signed a channel partnership agreement with AutoUSA Internet Sales Solutions, the premier independent Internet lead provider, to power its ShowPro suite of products.

Also joining the automotive team is Ryan Gerardi as the director of business development. Gerardi previously held a similar role at HomeNet, helping the company achieve incredible growth from 2005-2008. Gerardi will be responsible for developing existing and future partnerships with marketing solution providers, agencies and other relationships as HookLogic continues its automotive growth.

About HookLogic’s Incentive Solutions for the Auto Industry
HookLogic powers targeted incentive programs that drive in-market shoppers to auto dealerships and other lead-driven businesses. HookLogic solutions are easily implemented, work with nearly any marketing medium and enable end-to-end reporting and optimization. Headquartered in New York City, the company has offices in Ann Arbor, MI, Atlanta, GA and Manchester, UK. Clients include MileOne Automotive, Germain Motor Cars, Suburban Collection, Acton Toyota, and AutoTrader.com. Learn more at http://www.hooklogic.com/auto1/.

Media Contact
Carla Vicens Rudder
blast! PR for HookLogic
(919) 833-9975       x7003
Carla@blastpr.com

Why is this important?

It’s important because it shows the mentality of the car dealer industry.

How often do you hear from the dealer Principal or GM state that they don’t see the point in social media because they don’t see how it sells cars? Or how often does your supervisor approach you with questions like, “how are things going for us on Facebook? Are we selling any cars from it yet?”

Study after study suggests, and marketers using social media confirm, that the point of social media is not for selling or closing deals, but rather for numerous other purposes such as to:

• Drive traffic to your website
• Build your brand and reputation online
• Add value to the customer experience
• Establish and maintain relationships
• And more…

Fortunately this is becoming a moot point that I think many dealers are getting past, but for those that aren’t, this is a good story to consider.

Now, this isn’t to say that you should not expect results from your efforts using social media, just that matching it to the number of cars you sell as a result is not the right metric to go by. That’s what lead-to-show and show-to-close ratios do. But that is a whole other topic. I just wanted to draw attention to this important example you can refer to when put under the gun at your dealership for your efforts on the social web.

What are some things you can share from your experience with people at your dealership who are not embracing social media as a viable means for branding your dealership?

Up until the advent of the web, and specifically the advent of blogs and RSS, content was mostly produced in print for magazines and newspapers. It was also produced on the radio, television, and on the big screen (film), on vinyl, CD, etc. The best content was syndicated or distributed across the globe for others to consume. This of course necessitated a large audience, funding, and network and distribution channels.

Today is different. You can launch a blog in a matter of minutes, publish a post, and voila, your content can technically be viewed by just about anyone with access to the Web. Or you can record a video on your phone and upload it to YouTube, yada yada. However, because of this ease and access to publishing content, the stakes and the name of the game have changed. The world is now more full of more information which makes it that much harder to get your message across and appealing to others.

For decades, auto dealers did not have to think much about content because they could purchase advertising in any of the mediums they chose. Dealers were not expected to produce TV shows, radio shows, movies, or albums.

But today dealers are being pressured to produce quality original content. Why is this? Could it be that because when it comes to the Internet, display advertising has proven much less effective than content marketing? If so, could that be a sign that display advertising in traditional mass media has always been ineffective, or it could be a sign that the Internet user responds differently to advertising? I vote for the latter.

That said, what type of content should a dealership be producing today in lieu of or in addition to display advertising? Even more importantly, where should this content be published, and how often should you post to your blog?

In our White Paper Blogging 101 for Car Dealers, we introduce 5 different types of content that an auto dealership can be producing. They are spelled out below:

1. Product and Service Information
2. Employee information, e.g. bios, honors, awards, etc.
3. Customer Information, e.g. testimonials,
4. Dealership Events and Promotions
5. Community Events and Activities

These might seem obvious, but the challenge dealerships face today is how to form a process that produces all this type of information in a way that is profitable for the dealership by being efficient and effective at selling cars and driving new business from current and non-existent customers.

Download our free White Paper today for to learn why your dealership wants to be blogging and how you can create an effective content marketing strategy for your dealership. You will be introduced to some key concepts related to blogging, micro-blogging, and social media as it pertains to car dealers and you will also receive a free getting started guide to AutoConverse.com which is the automotive local marketing site we recently launched that offers dealers a free tool for syndicating content into the AC network in a way that promotes your dealership and your personal brand.

Blogging for car dealers is something I personally have been doing now for dealerships over the past four years. I have plenty to share on the subject and am happy to work with any dealer that has a genuine interest in utilizing our free tools to get a leg up on the competition. You can contact me directly via phone at 1-877-873-0583 or by contacting me through one of your preferred social media sites. I am Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, and dealerElite. I look forward to hearing from you.

