What a Car Dealership Website Needs

The facts quoted here come from primary sources: Google Merchant Center Help on vehicle ads, the vehicle ads activation page with its landing page requirements, the vehicle ads policies and image guidelines; Google Business Profile Help on profiles for a car dealership, keeping dealership information current and the guidelines for representing your business; Google Search Central's June 2025 post on simplifying search results; and the schema.org AutoDealer and Car types, all checked on 14 November 2026. The rest is our view from building websites for businesses. None of it is legal advice.

The short answer

Run the site from your live inventory: every vehicle on the lot gets its own page with photos, price, VIN, mileage and a clear way to ask about it, and sold vehicles come off quickly. Add short forms for test drives, finance pre-qualification and trade-ins, keep your Google Business Profile accurate for each department, and if you want to advertise inventory on Google, build the vehicle pages to Google's vehicle ads requirements from the start.

Inventory search and listing pages

The inventory search is the page most visitors use, so it should work well on a phone. Our view of what it needs:

• Separate entry points for new, used and certified pre-owned, if you sell all three.
• Filters people actually use: make, model, year, price, mileage, body style, fuel type, and drivetrain.
• A result card with a real photo, year, make, model, trim, price and mileage, so shoppers can compare without opening every vehicle.
• Sorting by price, mileage and newest arrivals.
• Indexable pages for common searches, such as one model or body style, with a short intro, rather than thousands of thin filter combinations.

Most dealers do not type inventory in by hand. It usually comes from the dealer management system or an inventory provider, and the website reads it on a schedule. Ask how often that sync runs: a car sold this morning that still shows as available this afternoon costs you a wasted call and some trust.

The vehicle detail page

Google calls this page the vehicle description page (VDP): clicking a vehicle ad "will take the customer to the vehicle description page (VDP) on your website". Google's landing page requirements for vehicle ads are also a good checklist for any VDP. They say the page must "Display dealership name, dealership location, vehicle price, MSRP (if listing a new vehicle), VIN, mileage (if listing a used vehicle), and availability information on the landing page", and that this should be "clearly visible upon loading the page without requiring the user to perform any additional clicks", such as opening a More Details or Vehicle Specs tab.

Google also recommends that dealers "Show dealership details, for example, the phone number, directions, and hours" and "Offer the ability to browse similar or related vehicles on your website." On top of that we would add:

• A full photo set of the actual vehicle, interior and exterior, with any damage on a used car shown honestly.
• Key specs and features in plain text, not only inside images.
• One clear call to action near the price (check availability, book a test drive) and a phone number that dials on tap.
• The stock number, so staff can find the car when someone calls.

Photos matter for ads too. Google's vehicle image guidelines disapprove placeholder images, including a "generic or stock image which is not the actual car", with one exception: "Stock images are allowed for new cars as long as they show the same make, model, and color as the car listed." The image optimization guide covers keeping a 30-photo gallery fast.

Inventory feeds and vehicle ads

Vehicle ads are Google's paid format for dealer inventory. Shoppers see "an image of the car with details like the make, model, price, mileage, and dealer name". Google says they are available in "Australia, Canada, Japan and the United States", with open beta in several European countries. The setup runs through Merchant Center: enable the vehicle ads add-on, link Google Ads and your Business Profile, upload a vehicle data source (a feed), then run Performance Max or Standard Shopping campaigns in Google Ads.

A few rules shape the website itself:

• Price must match: "The price in your data source and structured data must exactly match the price on your website landing page."
• Availability must be real. Statuses such as "sold", "out of stock", "reserved", "unavailable", or "incoming unit" are not permitted on the landing page.
• Eligibility: you "must have a brick and mortar business location" in the state where you list the vehicle, a valid dealer license where one is required, and vehicles with "a clean title". Brokers, auctions, subscriptions and parts are not supported.
• One VIN, one offer: "If a VIN is submitted for more than one vehicle offer, those offers will be disapproved".

Many dealers use a Vehicle Feed Service Provider, which Google describes as "an optional service that automates the creation and submission of your vehicle feeds". The general feed basics are in our Merchant Center product feed and Merchant Center setup guides, and campaigns in Performance Max.

