Faster, more accessible dealer websites
Faster pages, from Lighthouse to real shoppers
In October we worked through the Lighthouse and Core Web Vitals findings on dealer websites. Vehicle pages now open from a saved copy that refreshes whenever the vehicle or your website changes, the first inventory results arrive with the page, and a typical dealer homepage loads about 30% less JavaScript before it's ready. Chat widgets no longer push content around as they open, and menus and photo galleries respond faster to taps.
Measured on real visits
DealerDB scores dealer websites using real Chrome visits. Driverseat sites average 89.5 there, against 80.3 across all dealer websites, which ranks Driverseat second of 24 website providers. In Lighthouse, Driverseat pages also average half the weight of the typical dealer site, with higher accessibility, best practices, and SEO scores.
A more accessible website for every shopper
Rotating banners and background videos now have a visible pause control and respect a shopper's reduced-motion setting. Form errors, including required consent boxes, appear beside the fields that need attention, and filters, sorting, and pop-ups are easier to use with a keyboard or screen reader.
Other improvements
Published blog posts keep their web address when you edit them, and changing a post's URL redirects the old address.
Redirects now have their own settings page, alongside a history of pages and posts that have moved.
Vehicle pages tell search engines whether a vehicle is in stock, in transit, reserved, or sold.
Test drive requests now report to Google Analytics as sales appointments, separate from general sales inquiries.
Sitemaps now list only make and model pages with vehicles in stock.