leskovac.taxi: the same pattern, a four times weaker effect.
When one project produces a good result, that is an anecdote. This study checks the same pattern on a second project by the same agency, publishes the weaker finding, and concludes that for a local service AI impression share is not the right measure of success at all.
Why this is a control case, not a success story
On taxi.co.rs we measured that pages carrying a concrete fare enter AI answers far more often than the site average. This study checks whether the same pattern holds on another project by the same agency, in the same industry, but with one city instead of twenty-three. The result is weaker — and that is the finding.
We publish it because one project with a good result is an anecdote, not a methodology. Only when the same approach produces a different outcome in a second place does it become possible to ask why.
What can be verified publicly?
Both sites use the same approach: the city carries the fare, the price table is the main content, the calculator is a separate tool, and guides form an outer layer leading to the commercial pages.
Which results come from owner data?
Important: these figures come from the project owner's Google Search Console account for the period – , exported on . They are not publicly verifiable without access to that account and are not presented as independently confirmed.
| Measurement | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | 1,157 | GSC, owner data |
| Impressions | 47,481 | GSC, owner data |
| Average position | 4.84 | GSC, owner data |
| Impressions in AI search features | 2,931 (5.2% of all) | GSC, Generative AI Features report |
| Mobile share of AI impressions | 83% | GSC, owner data |
Unlike the aggregator, this site was not relaunched during the observed period, so the full three-month range is comparable with itself.
How much weaker is the pattern?
| Page type | Pages | Impressions | AI share |
|---|---|---|---|
| English version | 43 | 6,048 | 9.3% |
| Event and destination | 7 | 4,366 | 9.0% |
| Price and fares | 10 | 9,635 | 6.9% |
| Instructions and tools | 6 | 2,677 | 6.9% |
| Home page | 1 | 25,653 | 4.7% |
| Other | 58 | 23,032 | 3.2% |
The ordering resembles the aggregator in one important respect: the home page has by far the most impressions and one of the lowest AI shares. Pages answering a specific question outperform navigational ones, and that holds on both projects.
What differs is the magnitude. On the aggregator the gap between fare pages and the site average is 16.7 percentage points; here it is 1.7. On top of that, the highest share here does not belong to the fare pages but to the English version and to event pages — a pattern that does not exist in the same form on the aggregator.
First explanation: the number of pattern variations
Our working hypothesis was that variations of the same query pattern reinforce one another. The aggregator has twenty-three city hubs with their fare pages, all variations of the pattern taxi [city] fares. This site has one city, so there is nothing to multiply — the same page type exists, but without a network of related variations around it.
That hypothesis is consistent with the idea of a query template, under which authority attaches partly to the format of the query rather than only to the topic. But this comparison does not prove it, and we now consider the next explanation stronger.
Second explanation: the queries are not the same kind
Most of the difference in AI share comes from what people are actually asking. The aggregator receives price-informational queries that an AI system has something to answer. The local service receives navigational queries where the reader wants a phone number, not an explanation.
| Project | Total impressions | Price-informational queries | Most frequent queries |
|---|---|---|---|
| taxi.co.rs | 87,071 | 6,155 (7.1%) | taxi price calculator, taxi Belgrade price |
| leskovac.taxi | 29,098 | 511 (1.8%) | taxi Leskovac, taksi Leskovac |
There is nothing to summarise in response to “taxi Leskovac” — the reader wants a service to call. “How much does a taxi cost in Belgrade” has an answer that can be generated. The aggregator therefore has four times the share of price queries, and correspondingly more opportunities to enter a generated answer.
We consider this explanation stronger than the first, because it rests on a measured composition of queries rather than on an assumption about variations reinforcing one another.
Why this is the wrong measure of success for a local service
For taxi services, the primary place of appearance in search is not the organic result but the local pack and the business profile. Measuring that kind of business by AI impression share on the website measures a secondary channel.
Business profile data for leskovac.taxi shows the scale of that difference.
| Channel | Measurement | Value |
|---|---|---|
| Business profile | Calls placed from the profile | 2,601 |
| Business profile | Total profile interactions | 2,773 |
| Organic search | Clicks to the website | 1,157 |
The business profile produces more than twice as many calls as the site receives clicks from organic search. For a local service that is both expected and desirable: a reader who calls from the local pack has completed the task, even though they never opened the website.
The aggregator has no such channel. It has no physical location and no business profile to appear in a local pack, so the organic result is its only entrance. That is a structural difference between two business models, not a difference in how well either site was built.
Limits of this comparison: we did not measure how often a local pack actually appeared for individual queries — that requires separate tooling and we did not do it. The business profile data and the Search Console data do not share an identical period or an identical definition of an event, so calls and clicks must not be added together or divided by one another. The claim that the local pack is the primary surface for the taxi industry comes from the owner's business experience, not from measurement in this study.
A limit of the source itself: Search Console does not show every query. Anonymisation of rare queries withholds a noticeable share of the data — industry estimates put it around 40 percent. The query composition in the table above is therefore a sample, not a census. The fourfold difference would probably hold on complete data, but the exact percentages are not final.
What this study does not prove
- It does not prove that the number of pattern variations causes a higher AI share. That is the weaker of the two explanations offered, and it appears first only because it was our starting hypothesis.
- It does not measure local pack appearance per query, so that influence is estimated indirectly, through query composition and business profile data.
- It does not prove that adding cities to this site would raise its AI share. An aggregator and a local service are not the same kind of business and do not share an intent.
- It does not claim that an AI impression brings a visit. Search Console's AI features report shows impressions only, with no clicks.
- It does not rule out the influence of domain age, historical click data, competition in Leskovac, or the site's English version.
- The grouping into page types is ours, derived from the URL structure. A different grouping would produce different percentages.
What follows from this for the work
- Measure by group of pages, not by individual URL. Neither of these findings would have been visible at the level of a single page.
- Do not carry a conclusion from one project to another without checking. The same approach produced a four times weaker ratio here.
- Track AI share separately from clicks. They are two different reports that do not move at the same pace.
- Check which channel the business actually converts through before choosing a metric. For a local service that may not be the website at all.
- Record the export date of your data. Without it the snapshot is not verifiable, even to yourself later.
Frequently asked questions
Does a weaker result mean the project is unsuccessful?
No. The site recorded 1,157 clicks and an average position of 4.84 in the observed period, which is a better average position than the aggregator's. The comparison concerns only the share of impressions in AI search features, not overall performance.
Why does the English version have the highest AI share?
We do not know reliably. Competition in English for local queries about Leskovac may be lower, but we did not measure that and do not present it as an explanation.
Is it valid to compare these two projects?
With limits, yes. They are run by the same agency, in the same industry, using the same methodology, and the data was exported on the same day from the same tool. They differ in scale, number of cities, age and language, so the comparison shows a difference rather than its cause.
Should a local taxi service invest in its website at all?
That is a business decision, not one this study answers. What the data shows is that for this business the business profile produced more than twice as many calls as the website received organic clicks, so choosing a success metric should start from which channel actually converts.