Tag: Brand Mentions

Credibility-First Link Building: How We Earn Lasting Authority
At Resolve, we define link building for legitimacy as earning authoritative backlinks, brand mentions, and media coverage that demonstrate trust, expertise, and credibility to search engines and AI systems. Instead of chasing link volume, we use digital PR, original research, thought leadership, and journalist relationships to earn genuine editorial citations. These are the authority signals behind Google’s E-E-A-T framework, and they can help us appear in AI Overviews, earn citations from large language models, and build visibility that survives ranking swings.

We believe a little competition is healthy. It challenges us, sharpens our thinking, and pushes us to pursue bigger and better results.

However, today’s search environment is changing faster than ever. Large language models, AI-generated answers, and frequent algorithm updates are reshaping how people find information, making it increasingly difficult for us to rely on yesterday’s playbook.

The metrics we once used to keep brands afloat — traffic, domain authority increases, and keyword rankings — no longer define SEO success on their own. We can reach the top of a search results page and still see very few conversions.

If we continue chasing those numbers in isolation, we risk being left behind. We have to adapt.

We now widen our view to the outcomes that matter most: trust and brand authority. Unlike a temporary ranking or traffic spike, trust and authority are not earned quickly or easily.

We need time to spread the word about our brand, and we need even more time to prove that people can rely on us. Once we establish that trust, however, it becomes much harder to dislodge.

An algorithm update can cut our traffic overnight. It cannot erase genuine trust overnight.

Our challenge is learning how to build trust and strengthen our brand while every competitor is trying to do the same. We also need meaningful ways to measure concepts that can initially seem difficult to quantify.

We have found that the answers involve some nuance, but they are simpler than they appear. The process begins with a shift in perspective.

Why we see link building as more than rankings

For years, we treated link building like a popularity contest. The site that collected the most votes, in the form of backlinks, was often rewarded with a prominent position in the search results.

Relevance and trust beat volume: 86% of journalists use at least some PR-pitched stories, yet 54% seldom respond, while 61% of Gen Z turn to generative AI instead of Google.

Over time, Google and other search engines updated their algorithms to improve the search experience. With each change, Google cracked down on more sites that tried to manipulate the system with backlink volume instead of earning links with real editorial and audience value. Countless sites lost traffic, and many still feel the effects.

Today, we see Google place more emphasis on relevance, industry trust, and authority. That helps explain why a familiar brand can attract more searchers than a smaller competitor even when both publish similar content and target similar keywords.

Large language models and Google’s AI Overviews have widened this divide. These systems can use retrieval-augmented generation, or RAG, to retrieve relevant sources, often favoring authoritative publications and proprietary information. If we merely repeat a statistic already cited by a top-tier publication, an AI system may choose the better-known source to reduce the risk of spreading inaccurate information.

We also see younger searchers moving toward AI tools. In a 2025 Resolve study, 61% of Gen Z respondents said they used generative AI instead of Google.

None of this means every form of link building looks like spam to Google or an LLM. It means we need backlinks to work alongside a broader set of authority signals.

When publications and journalists cite our brand, they signal authority. When we publish original content and proprietary data, we signal authority. When we create useful graphics and informative videos, we signal authority again.

Once Google and AI systems recognize these signals, the backlinks supporting them become meaningful votes of confidence. Our site may then be more likely to rank prominently, appear in AI Overviews, and receive citations in LLM-generated answers.

How we use E-E-A-T in a competitive search environment

In 2018, Google updated its quality-rater guidance to place greater focus on expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness, commonly shortened to E-A-T. In 2022, Google added another E for experience. Together, these qualities provide a framework for understanding how Google considers credibility and legitimacy.
- Experience: We demonstrate that an author has personally engaged with the subject. Examples include a forum where people describe testing a product or a gardener documenting firsthand pest-prevention trials.
- Expertise: We show that the author has relevant knowledge, qualifications, or credentials supporting the information and advice.
- Authoritativeness: We earn recognition from credible sources and industry voices that cite or link to our work, helping establish us as a respected participant in the field.
- Trustworthiness: We remain transparent, accurate, and honest. We avoid deceiving readers or using manipulative link-building practices.
We apply E-E-A-T both on and off the page. Author biographies can demonstrate expertise, while accurate sourcing can demonstrate trustworthiness. Off the page, we strengthen E-E-A-T signals through the quality of the sites that link to us and the journalists who rely on us as a source. Both dimensions influence how search engines assess whether our information is useful, accurate, and credible.

