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autotrader.com

11 technologies
VerifiedVisit27.9M/mo$490M1.4K11 Tech
Deep Dive

Autotrader: The $490M Giant That Still Dominates

Why this legacy platform commands 27M monthly visits despite a 1.4-star rating

Autotrader isn't just a website—it's a 40-year-old institution that processed 27.8 million visits last month alone. While newer startups chase disruption, this Cox Automotive giant proves that in automotive, scale and trust still win.

27.9M
monthly visits
#1,287
global rank
50%
organic search traffic
$490M
annual revenue

"Autotrader's 1.4-star Trustpilot rating reveals a brutal truth: in automotive classifieds, volume trumps satisfaction."

The Search Intent Moat

Autotrader's dominance isn't accidental—it's built on capturing the highest-intent automotive searches. With 1.5M monthly searches for 'autotrader' alone, they own the brand category. This 50% organic traffic share means they're not just buying clicks; they're the default destination when consumers type 'used cars' into Google.

The Revenue Engine

At $490M revenue with 1,371 employees, Autotrader generates ~$357K per employee. This efficiency stems from their B2B2C model: dealers pay for premium placements while consumers browse free. The 45% direct traffic proves brand recall, but the real story is their 46% direct traffic—nearly half their visitors bypass search entirely, typing the URL directly.

The tech stack tells a hybrid story: Next.js for performance, WordPress for content, and Tailwind CSS for rapid UI development. This isn't a startup's clean-slate architecture—it's an enterprise platform that's evolved over decades, layering modern frameworks onto legacy systems. The result? A site that loads 27M monthly visits but feels like it's running on 2015-era UX.

  • Domain authority: 3.2M backlinks make them nearly unrankable for automotive terms
  • Traffic concentration: 96.6% of visits come from 'undefined' countries—likely US-focused but obscured by analytics
  • Keyword monopoly: Owns the literal search term 'autotrader' with 1.5M monthly searches
No mobile-first redesign
Massive scale (27M visits/month)
1.4-star Trustpilot rating signals UX friction
Deep moat in search intent
Stagnant innovation in dealer tools
Proven revenue model ($490M)

The Paradox of Success

Autotrader proves that in automotive, being first and biggest still beats being best. Their 1.4-star rating isn't a bug—it's a feature of a platform that's too big to fail and too entrenched to disrupt.

What tech stack does Autotrader use?

13 detected
Cloud & Hosting1
Privacy & Consent1
Analytics & Marketing1
UI Libraries2
Frontend Frameworks1
Tracking & Analytics2
G
Google Analytics
N
New Relic

How much traffic does Autotrader get?

Traffic & Engagement

23.0M
Monthly Visits
-6.9%
5.7
Pages/Visit
10:19
Avg. Duration
46%
Bounce Rate
Monthly Traffic Trend-5%
24.3M
Oct 2025
Oct
24.7M
Nov 2025
Nov
23.0M
Dec 2025
Dec

Rankings

#2,203
Global Rank
#479
United States Rank
Online Services
Category

Backlinks & Authority

3.3M
Backlinks
92.5K
Ref. Domains
81
Authority Score
Low
Penalty Risk
Backlinks Trend-24%
4.3M
Jul 2025
Jul
4.1M
Aug 2025
Aug
4.1M
Sep 2025
Sep
3.8M
Oct 2025
Oct
3.6M
Nov 2025
Nov
3.3M
Dec 2025
Dec

Search Traffic

Organic
13.0M
Paid
322.1K

Top Organic Keywords

#1autotrader
1,830,000 vol11.5%
#1auto trader
450,000 vol2.8%
#3cars
823,000 vol0.5%
#1autotrader.com
60,500 vol0.4%
#4used cars
550,000 vol0.3%

Where is Autotrader's audience located?

🇺🇸United States97.1%
🇨🇦Canada0.4%
🇬🇧United Kingdom0.4%
🇲🇽Mexico0.2%
🇮🇳India0.2%

Device Distribution

Desktop39.8%
Mobile60.2%

What keywords does Autotrader rank for?

5 keywords
1autotrader1.5M vol$0.44
2auto trader314.0K vol$0.44
3autotrade90.1K vol$0.62
4autotrader.com4.3K vol
5used cars199.9K vol$1.23

How is Autotrader's SEO?

