Hatfield Motor Group was on page 1 of Google for 3 of my 30 car searches on both days I checked. That’s the most of the 13 dealer groups and independent dealers I tracked. Ten held no spot on both days. Count a search if the site was there on either day, and CFAO Mobility leads instead, 8 to 7.
The 30 searches are a list I chose, not a sample of all car searches. By my classification, only 5 of them are dealer or new-car searches, like “car dealerships johannesburg” and “toyota dealer pretoria”. The rest are about buying used, selling or valuing a car, and finance or other routes. I also counted each group’s main website only. For dealer groups that matters a lot, so I’ll explain it before you read too much into a low number.
Below: who shows up, what for, and why the count may understate some groups. Then the phone check, and what’s worth testing first.
Which dealer groups show up most often?
Hatfield Motor Group leads with 3 of 30. CFAO Mobility follows with 2 and Auto Pedigree with 1. I didn’t see the other ten on page 1 on both days for any of the 30 searches.
The two-day rule is strict, and it changed this board. I ran every search on 6 and 7 November and counted a site only if it was on page 1 both times. CFAO Mobility was on page 1 for 5 searches each day, but only 2 were the same search. Hatfield went from 4 on the first day to 6 on the second, with 3 in common. CMH Group, SMH Group and Westvaal Motor Group each had 1 on 6 November and none on both days.
Two of Hatfield’s three come through dealership pages on subdomains of its own website, vwbryanston.hatfieldgroup.co.za and fordwoodmead.hatfieldgroup.co.za. A subdomain of a group’s own site counts for the group.
CFAO Mobility was on page 1 for 5 searches each day, but only 2 were the same search.
What do the dealers who show up actually show up for?
Different jobs.
| Group | Searches on page 1 on both days | The job |
|---|---|---|
| Hatfield Motor Group (3) | how much is my car worth; trade in my car; sell my car johannesburg | All selling or valuing |
| CFAO Mobility (2) | used cars for sale johannesburg; used cars for sale pretoria | Both buying |
| Auto Pedigree (1) | used cars for sale durban | Buying |
On the 5 dealer and new-car searches, I didn’t see any of the 13 on page 1 on both days.
If you run a group’s marketing, ask which buyer job you want to be found for: selling a car, or buying one.
Which buyer job do you want to be found for, selling a car or buying one?
Why might the count understate some groups?
Because of where their dealerships live online. Many dealer groups give each dealership its own separately registered website. This edition counts each group’s main website only.
A subdomain of that main site counts, like the Hatfield pages above. A separately registered domain never counts, even with a similar name. So where a group’s dealerships show up under their own web addresses, the count may understate the group’s combined visibility. NTT’s ntttoyota.co.za is an illustration from outside this cohort.
Motus and Supergroup were excluded from the cohort. I recorded motusselect.co.za on page 1 on both days for one search.
So a 0 here means the group’s own site wasn’t on page 1 for the same search on both days. It may have shown up on one day, or for searches outside the panel.
Does a bigger search audience mean more page-1 spots?
Mostly, yes. The three biggest dealer audiences hold 5 of the 6 spots the groups held on both days. Their rank order agrees at 0.64 (1 would be identical), about the same as across all 19 brands with an estimate. DataForSEO builds those audience figures from searches a site already ranks for, so some of that agreement is baked in. They’re never part of a rank.
There’s one clear exception. Bidvest McCarthy has the second-largest estimated audience of the 13, about 85,000 visits a month. I didn’t see its website on page 1 on both days for any of my 30 searches.
What does a buyer meet on a dealership website, on a phone?
I ran the same automated phone-size checks on every site: home page, one offer page, one contact action. Of the 12 dealer sites I could check fully, 11 cleared all three checks. I didn’t submit an enquiry on any site.
The twelfth was Rola Motor Group. On its tested contact page, my two checks didn’t detect a form, a tap-to-call link or a WhatsApp link, so it’s marked “not observed”. I didn’t test every contact route on the site. CMH Group is “partly checked”. Its contact step couldn’t be checked in either pass, so it isn’t ranked on the phone board.
I also photographed five dealer home pages at phone size on 7 November. They are five of the 13 dealer groups and independent dealers, not a sample. Four showed a cookie notice or pop-up on the first screen, and on three it covered most of the screen.
On speed, Westvaal Motor Group scored 58 on Lighthouse’s mobile performance test, the highest dealer score. The 13 dealer scores ran from 5 to 58, and seven of them were 35 or lower. None had a median of 90 or more, the mark Lighthouse counts as good. These are medians of 5 retained lab runs under my test conditions, not what real visitors get.
What’s worth testing first on a dealership website?
These are general ideas, not a verdict on any group above. I haven’t measured their effect on enquiries, so treat each one as a test.
- Put a tap-to-call link and a WhatsApp link on the home page. On the 13 dealer home pages, I saw tap-to-call on 5 and WhatsApp on 2. Add them, then count the taps.
- Open your home page on your own phone, in a private window. If a cookie notice covers most of the screen, shrink it to a slim bar. The buyer came for cars, not a consent form.
- Decide on purpose where dealership pages live. If every dealership has its own registered domain, the group’s main site may not be what buyers see, even when its dealerships show up. That may be fine. Make it a choice, not an accident.
- Pick 20 to 30 searches a buyer types without naming you. Split them by job, from buying to selling. Check page 1 on two different days and count only what held both times.
- Run Lighthouse’s mobile test five times and watch the middle score over time. One run moves around too much to trust.
A list of plain buyer searches, checked on two days, tells you whether you’re found by buyers who don’t name you.
A list of plain buyer searches, checked on two days, tells you whether you’re found by buyers who don’t name you.
How this was measured
I chose the 30 searches before collecting anything, and ran them on Google (South Africa, desktop, English) on 6 and 7 November 2026. A site counts only if it was on page 1 on both days. Dealer groups whose dealerships run separately registered websites are counted on their main site only, plus any subdomain of it. Automated phone-size checks ran on 6 and 7 November, with the same three steps on every site and two passes each. Speed is Lighthouse’s mobile score for the home page, the median of 5 retained runs under my test conditions. Estimated visits are DataForSEO’s modelled figures, shown as context only.
I don’t measure visitors, leads, sales or revenue. No company paid to be included. The full method, all 30 searches and every change after review are here: How the Meerkat Index measures, and how to correct us. Something wrong? Email [email protected] and I’ll re-check within a week.
For a quick read on your own business, take the free Business Momentum Score. It takes about 4 minutes, names your weakest area from being found to winning enquiries, and gives you three next steps. It’s separate from the Index. https://score.rhinoberry.com/