CarGurus SEO TDR Redesign

Overview

A page built for search engines, redesigned for the people who actually land on it.

As a UX Design Intern at CarGurus in Summer 2026, I took on a redesign of the Test Drive Review (TDR) page for the SEO team, the long-form page shoppers land on when researching a specific car model. The existing page felt dated and undifferentiated: content was densely packed with little visual hierarchy, so everything competed for attention instead of guiding shoppers to what mattered most.

Research & Discovery

Working with the SEO team meant a lot of the page's content and structure were fixed for search ranking purposes, so this was less a from-scratch rebuild and more a structural and visual overhaul. I started by auditing CarGurus' own design system to see what components already existed for ratings, pricing, and comparisons, then looked at competitor research sites to see how they handled similar density.

What I Changed

New hero and photo carousel

A large hero image with a gallery carousel below it, reusing an existing component from CarGurus' own Vehicle Detail Pages (VDP) rather than building a new one. If a model has a YouTube video, it leads the carousel; if not, the first photo does, so one component handles both cases.

Right rail action box

Kept the existing right rail format, but added a new box up top with pricing, expert score, and Search Listings and Compare buttons. I tried the owner rating and expert score side by side, but they competed, so I led with just the expert score.

YouTube Shorts module

Added a Shorts section at the bottom of the page to keep shoppers engaged longer and surface CarGurus' video content in a quick, visual format, reusing the same carousel component from CarGurus' design system instead of building a new one.

Research collage: VDP gallery carousel precedent, competitor site logos, and a note on designing for SEO

Before & After

Before

After

Redesigned hero image, expert score, and photo carousel

Before

After

Redesigned expandable trims and specs table

Before

Current live page: pricing and price trends

After

Status & Next Steps

The redesign went through several rounds of stakeholder review and was approved by both engineering and PM. It hasn't shipped to production yet, and a mobile version is still in progress.

Mobile version

Completing the responsive layout for shoppers researching on the go.

Production handoff

Engineering implementation of the approved desktop design.

A/B testing

Measuring impact on engagement and time on page once it ships.