Photo courtesy of LayOutSparks.com

One question I hear more often than others is, “How often should I post to my blog?” But to answer this question there are so many other related factors to consider it will take you burrowing down a deep rabbit hole of other similar topics, such as:

1. Why would a car dealer want to blog?
2. What is blogging and how is it different from micro-blogging and social media?
3. What type of content should you have on your dealership blog?
4. And of course, how often should you be posting blogs?

To address these other important considerations, I started on an e-book white paper of sorts today. It introduces these as topics from a strategic marketing point of view and how each ties in with how often you want to be publishing content and information in general.

Chances are, your dealership is using at least one or more forms of blogging, micro-blogging, and/or social media tools. One can not answer the frequency question without first knowing which blogging platform is in question, and what the strategy is behind the content being put on it.

You can answer this qualitatively though…

As an example, you certainly do not want to put vehicle specials, or service specials, on your Facebook wall every day or multiple times a day. This is a sure way to make your Facebook marketing strategy ineffective. However, you do if possible want to be on Facebook every day, as often as possible that is good for your brand, keeping in mind your ROI.

For the sake of argument, let’s define things such as Facebook and Twitter as micro-blogging tools, otherwise known as Social Media. Also for the sake of argument, let’s define “blog” as the conventional dealership blog which runs on say WordPress or Blogger and is on its own sub domain or directory of the dealership website, e.g. blog.mydealershipsite.com or mydealershipsite.com/blog.

Strategically, the marketing objectives are similar. You want to increase exposure of your dealership and drive traffic to your dealership website. You also want to add value to the customer experience through time, and both blogs and social media are effective tools for doing so.

As for the actual frequency, that depends on the type of content being produced and to which platform. This is another important element to your  content marketing strategy. You MUST be producing quality original content that people will SHARE. If you are not doing this, then you can only really be micro-blogging. This is good for building credibility and managing your reputation, but without original content on your blog it will be difficult to drive consistent traffic to your blog and website, and it will be near impossible for people to share anything because you haven’t created anything.

Creating quality original content that people will share is a great and growing challenge today for auto dealers that want to be and compete in the game with auto shoppers. This is large in part why we created the site AutoConverse.com, to give auto shoppers a way to engage with their local dealers on equal playing turf, if you as a dealer chose to service customers this way. And I see no reason why you  should not want to. It will become more important as advertising and technology evolve. The information you want from them will become increasingly more valuable, because they will have ways to protecting it better.

I will do a series of posts that explores these topics in more depth and make it available as a free download. You can sign up now for your free copy by joining our mailing list to become a free member. We will be sending everyone a copy it that is already a free or premium member, and it will be included at the time of sign up for people moving forward.

Apparently, spammers have found a new way to get higher rankings on Google. The trick involves hacked websites and the canonical tag. Is your website at risk? What can you do to avoid this?

What exactly has happened?

In an online forum, webmasters reported a new spam method. Hackers inserted the canonical tag on websites of other people:

“I came across a website with canonical tags setup on all of their pages and they were pointing to a spam site. I suspect someone hacked in and changed the canonical tags to siphon link juice.

Now that cross cross-domain canonical tags are supported I would not be surprised if this becomes more common. The canonical tag is a small line of code that is easy to overlook despite its large implications.”

Google’s Matt Cutts confirmed this in a Twitter tweet: “A recent spam trend is hacking websites to insert rel=canonical pointing to hacker’s site. If U suspect hacking, check 4 it.”

Why is this a problem?

The original purpose of the rel=canonical tag is to help website owners eliminate self-created duplicate content. The canonical tag tells search engine spiders the original source of a file.

For example, a search engine robot might visit the web page “www.example.com/page4.htm”. If that page contains the tag
then search engines will show original page.com in the search results instead of example.com.

If hackers add the canonical tag to your web pages and point it to another website then your website content will help another website to get high rankings while your own website will lose all of its rankings.

How to check if your website is exploited

Open a page of your website in your browser and select “View HTML source” in your browser. If you can see a rel=canonical tag that points to an unknown domain in the head section of your page then your website has been hacked.

Unfortunately, hackers might have changed your web server so that it only shows the canonical tag to Google’s indexing robot. In that case, you have to check how Google sees your web pages:

1. Download and install iBusinessPromoter (IBP).
2. Select “Tools > Search engine spider simulator”
3. Select Google’s spider.
4. Check the HTML source in the spider simulator report for the canonical tag.

This works with the free demo version of iBusinessPromoter. You do not have to buy IBP to check your web pages with the spider simulator.

Google is aware of the problem. Unfortunately, it is very difficult to find out if a webmaster intentionally inserted a canonical tag to a website or if the tag was inserted by a hacker. Further information about the canonical tag can be found in the news below.

Read original contents at Axandra.com.