Nearly 79% of dealer websites perform poorly, Overfuel reports
Overfuel, an AI-powered digital growth engine built to optimize dealer websites, released its second annual Powersports Core Web Vitals (CWV) Performance Report, which showed that nearly 79% of audited powersports dealer websites failed Google’s CWV standards for mobile and desktop.
CWV uses field-data metrics that measure a webpage’s loading performance, responsiveness, and visual stability. The 2026 report analyzed 1,519 powersports dealer websites across North America. Of those, 679 sites had sufficient real-world data to receive an official CWV assessment from Google, and the results weren’t positive.
Among those measurable sites:
- 667 websites (78.7%) failed CWV for mobile, desktop, or both
- 372 websites (54.8%) failed both mobile and desktop CWV benchmarks
- Only 180 websites (21.3%) passed CWV for both mobile and desktop
Google’s CWV are confirmed ranking signals that directly impact organic visibility, paid media efficiency, and user engagement.
“Two years of data now confirm this isn’t a one-off problem — it’s a systemic failure across the powersports industry,” says Alex Griffis, CEO of Overfuel.
“Dealers are investing heavily to drive traffic, but when their websites fail Core Web Vitals, Google suppresses visibility and shoppers abandon the experience. Performance is no longer a technical nice-to-have; it’s the gatekeeper to growth, efficiency, and trust.”
Overfuel’s findings align with broader industry research, including Shift Digital’s 2025 Digital Automotive Shopping: Pulse Report, which found that $30 of every $100 spent driving shoppers to a website is wasted when sites fail CWV. Poor performance increases bounce rates, reduces lead submissions, and inflates cost per click—particularly on mobile, where the majority of powersports shopping now occurs.
The report also shows a widening gap between performance-first platforms and legacy dealer websites burdened by excessive third-party scripts, unoptimized media, and outdated architecture. Overfuel says that websites built with CWV as a foundational requirement consistently pass Google’s benchmarks unless dealers override performance safeguards with broken technology or poor implementation practices.
“Dealers don’t often lose because their inventory or pricing is worse — they lose because their site is slower, less stable, and harder for shoppers to use,” Griffis adds. “The data is clear: performance failure is revenue failure.”