Structured data for vehicles

Google used to show a Vehicle Listing rich result. In June 2025 it said Vehicle Listing was among the types that "have been phased out from Search results", along with others such as Course Info and Estimated Salary, and added: "This update won't affect how pages are ranked." So vehicle markup no longer earns a special result in Google Search.

It still has uses. Google's vehicle ads policy refers to the price in your "data source and structured data", and other search engines and tools read schema.org. Our view: mark up each VDP as a Car (schema.org: "A car is a wheeled, self-powered motor vehicle used for transportation.") with vehicleIdentificationNumber, mileageFromOdometer, an Offer with price and condition, and photos, using the same values the page shows. Mark the dealership itself as an AutoDealer, which schema.org places under LocalBusiness and AutomotiveBusiness. Our structured data basics and local business schema guides show how.

Finance and trade-in forms

These forms are where a browser becomes a lead, so keep each one short and say what happens next. Our view:

• Test drive or availability: name, phone or email, preferred time. Prefill the vehicle from the page they came from.
• Trade-in: year, make, model, trim, mileage, condition and a few photos. Say whether the number you send back is an estimate that depends on an inspection.
• Finance pre-qualification: start with the few details you need to call back. A full credit application asks for highly sensitive data, so it belongs on a secure page from your lender platform or DMS, served over HTTPS, with a link to your privacy policy and a clear statement of whether you run a credit check.

Send every form to a named person or your CRM, not a shared inbox nobody watches, and track submissions as conversions. Our guides on website form UX and form spam cover the build details.

Prices and disclosures

Vehicle pricing and advertising are regulated, and the rules depend on where you sell. Google's activation page tells dealers to "Meet all local requirements around new or used vehicle disclosures on the landing page" and says "Any disclaimers about the vehicle MSRP price must be clearly displayed on the landing page." Our view: show the price you will actually sell at, spell out what it includes and excludes next to it rather than in a footer, and have your compliance contact or attorney review the price wording and disclaimers before launch.

Google Business Profile for dealers

Google has a separate guide for auto dealers. It says "All car dealerships can have a profile for the dealership itself and more profiles for their departments, like sales, parts, or services", and "New-car dealerships can also have a profile for each brand of new cars sold", while "Used-car dealerships can't have profiles per brand of cars sold." Google recommends the categories "Car dealer" for sales, "Car service" for maintenance, and "Auto parts business" for parts.

For hours, the general guidelines say: "Car dealerships: Use car sales hours. If hours for new car sales and pre-owned car sales differ, use the new sales hours." Each department's own hours go on its own profile. Google also runs a pilot that shows cars for sale on dealership profiles: "In a new feature pilot, Google displays available sales inventory on dealership Business Profiles." Dealers join it through an interest form.

On your website, give each department a page (sales, service, parts) with its own hours and phone number, and link each Business Profile to the matching page. Our Google Business Profile guide covers setup and verification.

Reviews and service department pages

Google's dealer guide on engaging shoppers suggests "keeping responses courteous, short, and sweet" when you reply to reviews. Ask every buyer and service customer for a review with a direct link, and reply to the critical ones in public, calmly. Our guides on getting and answering reviews and showing reviews on your site go into detail.

The service department is a business of its own on the site: a page per common job, online service booking and specials. It works much like an independent shop, so our auto repair shop website guide applies there. When you want a dealership site built along these lines, see our website development service.

Frequently asked questions

What should a car dealership website include?

A searchable inventory with a page per vehicle (photos, price, VIN, mileage, availability), short forms for test drives, trade-ins and finance, separate pages for sales, service and parts with their hours, reviews, and your address and phone on every page.

Does Google still show vehicle listing rich results?

No. In June 2025 Google said Vehicle Listing structured data had been phased out from Search results and that the change does not affect ranking. Vehicle ads in Merchant Center are a separate, paid program and still run.

What does a vehicle detail page need for Google vehicle ads?

Dealership name and location, vehicle price, MSRP for new vehicles, VIN, mileage for used vehicles and availability, visible when the page loads without extra clicks, with the price matching your feed.