Cars.com announced recently that the company has improved its search experience and enhanced its vehicle inventory pages via an expansion of its suite of pricing tools with the rollout of "Badging," which uses machine learning to assess the closest comparable vehicle for shoppers.

The site’s latest search feature updates and new shopping tools are designed to provide shoppers enhanced speed and personalization when searching for the right car, the company said.

"Our real-time behavioral data, and insights from nearly 20 years of consumer data, enable us to deliver an experience that is defined by relevance for the user. Our goal is to help shoppers find the right car, at the right price, from the right dealership faster than ever," Cars.com chief product officer Tony Zolla said in a news release.

"Our best-in-class user experience brings us one step closer to realizing our mission of transforming the car shopping experience to be more rewarding, emotionally engaging and frictionless."

When finding comparable vehicles for shoppers, the new Badging tool considers vehicle features either in high-demand for shoppers' particular region or those with features that impact the price beyond year, make, model and trim.

The site’s inventory pages now have four new badge icons that give shoppers additional information regarding why a vehicle is priced at a particular point.

The four badges include the following:

1.             Great Deal — signifies that a vehicle is priced significantly below market average

2.             Good Deal — means a vehicle is priced at market average or slightly below

3.             Fair Price — identifies vehicles priced slightly above market average

4.             Well-Equipped — highlights vehicles equipped with additional features that affect the price

"In addition to our intelligent search engine and efficient user experience, we continue to roll out new pricing tools so consumers are confident they're paying a fair price and getting the best deal based on their needs," Zolla added. "With our new Badging icons we wanted to provide more than just a standard price rating. By calling out specific vehicle attributes that may be impacting the price and weighing additional factors such as supply and demand, we are able to produce some of the most accurate pricing context on the market while helping consumers understand not just the 'what,' but the 'why' behind a price. This helps car shoppers, but it also enables local dealers to be more transparent with their customers, show value beyond price and, ultimately, close the deal quickly and efficiently."