SAN FRANCISCO -

U.S. News Automotive has teamed up with Vast.com for a new service that can connect dealers more easily with car buyers online.

Basically, by using the Vast.com-powered search function, shoppers can access a list of the models for sale fitting their criteria via U.S. News Automotive.

When a consumer searches for a vehicle, U.S. News will arrange the results that come up based on the degree to which they meet the shopper’s criteria. Also, results in that subset are ordered based on the promotions from the dealer.

Officials noted that dealers can bid to have their listings ranked higher, as they said: "Dealers interested in reaching the 80 percent of consumers that only view listings on page one of the search results promote their listings by bidding for higher placement.”

Dealers only have to pay Vast.com when a promotion generates consumer contact.

Under this partnership, Vast has brought U.S. News in as a member of its partner website network, which also features such sites as AOL Autos and Overstock.com Cars, just to name a few.

“Our mission is to make car buying easier by doing extensive car research on behalf of our users,” shared Chad Smolinski, U.S. News vice president of rankings and reviews.

“We started this three years ago by extending the U.S. News rankings franchise to cover cars and trucks, which was a new category for us,” he continued.

Smolinski added: “Now, we are aiming to help consumers further along in the car purchase process, including people who are ready to buy. With a car shopping service powered by the Vast.com platform, we can present our users with a huge selection of cars for sale and connections to dealers."

John Price, chief executive officer of Vast.com, stated: “People visit U.S. News Automotive because it’s a respected brand known for top-notch research, information and evaluations.

“By adding Vast’s search and search advertising platform to their service, we’re helping bring interested car shoppers to motivated dealers who will advise and assist consumers during both the research and purchasing phase,” he added.

Offering some input from the dealer side, Tony Giorgione, Internet manager for United Dealerships in Las Vegas, shared: “I want consumers to find the car they are interested in buying. All being equal, if I have a car the consumer is interested in, I want to make sure my listings show on top of the search results, right in front of that consumer.

“U.S. News and the Vast network allow me to work my way up in the search results in a cost-effective way,” Giorgione noted.