How to test an SEO tier list against AI answers
This article began as an August 2026 comparison using our earlier weighted scoring method. Those scores are not percentages of answers. The old score gaps are no longer shown as current evidence.
A useful question for every tactic
What changed in the saved answers after the work, with the questions and engines held as consistent as possible?
| Tactic | What to examine |
|---|---|
| Independent mentions and links | Which relevant sources appear in the saved answers, and whether the business is named. |
| Question-focused pages | Whether an answer uses or cites the page for its intended buyer question. |
| Structured data and site access | What the crawler can read and whether the published business facts are accurate. |
| AI-written content or exact-match domains | Our current benchmarks do not isolate the effect of either tactic. |
A before-and-after comparison can help guide work, but it is not automatically a causal experiment. Models, sources and other parts of the business may change at the same time.
Our public benchmarks now count saved answers directly. Each business gets a percentage: answers that name it divided by countable answers. Missing evidence is left out, never treated as a negative answer.
The current public snapshot was compiled on 29 September 2026. It covers 271 businesses in Australia, 134 in the United States and 105 in the United Kingdom. Different businesses have different questions, dates and answer counts, so these are observed results, not a controlled comparison.