CheezeDMG Blog

Now I love my cars, I really do. It’s like a curse, I really can’t help it. Spending an early Saturday morning trailing the classifieds on Pistonheads.com is a sad and lonely pass time (with one eye on the penny jar) which I enjoy. So when I heard that a new ‘Car Search Engine’ had been launched, I thought Saturday mornings may offer up a new twist. CarOcean.co.uk has been billed as

‘a service that offers searching and access to advertisements from the most popular moto sites in one place’

Great – I don’t need to jump from the various independents, then across to Autotrader.co.uk, via Pistonheads.com and finish with a light sprinkling of eBay action. Job done… Or is it?

Upon loading the website you are greeted with a Google style plain and simple interface – the ubiquitous trend of ‘it looks simple, so it must be simple’. To kick things off I decided to search for a new car, the Alfa Romeo Mito (an absolute Monkfish among cars might I add). Debuting at this years British Motor Show, I wanted to understand if the search engine indexed new car news and previews or just literally classified adverts. After typing in the particulars the engine returned ‘No Results’, I repeated the exercise on Google - 1,830,000 results…

Admittedly that was a new car that isn’t even out yet, so I tried to search for something little more common. My new search string was for an ‘Audi RS4‘, a very nice car with plenty of used examples on the market. The first 4 results where for Audi TT’s, the fifth was for an Audi S3, the sixth another TT and the seventh an Audi A4 TDI. Not what I was after. Upon clicking the results to see where they lead, each of the first 3 results linked through to eBay, to bidding sessions that had ended – not particularly useful.

I now repeated the ‘Audi RS4’ exercise, this time using the advanced search option. Anyone who’s searched for a car online will recognise the standard drop down menus detailing, manufacturer, model, engine size etc. The results were much better; the engine indexed 84 Audi RS4 adverts, exactly what I was after. Unfortunately, again many of the links had expired.

Carocean.co.uk offers a self policing policy where users can flag expired results, but isn’t that the job Search Engine - to provide relevant results? I also have to point out that when linking through to eBay from CarOcean the expired link functionality tool bar disappears. An early glitch I’m sure, but as many of the results are eBay powered this needs to be rectified as soon as possible.

Poor search results and expired links are not CarOcean’s biggest problem. In my opinion one hurdle they must address is the lack of imagery. As a self confessed petrol head I like to see the gleaming metal in front of me (ask anyone who reads Autotrader – they don’t look at the ads without pictures). Searching for cars is very much like searching for houses, you instantly know if an ad is worth clicking on when you see the picture.

Overall I think CarOcean.co.uk is an interesting concept but needs a little more work and refinement. As most of the other car sites such as Petrolheads and Autrotrader offer up classified ads that are not expired (and have pictures the search results) I see little on offer to change my Saturday morning habits. If its to swim into my daily life, it may need armbands.