Editorial Policy

Online DMV was founded around 20 years ago for one simple goal – providing a simple, convenient, quick, and easy-to-use, all-in-one directory listing site for every single DMV office and location throughout the United States. Even today, Online DMV remains the foremost place to learn everything you need to know about the DMV, such as how to get in contact with them, where their address is, what services they provide, and more.

We know just how complicated and time-consuming it can be to search through the many official DMV sites across 50 states, so we’ve made it easier for you by putting all these resources and information in one site – Online DMV. In the last two decades of helping countless people with their DMV needs, we’re here to help you with:

  • Quickly finding out more info about a specific DMV office, like their contact information.
  • Figuring out where all the local DMV offices are near you with our location search.
  • Providing you with more information specific to each DMV office, like their peak hours or payment methods.
  • Making sure you don’t waste any time by going to the wrong DMV office or if they don’t have what you need.
  • Seamlessly browse through DMV offices from one state to another.

Aside from our directory listing service, we here at Online DMV have since expanded beyond providing you with information about your local DMV office. Mainly, we’ve expanded into creating original content that discusses in-depth guides and explainers about driving laws and state-specific motoring regulations across the US. Other topics we aim to guide you on relate to driver’s licenses, vehicle registrations, and more.

General Editorial Guidelines

These are the top-most guiding principles that influence how we create and edit our original content:

  1. Tone – Our overall tone and style are direct and informative, without over-complicating things or using overly flowery language. After all, the primary vision for Online DMV is to inform and guide our readers, as well as provide the necessary explainers where necessary. If you don’t know how car insurance works or if you don’t know what time your local DMV office opens, we’re here to give you that information, as conveniently and as concisely as you deserve.
  2. Fact-Checking – Since we’re providing timely and important details such as phone numbers to contact the DMV or listing down what kind of services they provide, accuracy is our utmost priority. We create a lot of original content and have thousands of directory listings for DMV offices, so making sure it’s all precise can be hard. However, that’s one challenge we’re happy to accept, so we make sure to fact-check every directory listing and original content to ensure that they’re close to 100% accurate.
  3. Regular Updates – Speaking of, aside from making sure that our content and directory listings are accurate, it’s also vital that we ensure that they’re updated regularly. It’s normal for DMV offices to change their address or alter their operating hours slightly, or even get a new phone number. As such, we wouldn’t be doing our job if you’re being given old information, so we do our best to check all our directory listings and content, as well as make sure that they are up-to-date.

Our Directory Listings Criteria

When it comes to our directory listing services, such as detailing everything you need to know about a specific DMV office across the United States, we source all this information directly from the DMV and then add it to our own database. If you’d like to find out more, you can check out our Copyright Policy for how we request and handle dataset or CSV exports straight from the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV).

Other than expanding our database, we also work hard to make sure that they’re accurate, up-to-date, and it has been formatted as concisely as possible, while also ensuring that they’re easy to read. Not to mention, we put a lot of effort into making sure our directory listings can be searched through quickly, save you time, and are made as conveniently as possible.

Our Editorial Format

When completing our DMV directory listings and database, we do our research through official DMV websites and other reliable channels run by them. The latter includes each state DMV’s official social media accounts or press announcements. Altogether, we aim to understand state-by-state DMV policies and rules, where we can best document all this information as best as we can to add value to you.

We want nothing more than to make it easier for you to understand more about the DMV, and to do so quickly without having to slowly navigate through and map out your state’s DMV website, and this includes (but it’s definitely not limited to):

  • How to best contact the DMV, whether it’s by calling them, sending an email, or visiting in person.
  • What the DMV’s opening and closing hours are, and what are the best or worst times to visit.
  • What types of services do specific DMV offices provide, like license renewals or issuing vehicle registrations.
  • How to best drive down to or visit the DMV in person, as well as detailing their parking options, etc.
  • What kind of appointment scheduling system does the DMV use, and how to book an appointment.

Display Advertising

You might’ve noticed numerous display ads and ad banners strewn throughout Online DMV across most of our pages. This is how we are able to sustain our website, which allows us to continually create new and original content, share it with you, and provide us with sustainable income to keep working on those directory listings. It takes a lot of time and effort from our team to work on all this, so putting display ads on our site is a great way to make sure they’re compensated well.

With that in mind, we do have strict policies and rules concerning the ad banners that you see alongside all our content. For context, Online DMV’s ad network provider is Ezoic, and we make sure that our site adheres to Google’s best practices for display ad placements. When it comes to embedding display ads, we make sure to prioritize the user experience for you as best as possible. This means guaranteeing that those ad placements aren’t going to slow your device down, cost you heavily in data usage, or make it hard for you to consume our content.

Ethical Considerations

One very important thing we have to set the record straight on is that while we may have ‘D-M-V’ in our name, Online DMV is an impartial and independent entity, not a part of any state’s Department of Motor Vehicles. So, no matter how closely we work with each state’s DMV, Online DMV isn’t controlled or influenced by the DMV. It ensures that we can deliver our content and provide directory listings with firm openness and transparency, which all of you deserve nothing less than.

In other words, we’re all about doing our extensive research and providing you with information in the most objective, unbiased way possible. We’ve set pretty high standards for ourselves when it comes to the accuracy and the reliability of our data, whether this means warning you about the worst times to avoid going to your local DMV, or the many fine prints and pitfalls of motoring laws and regulations in each state. Of the many principles that we hold dear, the independence and robust integrity of Online DMV is right up there.

Should you have any concerns with our editorial policies, we appreciate and welcome any feedback or input you might have. If you feel like we’ve breached our objectivity or have compromised our own promises here, don’t hesitate at all to reach out to us. Our inboxes are always open, and you can get there either through our Contact Us page or by sending an email directly to [email protected].