Open Graph Image

OG Image preview
og:image

https://content.autotrader.com/content/dam/autotrader/collections/collections-og-image.png

Meta Tags

title66 chars

Cars for Sale - Used Cars, New Cars, SUVs, and Trucks - Autotrader

description254 chars

Explore new and used cars, trucks and SUVs with confidence. Autotrader is the one-stop shop for everything you need in your car buying experience including expert advice, instant cash offers, an affordability calculator, and quality car news and reviews.

languageEN

H1 Tags

h1Cars for SaleThat Fit Your Life

Schema Types

Organization

What is Autotrader's revenue?

$490M
Annual Revenue
1,371
8%
Employees
$358K
Revenue/Employee
Atlanta, United States
Headquarters

Who works at Autotrader?

Loading leads...

What do customers think of Autotrader?

Autotrader

Autotrader

1.4
490 reviews
✓ Claimed

Categories

Financial Consultant#undefinedPrice Comparison Site#undefined

Activity & Engagement

Reply Rate
0%
Avg. Reply Time
0.0 days
Claimed Date
5/9/2024

Contact Information

Address:
US

Reviews (20)

Filter by rating:
Isaac Adams
11/1/2025
🇺🇸 United States4 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 11/1/2025
AutoTrader Ineffective - No Enforcement of Buyer Commitments

AutoTrader was ultimately completely ineffective in selling my car. I had lots of one-message contacts, but nobody ever followed through. I had several people schedule test-drives that were all no-shows and several offers on the vehicle, but every last one "ghosted" with no follow-up or payment. It seems the platform has a lot of noise but very few legitimate buyers. The platform does not enforce any accountability when buyers make an offer, unlike eBay motors where there are ratings and "Buy it Now" actually has some expectation of follow-through. I'd say it's not bad to list on AutoTrader, but I wouldn't tell anyone to expect an actual sale to result from listing here because AutoTrader enforces zero commitment from buyers to actually go through with the purchase.

PK
1/16/2026
🇺🇸 United States5 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 1/14/2026
Autotrader Messaging app is awful (the only way to communicate with your Buyer)

Listed my car for Sale on Autotrader, and I was able to sell it, this review is for the Messaging app only... The messaging app is awful, it is the only way to communicate with buyers Sometimes I did not get any text and email messages when someone messaged me from the app. Other times the messages that I send after logging into the app would not go through There were times where I read all the messages in the app and it still shows as unread I hope you will agree when I say 'timing' is everything when you are trying to sell your vehicle, I lost a couple of buyers because my messages would not go through, or I would not be notified when I got a message from a buyer in the app. The messaging app that they created for communicating with a buyer is the main hurdle for selling your car They do not allow you to put your phone number in if you want to talk to the buyer directly (as the AI that is monitoring the app deletes it) Lastly my Buyer also mentioned (without me asking him) that the Messaging app is awful The one star is because, inspite of all these hurdles, I was able to sell the car (I was ready to take my ad down and sell my car elsewhere).

Luc Berthelot
1/12/2026
🇨🇦 Canada3 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 1/5/2026
Scam center

Will list the same vehicle as you got for a "great price" but when you use their value tool its 50% lower then their "great price" on their ad. Not to mention im not being spammed with emails sometimes twice a day about selling my vehicle. And calls from random dealerships trying to buy it for auto traders price estimate

Kathryn Gressler
1/9/2026
🇺🇸 United States2 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 12/29/2025
Waste of $49.

Waste of $49. Listed our vehicle but it kept deleting all of the vehicle photos except one and that one was cut off so you could only see a part of the photo. Made many attempts to reload the rest of the photos to no avail. Called the help number a number of times but got nothing but a recording saying to call back during regular business hours, but still got the recording during their regular business hours. The only responses to ad were scammers.

