How a Port Klang logistics firm shows up in AI search: the DNE case study

A real, AEO-built Malaysian SME site is already showing up in AI search. DNE Logistics, a Port Klang freight forwarder and Acclaira's own live reference, draws around 2,000+ visits a month with zero paid ads. Its WhatsApp enquiry button fired 55 times last month. Google Analytics directly traces a dedicated "AI Assistant" channel of about 116 visits a month, and the site converts steadily across all of them.

Last updated: 26 June 2026.

Key takeaways

• This is not a before-and-after story. We have no earlier baseline, so we claim no growth percentage. It is an honest snapshot of what one AEO-built Malaysian site is doing right now, from DNE's own Google Analytics 4, 30 days to 26 June 2026.
• In that window the site drew around 2,000+ visits with zero paid ads, and its WhatsApp enquiry action fired 55 times from about 46 people, roughly 1.5 to 2 enquiries a day.
• Google Analytics directly traces a dedicated "AI Assistant" channel of about 116 visits a month from 70 people, across ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. That is a measured floor, not the full picture.
• The true AI-influenced share is higher but harder to pin down, because AI assistants usually strip the referrer, so many AI-prompted visits land in Direct or brand search instead. Counting those, we estimate about 90% of visits are AI-driven, a reasoned estimate that is explicitly distinct from the 116 measured floor. We do not claim a precise AI lead count.
• The point is simple. With Malaysian internet penetration at 98.0 percent (DataReportal, 2026), being the named, machine-readable answer is now a real source of enquiries, and you can measure it.

Whose site is this, and why use it as proof?

This is DNE Forwarding (M) Sdn Bhd, a family-run Port Klang freight forwarder operating since 1999. It runs JKDM-licensed customs clearance, KA-licensed container haulage, and sea and air freight forwarding for manufacturers across Selangor. It is the founder's own logistics company, not a paying Acclaira client.

We use it as the honest proof for a reason. Most agencies show you polished case studies you cannot check. DNE is the one site we can open the analytics on and show you the raw numbers, good and imperfect, because we built it and we own it. Acclaira is the studio. DNE is the live, audited reference behind the work.

What does the site actually do?

In the 30 days to 26 June 2026 the DNE site drew around 2,000+ visits with zero paid ad spend. The job that matters most, a customer tapping the WhatsApp enquiry button, happened 55 times from about 46 people. That is roughly 1.5 to 2 real enquiries a day from the website alone.

These are modest numbers by consumer-brand standards, and that is the point. This is a niche business-to-business logistics firm in Port Klang, not a viral shop. For an SME, a site that quietly produces one or two qualified WhatsApp enquiries a day, every day, is a working sales channel. The figures here are from DNE's own Google Analytics 4, 30 days to 26 June 2026, in the Asia/Kuala Lumpur time zone.

Where does the traffic come from?

The visits split across several channels. Organic Search remains the largest single source by volume and by leads, which is exactly what a well-structured, answer-first site should produce. The more interesting story is in the smaller channels: a directly measured AI Assistant channel, a healthy Referral channel, and a large Direct and brand-search bucket that hides as much as it reveals.

The standout is that AI Assistant channel: about 116 visits a month from 70 people, tagged by Google Analytics 4 across ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude and Perplexity. It is a measured floor, and the large Direct and brand-search bucket almost certainly hides further AI-influenced visits that arrive without a referrer. All figures are from DNE's Google Analytics 4, 30 days to 26 June 2026.

Is AI really sending visitors?

Yes. Google Analytics 4 records a dedicated "AI Assistant" channel, and it traces about 116 visits a month to the DNE site. That is a measured number from the analytics, not an estimate. People are asking assistants like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini, Claude and Perplexity a question, seeing DNE in or beside the answer, and clicking through.

This fits the wider shift. More than 200 countries and over 40 languages now get Google's AI Overviews, with Malay added in 2025 (Google, 2025). And when an AI summary appears, users click a traditional search result only 8 percent of the time, against 15 percent without one (Pew Research, 2025). The answer has become the destination, so being named in it, as DNE increasingly is, is what puts you in front of the customer. We explain the mechanism in plain terms in our guide on why your business may not show up in ChatGPT or Google AI.

How big is the AI Assistant channel, and is it the full picture?

It is about 116 visits a month out of around 2,000+ in total, so a small but real slice, and it is not the full picture. The 116 figure is what Google Analytics 4 could clearly tag as coming from an AI assistant. It is a floor, because assistant visits that arrive without a clear referrer fall into the Direct or brand-search bucket instead. The honest reading is a measured, named channel that is almost certainly larger than the label alone shows.

