Ranked on Google.
Missing from AI.
Google search results and AI answers overlap, but they are not the same list. AI answers lean on what other sources say about you, so a page that ranks can still be left out of the answer a buyer reads.
A ranking is a link.
An answer is a choice.
A Google result lists pages and lets the searcher choose. An AI answer chooses for them: it names a few businesses, often with a reason, and links to the sources it relied on. Being one of ten links does not make you one of three names.
Google says its AI features rely on the same core ranking systems and that there is no special optimisation required, but eligibility does not guarantee inclusion. Google’s guidance.
Lists, guides
and other people.
On 10 October 2026 we asked the same ten Singapore buyer questions about SEO, AEO and GEO agencies on Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity. The sources beside Google’s answers were mostly agencies’ own guides and “best agencies” lists, and most of those lists rank their own author first.
Paid placements also appear. In the same check, 22 of 32 logged-out ChatGPT answers across Singapore, Malaysia and the United States carried at least one labelled ad. In Malaysia, a widely cited trade-press list of AI SEO agencies is labelled as sponsored by the agency it ranks first. The list carries that label.
We are not
in those answers either.
Tendou ran its own 32 locked questions across the four engines on 10 October 2026. Of the answers that completed, none named Tendou, and none of the answers whose links we collected linked to tendou.ai. Our service pages show in Google for agency searches, mostly below the first page. We include our own result because a measurement method should apply to its author too. Unknown answers, where an engine was blocked or did not finish, are not counted either way.
Strong in one,
absent in the other.
Funeral Home Team’s new site recorded 113 Google clicks in the 28 days to 3 October 2026, yet on 13 September it was not named in any of three Google AI Mode checks. The record keeps both results.
The reverse also happens. Four Solutions was named in 12 of 28 completed ChatGPT answers on 9 October, mostly for specific jobs, while Google AI named it in 4 of 30 on the same day. That record shows the questions.
Give answers
something to repeat.
- Answer the exact buyer question on one page, with the facts an answer needs: service, area, price factors, how to start.
- Be described consistently elsewhere: Google Business Profile, directories, industry associations and genuine reviews.
- Earn independent mentions: editors and lists that are not written by your competitors, or disclosed sponsorships where you choose to pay.
- Measure answers separately from rankings, on a fixed set of questions. Choosing the questions explains how.
See what the answers
say about you.
Send your website and the questions your customers ask. We will check Google and the four AI engines on the same questions and show where the answers come from before proposing any work.
Combined SEO, AEO and GEO in Singapore ↗
SEO, AEO and GEO in Malaysia ↗
The Singapore audit approach ↗
How we measure ↗
All Insights ↗
What’s holding
your business back?
A website that needs work. Customers who can’t find you. A team running on spreadsheets and messages. Start there.