What is DAT?
DAT stands for Dealer Assigned Territories. It is a list of cities or zip codes that are assigned to a Harley-Davidson dealer that they are allowed to actively target for marketing purposes. Any city or zip code that is listed as included in a dealer’s DAT has the go ahead to be targeted both on-site and in meta-information such as descriptions and titles.
As a rep, it is your responsibility to ask your dealer to send over their DAT and to complete your location targeting appropriately in regards to the dealer’s DAT limitations.
Harley’s Official Guidelines (From Harley)
PLAYING FAIR
You wouldn’t stand in another dealer’s driveway waving a sign directing customers to your store, would you? Of course not! You should play fair with other dealers online as well!
- Avoid the use of another Harley-Davidson dealer’s official dealership name in metatags for SEO purposes.
- Avoid implying, in metatags, metatext, or other source code, that your dealership is located anywhere other than your actual, approved location.
- Avoid using “Harley-Davidson” or “Harley” in conjunction with geographical place names in a way that implies your dealership name is anything other than your approved dealership name.
- Besides being disrespectful to other dealerships, adding such “non-relevant” tags can get your site banned from search engines.
Dealer Spike’s SEO DAT Guidelines
- Only DAT approved locations may be targeted or mentioned in meta-information such as titles, descriptions, or image tags.
- You may target locations outside of their DAT in the on-page content and in the H1s.
- If your dealer insists on targeting a city outside of their DAT in the meta-information let them know that it is against their agreement to do so.
- If they continue to insist let them know you will have to reach out to your supervisor to get that cleared on our end. Then reach out to your Pod Lead.
- We will then need to get something in writing that mentions that they understand that they are breaking guidelines set out by Harley.
- If they continue to insist let them know you will have to reach out to your supervisor to get that cleared on our end. Then reach out to your Pod Lead.
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