How honest is the AI attribution?

Honestly, the about 116 AI Assistant visits are a floor, not the full picture, and the true AI-influenced number is higher. Analytics cannot always tell where an AI referral came from. Some assistant visits arrive with no referrer and land in Direct. Others pass through a link wrapper and land in Referral or brand search. So the real AI contribution is genuinely hard to isolate, and our reasoned estimate that about 90% of visits are AI-driven sits deliberately apart from the 116 we can measure.

That is why we will not tell you "AI drove X leads" with false precision. What we can say with confidence is this: there is a real, measured AI Assistant channel of about 116 visits a month; it sits alongside a large Direct and brand-search bucket that may include further AI-influenced visits; and the channel is one we expect to grow. The wider trend backs that up: visits to retail sites from generative-AI sources rose more than 1,300 percent over the 2024 year-end season compared with a year earlier (Adobe Analytics, 2025). Reporting the uncertainty is part of the proof. Numbers you can trust are worth more than numbers that flatter.

Through rigorous evaluation, we demonstrate that GEO can boost visibility by up to 40% in generative engine responses. Aggarwal et al., the Princeton GEO study (ACM KDD 2024).

What did we do to get here?

We built DNE the way an answer engine needs to read a business. The work is plain, not magic, and it follows the same AI-search visibility programme Acclaira runs for any Malaysian SME.

1. Answer-first content in real text. Every service, location and credential is stated in clear, crawlable words, not locked inside images. JKDM-licensed clearance, KA-licensed haulage, sea and air freight, Port Klang, Selangor. The facts an assistant needs are right there to read.
2. Structured data and consistent facts. Schema describes the organisation, its services and its area served, and the same name and details appear consistently across the web, so an assistant can resolve who DNE is with confidence.
3. Question-shaped pages and guides. The site and its insights answer the exact questions a manufacturer would ask an AI, which is what gets a page pulled into an answer. Adding clear statements, statistics and citations is a measured lever, worth up to a 40 percent visibility lift in Princeton's GEO study.
4. Measurement from day one. Google Analytics with a defined AI-Search channel and a WhatsApp key event, so we can see what is actually working rather than guess. That is how we can show you these numbers at all.

Which fixes mattered most?

The most useful work was the least glamorous: making DNE's basic facts machine-readable and consistent. We will not rank these by exact contribution, because the analytics cannot cleanly separate one lever from another. But this is the concrete checklist we worked through for DNE, and it is where any Malaysian SME should start.

• Schema.org structured data describing the organisation, its services and its area served, so an assistant can parse who DNE is without guessing.
• Services stated as real, crawlable text, not images. Clearance, haulage, sea and air freight, and the locations served are written in words a crawler can read, not trapped in a picture.
• A complete, consistent Google Business Profile, with the same name, contact details and services that appear on the site, so trusted sources agree about DNE.
• An FAQ that answers the real questions buyers ask, phrased the way a manufacturer would actually ask an assistant, which is what gets a page pulled into an answer.
• A fast, crawlable build where the content is in the page itself, not loaded later by script, so AI crawlers and Google can both read everything.

What can your business take from this?

That an ordinary Malaysian SME, in an unglamorous industry, can be the named answer and turn it into steady WhatsApp enquiries, and prove it with its own analytics. You do not need a huge audience. You need to be the clearest, most trustworthy, most machine-readable option for your customer's question, and a way to measure the result.

The same starting point is open to you: a free 15-minute strategy call where we ask ChatGPT, Gemini and Google the exact questions your customers ask, show you whether the answer names you or a competitor, and hand you the single highest-impact fix to earn your first mention. It is how we began with DNE, and it costs nothing. Book a call, or browse the rest of our Insights library for the how-to behind each step.

When your customer asks AI who to trust, you want one name to come back. Make it yours. Be the answer.

Sources

• DNE Logistics, Google Analytics 4 (first-party data), 30 days to 26 June 2026, Asia/Kuala_Lumpur time zone. Held privately by DNE, not a public URL.
• Pew Research Center, 2025, Google users are less likely to click links when an AI summary appears
• Aggarwal et al., GEO: Generative Engine Optimization, Princeton (ACM KDD 2024)
• Google, May 2025, AI Overviews expansion to 200+ countries and 40+ languages
• DataReportal, Digital 2026 Malaysia
• Adobe Analytics, 2025, generative-AI traffic to retail sites