Team Empathy  ·  Drop Bear Adventures

Four years.
Nine of ten on page one.

The rankings you own, the winter you just broke, and the AI answers already naming you
Sources: Google Search Console · GA4 · Ahrefs · a live Google Australia rankings check · your SEO Work sheet · our delivery records  ·  Assembled 2 September 2026  ·  This page is your reporting home now, updated monthly

Nine of your ten priority keywords are on page one

Checked live on Google Australia on 2 September 2026, not pulled from a dashboard estimate. Alongside each is where that keyword sat when the tracking began in June 2022.

KeywordLive positionJune 2022
fraser island tour from noosa113
fraser island adventure tours212
fraser island from noosa216
kgari adventures2new keyword
kgari tours3new keyword
fraser island tour529
fraser island tours 4wd69
how to get to fraser island827
4wd fraser island1017
fraser island beach houses12new keyword

Nine on page one, six in the top 5, five in the top 3, and one at number 1. Across the full 22-keyword tracked set, 18 are in the top 10 and 12 in the top 3. The cleanest single line on the account: "fraser island tour" went from position 29 to position 5, and "fraser island tour from noosa" went from 13 to number 1 and has held it since June.

The headline numbers

17.8 → 5.3
Average position of the six keywords baselined in June 2022. All six improved
9 of 10
Priority keywords on page one, verified live on 2 September
3
Tracked searches where Google's AI answer now cites your site, including "fraser island tour"
+190%
Visits from AI assistants year on year (71 in Aug 2025, 206 in Aug 2026)
1,419
Backlinks built since June 2022 across 50 monthly blocks, all still live
197 → 515
Referring domains over the past year (Ahrefs, primary site)
85%
Of August's clicks came from people searching the category, not your brand name
+72%
Bookings in August against July: the winter decline broke (detail below)

Every number traces to a named source: Google Search Console and GA4 pulled 2 September 2026, a live Google Australia rankings check the same day, Ahrefs, and your own SEO Work sheet. Figures on this page cover Drop Bear Adventures only.

August broke the winter decline

The first genuinely strong month since January, and it moved on every measure at once rather than drifting:

MeasureJuly 2026August 2026Change
Clicks from Google search2,2642,926+29.2%
Impressions149,826170,906+14.1%
Organic visitors2,2092,807+27.1%
Bookings115198+72.2%
Enquiries2730+11.1%
Visits from AI assistants116206+77.6%

Bookings rose 72% while organic traffic rose 27%, which means the visitors who arrived converted harder, not simply that there were more of them.

The honest part: the year is still down on last year

August was a strong month, and the year is still softer than the one before it. Compared with August 2025: clicks are down 21.1%, organic visitors down 20.0% and bookings down 26.9%. Organic-attributed bookings fell from 41 to 19 across December to July.

Your rankings did not cause that. They improved over the same period and have held a single-digit site-wide average every month for a year. What has changed is the search results page itself, and that is worth understanding properly:

What's happeningThe evidence
AI answers absorbing clicksGoogle now runs an AI answer on 9 of your 22 tracked searches. Travellers read the summary and never click through.
The traffic is moving, not vanishingWhile classical search clicks fell 21% year on year, visits from AI assistants rose 190% (71 to 206). ChatGPT is 93% of that.
Two big terms still to win"fraser island" is outside the top 50 and "k'gari" sits at 36. Those are the biggest unclaimed terms in your category.

Google's AI already names you

This is the part worth pausing on. Of the 9 tracked searches now showing a Google AI answer, your site is cited inside that answer on three of them: "fraser island tour", "how to get to fraser island" and "fraser island tours 4wd". The first is your money keyword. Search it and you will see Drop Bear named in the summary Google writes at the top of the page.

That is not a vendor's visibility score. It is Google quoting you in the answer box, verified in the raw search results on 2 September. Very few operators in your category can say that yet, and it is the foundation the next few years get built on.

Where this goes next

MoveWhy it matters
The two head terms"fraser island" and "k'gari" are the largest searches in your category and you hold neither. They need dedicated destination content rather than tour pages.
More AI citationsYou are cited in three AI answers. The way to be in more is content that answers travellers' actual questions cleanly enough to be quoted, which is a specific way of writing.
The second websitedropbearadventures.com.au is still live and still earning traffic, and it has no structured data and no llms.txt. It needs a decision: consolidate it or invest in it properly.
More content, not more linksWe are changing how authority gets built: winding down monthly volume link building (your base of 1,419 links is established) and putting that effort into content instead.
And the next step: Notable. We have built our own AI search platform, Notable, and it is live. It is how we will produce and calibrate your content going forward, and it comes with a live dashboard including AI visibility tracking, so you can watch where Drop Bear shows up in AI answers rather than taking our word for it. Ben would love to walk you through it in October.