If we consistently earn backlinks from dozens of irrelevant websites, that pattern can look like a low-quality or manufactured signal. If several respected journalists mention our brand because we published a valuable study, those mentions are much more likely to function as genuine votes of confidence.

Move beyond fragile SEO numbers. This side-by-side graphic shows how earned media, branded searches, industry citations and conversions build authority that can survive algorithm updates.

For us, link quantity is no longer a reliable proxy for legitimacy. We look for backlinks that demonstrate real relevance and value.

We cannot earn those links half-heartedly. We need a coordinated strategy that strengthens credibility both on and off our site.

The off-page SEO tactics we use to demonstrate value

When we ask how to earn links that search engines and LLMs will treat as signs of trust, we do not look for a single outreach tactic. Strong links usually emerge from several activities that we sustain over time.

We create genuinely linkable assets

To prove that people genuinely want to reference our site, we first create content worth referencing. If we are accustomed to quick and easy links, this may require a larger investment in content than we have made before. A routine how-to article or listicle is rarely enough by itself.

We define linkable content as something journalists, publishers, and readers find distinctive and useful — something they have not already encountered dozens of times. We often draw from the following content formats.
- Original data and proprietary research: We publish information people cannot find elsewhere. In a crowded search environment, that means conducting original research rather than recycling familiar statistics. When a journalist needs a statistic and our site is the primary source, we can earn a natural backlink.
- Thought leadership and expert commentary: We share an original perspective from a credible expert within our organization, giving publishers a useful idea or quotation they may cite in future coverage.
- Authoritative long-form guides: We answer the main question thoroughly and anticipate the follow-up questions a reader is likely to ask. This depth can help us earn links as audiences move further into their research.
- Engaging visuals and infographics: We invest in visual assets that make complex information easier to understand and share. Ahrefs found that YouTube mentions strongly correlated with inclusion in AI Overviews. Videos can be especially valuable, but informative infographics also give publishers a useful visual for their own audiences.
These formats demand more time, effort, and money, but we have found that they are often more sustainable than disposable content. They help us earn credible editorial citations and build industry authority that is more resilient to algorithm updates.

We connect link building with digital PR

We place digital PR at the center of authority building because it connects brand development with link acquisition. It helps us earn coverage, attract links, and introduce our organization to new audiences through credible journalists. Those are precisely the kinds of signals search engines can consider when assessing legitimacy.

Unlike traditional PR, our digital PR work focuses on online coverage and backlinks from news organizations and media outlets. We create useful assets or proprietary data, identify the journalists most likely to care, and pitch stories that fit their established beats.

Many of these publications carry significant influence and reach large audiences that can introduce our brand to more people. When a highly authoritative outlet covers our story, other journalists may discover and cite it organically. Syndication can amplify the effect further when a media group republishes an article across its network, potentially producing many relevant links from one story.

Our strongest digital PR campaigns typically use one or more of the following approaches.

Build lasting brand authority in five steps: target trusted publications, create citation-worthy assets, launch digital PR, nurture journalist relationships, then measure and refine your approach.
- Data-led PR campaigns: We begin with what journalists and their readers care about, not simply what we find interesting. We review local news, Google News, and current coverage to understand which subjects are gaining attention. By considering journalist intent from the start, we improve our chances of receiving responses and earning placements.
- Newsjacking or reactive PR: When we can move quickly, we contribute expert opinions, data, or commentary to breaking stories that relate to our brand. This gives journalists material they can use while the topic is still timely.
- Proactive PR: We anticipate trends before they break and prepare insights around recurring news cycles, holidays, and other relevant media moments.
- Contributed content and guest features: We place useful content written by our experts in relevant publications, allowing us to speak directly to established audiences and earn recognition.
When we combine these tactics effectively, we can elevate our brand to a level that competitors cannot reproduce with a batch of low-value links.

We build relationships with journalists and publishers

We know that even fascinating proprietary data, packaged in an expertly designed analysis, can fail if our journalist outreach is poorly targeted.

Journalists receive an enormous number of PR pitches, and those messages can either support or obstruct their work. According to a 2026 Muck Rack study, nearly nine in 10 journalists said at least some of their stories originated with PR pitches.

The same survey found that 54% of journalists seldom or never responded to most pitches. Relevance was a central problem: nearly half said a genuinely relevant pitch was rare.

If we send a journalist at an economics publication a pitch about music-listening habits, we should expect a rejection because the subject may matter to only a small part of that publication’s audience. We do not take that response personally. Journalists build their careers around particular topics and beats, and our job is to support that work rather than distract from it.

