Google seems to be testing launching a new local feature to let car dealerships showcase their local car and auto inventory on Google Search. This was spotted by Jim Kreinbrink and Dan Shure shared this screenshot below (click on the image to enlarge).
Jim said that Google added these URL paths to their robots.txt overnight:
Disallow: /local/cars/
Disallow: /local/dealership/
When I try to access these URLs, I was getting 404 not found but I can access it randomly at http://google.com/local/cars/ – must be bouncing around different Google servers.
Google just added these to their robots.txt overnight:
Disallow: /local/cars/
Disallow: /local/dealership/Looks like something new is coming!
— Jim Kreinbrink (@denverseo) April 21, 2021
Here is a specific listing I was able to see myself for local dealerships:
Here is Dan’s screenshot:
Are Car Listings on Google coming?! pic.twitter.com/chWq6Dxayq
— Dan Shure (@dan_shure) April 21, 2021
I suspect Google is testing some sort of local auto inventory feature for car dealerships.
Here are more screenshots:
????Google is getting into the used car business????
Check it out at https://t.co/VQF5u2EArb
Shout out to @sistrix for spotting this in Google‘s robots.txt pic.twitter.com/s4adu9q5nw
— ???????????????????? ???????????????????????????????? (@MalteLandwehr) April 21, 2021
Forum discussion at Twitter.