Lookers and Evans Halshaw lead a new ranking of UK car dealers’ online search visibility, with regional groups also challenging larger rivals.
Automotive search marketing agency UpShift has launched its Dealership League Table, allowing dealer groups to compare their estimated organic search traffic against competitors across 35 car brands.
The index covers the top 100 UK dealer groups and combines search volume estimates, search rankings and adjusted click-through rates. Its figures represent estimated visits from organic search rather than measured website traffic.
Initial findings draw on 19 months of data between February 2025 and August 2026, covering approximately four million estimated organic visits a month.
Visits refer to website visits rather than physical visits in the showroom.
Regional groups challenge larger competitors
Lookers leads the overall table with 375,503 estimated monthly visits, narrowly ahead of Evans Halshaw on 374,293.
Evans Halshaw’s estimated traffic increased by 31% year on year.
The brand rankings also highlight regional groups competing with larger dealer businesses for search visibility.
Halliwell Jones increased its BMW search visibility by 72% in a year, reaching third place with 33,748 estimated monthly visits, ahead of Sytner on 30,736. Stratstone retains first place for BMW.
Across 17 of the 35 brands tracked, a dealer group outside the overall UK top 20 holds a top-five search position for that franchise. Examples include Acorn Group ranking ahead of Lookers and Vertu for Kia, and Allen Motor Group ahead of Group 1 for Ford.
Competition for Chinese brand searches
Glyn Hopkin moved from no recorded BYD search traffic in late 2025 to first place nationally, with 5,242 estimated monthly visits.
Over the same period, Arnold Clark’s share of the BYD dealer searches tracked by the index fell from 34% to 13%.
The findings also show franchise specialists accounting for substantial shares of search traffic within individual brands. H.R. Owen accounts for 75% of Bentley searches tracked, Dick Lovett holds 43% for Porsche, and Steven Eagell has 31% for Toyota and Lexus.
The platform analyses generic searches, location-based dealer queries and interest in specific vehicle models, allowing marketing teams to compare performance by franchise.
David Watts, co-founder of UpShift, said: “We specifically designed this tool for marketing specialists and brand managers within dealerships who look after specific franchises, giving them that instant, boardroom-level presentation at a glance.
“It lets them show their executive team exactly how they are performing in organic search for Porsche or BMW against the specific competitors their C-suite is always comparing them against.
“The data makes clear that having the largest physical network no longer guarantees online dominance.”
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