We therefore approach outreach as relationship building: a two-way exchange that should benefit everyone involved. Above all, we remember that there is a real person on the other side of every email.
- We personalize our emails and explain why a story fits the journalist’s audience.
- We respond graciously when a journalist says no because our next idea may be a better fit.
- We share relevant work from journalists and publications through social media.
- We contribute thoughtful comments when we have something useful to add.
- We cite journalists’ reporting in future content when it genuinely supports our work.
As we strengthen these relationships, journalists become more likely to consider future opportunities. A thoughtful follow-up or second pitch can receive a warmer response when a reporter already knows that we provide reliable data and useful commentary.

PR relationships grow over time. Even when our first pitch does not fit a journalist’s beat, we remain willing to return with a better story or a new set of relevant data.

How we measure real brand authority

We recognize that authority, trust, and legitimacy feel less concrete than traffic or keyword position. Yet they have become more important. A traffic surge may look encouraging while reflecting temporary attention, weak intent, or an advantage that disappears after an algorithm update.

Authority and legitimacy are more durable. We can also measure the impact of credibility-focused work through several meaningful indicators.

EZ Contacts’ six-month digital PR campaign delivered 1,000+ media placements, raised Domain Rating from 40 to 43, and doubled visibility across ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews.
- Earned media placements: We track the publications that cover our brand, including coverage containing an unlinked mention. These placements help us assess brand credibility.
- Branded search volume: We monitor whether more people search for our company or products after discovering us through media coverage.
- Industry coverage: We look for the point at which publications we have not contacted begin citing our work. That organic pickup is a valuable sign that our authority is spreading.
- Conversions: We measure whether greater credibility leads more people to trust our organization, products, or services and ultimately take meaningful action.
- Organic ranking improvements for target keywords: We still review rankings, but we treat them as one indicator within a broader picture. Sustained movement can show that search engines increasingly view us as a credible result relative to competing pages.
We do not expect these indicators to appear overnight.
- We invest real effort in creating proprietary data.
- We build trust with journalists through repeated, useful interactions.
- We grow authority through sustained work over time.
Our advice is simple: we stay patient, keep improving, and allow credible results to compound.

How we build a credibility-focused link strategy

Knowing the principles of SEO authority is one thing; building an entire campaign around them is another. We use the following five-step process to turn those principles into consistent action.
1. Step 1 — We define our target publications: We identify five to 10 publications that our audience trusts and that search engines are likely to recognize as authoritative within our field. These become our priority coverage targets.
2. Step 2 — We develop linkable assets: We create at least two content or media assets designed around the interests of those publications. We may use original survey data, visual guides, proprietary analysis, or expert thought leadership.
3. Step 3 — We launch a digital PR campaign: We proactively pitch our assets to relevant publications. We can also use platforms such as Connectively or Muck Rack to identify ongoing opportunities with writers covering subjects related to our research.
4. Step 4 — We nurture relationships: We treat every positive media interaction as the beginning of a longer relationship. We follow up with useful information, engage with published coverage, and build the kind of rapport a journalist can rely on.
5. Step 5 — We measure and iterate: We review our authority indicators each quarter, learn from the response to our campaigns, and adjust our content and outreach accordingly.
We know this process can consume a team’s time, particularly when resources or specialized expertise are limited.

In those situations, we may benefit from working with a link-building and digital PR specialist who can expand our capacity and keep pace with search changes. The right support can help us establish sustainable visibility without allowing every minor ranking fluctuation to pull us off course.

How we build authority that lasts at Resolve

We know that quality usually stands the test of time better than quantity. The difficult part is maintaining that focus when competitors appear to be winning with sudden traffic spikes or eye-catching vanity metrics.

We do not let temporary numbers distract us from the larger goal. We focus on lasting authority and legitimacy earned through sustained content creation, thoughtful PR outreach, and genuine relationship building.

When an internal team lacks the time or patience required to maintain that effort, we can step in.

At Resolve, we work with brands to build credibility-focused SEO campaigns through linkable content, data-led digital PR, and hands-on link building. Our goal is sustainable organic growth, not a burst of visibility that disappears after the next algorithm update.

We have seen this approach pay off. In a recent data-led campaign for EZ Contacts, we earned more than 1,000 placements in outlets including the New York Post and Yahoo. As the coverage grew, the brand’s visibility in ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews doubled. That is the kind of durable growth we want to build — growth that extends beyond the next algorithm update.

A bold Google logo sits atop layered, colorful digital documents, evoking the fast-moving world of search marketing, ad formats, campaign assets, and platform updates.

When we are ready to build links that last, we can visit growresolve.com to learn more.

