3. Google search bar will appear

5. Press the Enter button on the keyboard

6. Google will show you the car rental results for the location you typed in

Some names of major car rental brand companies 

Some names of car rental brokers

8. Decide whether to rent from a supplier or a broker

Whatever you decide, it has been found that the car hire brokers offer cheaper deals (about 60-70% people experience that, the rates on the brokers is usually cheaper than the brand sites). This is because they work in partnership with brand companies and are able to show discounted deals with the permission of the brand companies. But this causes a lot of distrust, and though many people rent cars from brokers, the first-timers always feel the constant fear that they have been deceived somehow.

Experienced travelers always do this when they rent from car hire brokers.  Once the reservation is made they go to the supplier's website to check whether the reservation is legit. For instance, I made a reservation through Skyscanner with Enterprise. I visited the enterprise website.

At the bottom of the page, there was a list. I clicked on the ‘View/Modify/Cancel’ option.

This form appeared. I entered my details and found that the reservation actually existed.

For the peace of your mind, you can also do the same after you get a confirmation email from the supplier/broker (not the acknowledgment) email.

9. Click on the car hire booking website you want to rent from

10. The car hire deals will appear

Check out the deals the website shows you. Various car types and their car hire rates (per day or for total days) are shown.

Here are some of the deals I found on Sixt.com for two days one-way rental between San Francisco and Los Angeles 

Select the action you feel comfortable with. Most of the travelers go for pay online to avoid situations like change in the daily rates etc.

12. Add extras or car hire insurance (optional)

14. Check the email address for rental car confirmation

Why do people prefer Google search engines for finding rental car websites online? 

1. Google is omnipresent.

2. Google is highly developed

3. Google is easy to use

Here is another example. Suppose, I want to rent a car for a month. Google showed me various suggestions about the location & the price to make the task easy for me.

Moreover, if using a mobile, you can use voice search and let Google do the typing for you.

When I input car rental and place the cursor at the beginning of the query and press space, Google shows me suggestions that are supplier-specific. It gives the names of all the big car hire brands that are quite popular with users. 

4. Voice search rocks!!

Users are lazy. Yes, we all are!! Sometimes there are days when I don't even want to types after a long day at work and Google's voice input for search comes across as a blessing.

5. Google gives preference to only legit businesses 

Now let us take into consideration why Google results are so consistent and genuine. Because...

Google ranking system has evolved a lot over the years. Today Google ranks websites on the basis of a lot of parameters like the traffic, the number of returning visitors, the reviews, and rating users give a particular website, and overall user experience. Other factors like bookmarking also play a part; for example, if I find the information on a particular page useful only then I will bookmark it, right?

6. Google keeps on making things easier for users

Voce search is epic but the keyword 'near me' has changed the way people search today. When you search 'car rental near me' Google uses your geographic location to provide the places nearest to you. Therefore by typing in 'Car rental near me', Google will track down all the nearby car hire places and give you the listing like this. It provides the name of the car rental company, the website address, customer rating on Google reviews, the business' office timings, and the option of getting live directions to help you reach the place. If you have a problem with a website you can always report it to Google.

After the business listing comes to the search results. Shown below are the first two results on Google for the keyword 'car rental near me' (for my location). Which means, these websites are receiving the maximum traffic which it is able to retain. If people are spending more time on these websites, it means that they are offering the product or the information that the users are looking for, i.e, relevant information. They must also have great or satisfactory customer reviews, another reason Google is giving them preference over other results.

7. Google provides a lot of information through easy-to-read FAQs

Instead of reading a big chunk of information, users prefer reading a concise and to the point answer to their queries. Google searches the web for the best answer and points the user in the right direction.

8. Google provides the best results in different formats

If you don't want to read, you can opt for videos or podcast results.

9. For Google, the user is the king

This is the reason that the questions from websites like Tripadvisor and Quora are ranked higher. f Google feels that for a given query the question from Tripadvisor forum will be able to help the user, it ranks t among the top 5 results. For example, Google showed me these two Tripadvisor questions for the query "best car rental at lax".

Therefore, Google leaves no stone unturned to find the best information for the user's query.

10. You get a lot of choices, including the language in which you want to search

Google covers a lot of languages. For example, if you are in France, Google will automatically give you the option to change the language.