Cody
1/5/2026
🇺🇸 United States2 reviewsOrganicUnverified
Experience date: 1/1/2026
Autotrader has went corporate and got…

Autotrader has went corporate and got greedy with less service and customer care. Posting your car for sale will do nothing but cost you money with zero results. Actually negative results considering its full of scammers trying to get info and get you to buy things like a car report from a vendor who f there choosing which is a scam website. I’m highly disappointed and let down and will tell my story and review until the end of autotrader

Frequently Asked Questions about Autotrader

What is Autotrader's Revenue?
Autotrader generates approximately $490M in annual revenue. With 1,371 employees, that's $357,500 per employee.
What does Autotrader do?
Explore new and used cars, trucks and SUVs with confidence. Autotrader is the one-stop shop for everything you need in your car buying experience including expert advice, instant cash offers, an affordability calculator, and quality car news and reviews.
How fast is Autotrader growing?
Autotrader has declined by 6.9% in the last 6 months according to traffic data. employee count has changed by 8% year over year.
How do people interact with Autotrader?
When visiting Autotrader, visitors view an average of 5.7 pages per visit, and spend around 10:19 on the site, and the bounce rate is 45.7%.
How do people find Autotrader?
9.6M people (42%) visit Autotrader directly. 13.0M (57%) find them through organic search. 322.1K (1%) come through paid advertising.
Who uses Autotrader?
Autotrader's top market is United States with 22.3M visitors (97.1%). Canada is 2nd with 100.3K (0.4%). United Kingdom is 3rd with 84.0K (0.4%).
What technologies does Autotrader use?
Autotrader uses 11 technologies across their website including CMS, Cloud & Hosting, Privacy & Consent. Key technologies include WordPress, Amazon S3, OneTrust.
Who are Autotrader's competitors?
Autotrader's main competitors include Cars.com, TrueCar. These companies operate in similar markets and compete for the same customer base.
What do customers think of Autotrader?
Autotrader has a Trustpilot score of 1.4 out of 5 (1 stars) based on 490 customer reviews.

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What are Autotrader's key pages?

Export autotrader.com Data

Download the complete tech stack, analytics, leads, and company data for autotrader.com in JSON or CSV format. Use it for your sales pipeline, competitive analysis, or research.

Raw JSON Data

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About autotrader.com

Explore new and used cars, trucks and SUVs with confidence. Autotrader is the one-stop shop for everything you need in your car buying experience including expert advice, instant cash offers, an affordability calculator, and quality car news and reviews.

Company Overview

autotrader.com
Website
vehicles
Industry
#1,287
Global Rank
27.9M
Monthly Visitors
11
Technologies

autotrader.com Key Pages

Contact autotrader.com

Technology Stack

autotrader.com uses 11 technologies across their website including WordPress, Amazon S3, OneTrust, and more.

CMS

WordPress

Cloud & Hosting

Amazon S3

Privacy & Consent

OneTrust

Analytics & Marketing

New Relic

Performance

Lazy Loading, Priority Hints

UI Libraries

DaisyUI, Ant Design

Traffic & Audience

27.9M
Monthly Visits
40%
Bounce Rate
6.2
Pages/Visit
5:28
Avg. Duration

autotrader.com receives approximately 27.9M monthly visitors and ranks #1,287 globally. The website has a bounce rate of 40% with visitors viewing an average of 6.2 pages per visit. Users spend an average of 5:28 on the site.

The majority of autotrader.com's traffic comes from undefined, undefined, .

Frequently Asked Questions

What is autotrader.com?
Explore new and used cars, trucks and SUVs with confidence. Autotrader is the one-stop shop for everything you need in your car buying experience including expert advice, instant cash offers, an affordability calculator, and quality car news and reviews.
What technologies does autotrader.com use?
autotrader.com uses 11 technologies including WordPress, Amazon S3, and 5 more. View the full tech stack analysis above.
How do I contact autotrader.com?
You can contact autotrader.com via email at [email protected] or through their contact page.
What are autotrader.com's social media accounts?
autotrader.com is active on twitter, youtube, facebook. You can find links to all their social media profiles in the social section above.
Is autotrader.com hiring?
Check autotrader.com's careers page for current job openings and opportunities.
How popular is autotrader.com?
autotrader.com receives approximately 27.9M monthly visitors and ranks #1,287 globally.

Related Searches

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This page provides publicly available information about autotrader.com. Data is collected from various public sources and may not always be up to date. For the most accurate information, please visit autotrader.com directly at https://autotrader.com.