Our answers to common link-building questions

How do we distinguish link building from digital PR?

We see considerable overlap between link building and digital PR, but we do not treat them as identical. Link building is the broader practice of acquiring backlinks from other websites to improve search authority. Digital PR is a particular approach within that practice, focused on earning links through media coverage, journalist relationships, and placements in credible publications rather than relying on directory submissions, guest-post exchanges, or other lower-authority tactics.

We often use digital PR to pursue the strongest editorial backlinks because reputable outlets have real audiences and established review standards. At the same time, this work builds brand visibility and consumer trust in ways that many conventional link-building methods do not.

How long do we wait for meaningful results?

We do not expect authoritative backlinks or earned media coverage to produce results overnight. That is an honest trade-off when we choose a credibility-focused approach instead of more aggressive tactics. Most brands can begin seeing meaningful domain-authority gains and early ranking movement after three to six months of consistent execution, while highly competitive keywords and top-tier placements may require more time.

The advantage is that our results can compound. Links from credible publications tend to endure, strong journalist relationships can create repeat opportunities, and the authority generated through consistent coverage can keep delivering value long after the initial campaign.

What do we mean by an authority backlink?

We define an authority backlink as a link from a source that search engines and its audience regard as credible and trustworthy. These sources typically have genuine readers, clear editorial processes, established authority, and topical relevance to our industry.

A regular backlink can come from any website willing to link to us, regardless of its relevance, quality, or editorial standards. That distinction matters because search engines do not evaluate every link equally. One editorial link from a respected industry publication can be more valuable than dozens of links from low-authority sites, while also supporting the kind of E-E-A-T credibility that bulk link acquisition cannot reproduce.

Do we value brand mentions without hyperlinks?

Yes. We recognize that Google can associate brand mentions with entities even when a publication does not include a hyperlink. Relevant, unlinked mentions in credible coverage can still contribute to the wider authority signals surrounding our brand.

That is why we consider digital PR valuable even when every placement does not produce a direct link. A credibility-focused off-page strategy should not be reduced to backlink acquisition alone. Our larger objective is to build a brand that respected publications genuinely want to mention, cite, and cover.

What risks do we face with outdated link-building tactics?

We see risks ranging from wasted effort to serious search penalties. Link buying, reciprocal-link schemes, private blog networks, and manipulative anchor-text optimization can violate Google’s spam policies. These tactics may trigger manual actions or algorithmic suppression that substantially reduces our search visibility.

Even when outdated tactics do not produce an immediate penalty, they can lose their value as search systems become better at identifying manufactured signals. Recovering from a link-related penalty can be slow and expensive. We would rather invest in credible link building from the beginning than repair the damage caused by shortcuts later.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
July 10, 2026
How I Build a Brand AI Search Can Trust and Recommend

For most of the past decade, I treated organic marketing as a visibility game. I wanted brands on Page 1, inside featured snippets, and in front of the people already searching.

That north star has moved.

When I spoke at SMX Advanced on June 5, the question I put to the room was not simply, “How do I get a brand found?” The harder question was, “How do I get that brand chosen?”

In 2026, those answers are no longer the same. The distance between being discovered and being selected is where I see many brands losing ground.

In AI search, my reputation shows up first

The old user journey was messy and multi-step. People explored, compared, checked reviews, read Reddit threads, visited comparison sites, and moved toward a decision over time. Now, a single AI prompt can compress much of that process into one synthesized answer.

AI search does not reward the brand that shouts the loudest in paid media or stuffs the most keywords into metadata. I see it rewarding the brand with the strongest reputation in the places that matter. Reddit discussions, review sites, comparison pages, expert commentary, forums, and editorial coverage are all being absorbed by large language models and blended into recommendations.

In other words, my brand is no longer defined only by what I say about it. It is shaped by how AI understands it, and AI is reading what everyone else has said, too.

Owned content on websites and social channels will always carry a promotional bias. AI systems look for outside validation to support, challenge, or clarify those claims.

That changes the work of organic marketing. I can no longer stop at visibility. I have to build a brand that is found, correctly understood, and ultimately chosen. Those are three separate challenges, and I need a strategy for each one.

Found: I need to appear where my audience actually looks

The first challenge is still discoverability, but the canvas is much wider than Google. People now discover brands through ChatGPT, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Google, Quora, LinkedIn, and word of mouth. I have to understand which of those entry points matter most to the specific audience I want to reach.

That starts with mapping the sources my audience genuinely trusts: the publications, platforms, communities, creators, analysts, newsletters, and peer groups that influence their decisions. The intersection of semantic relevance, domain authority, and audience affinity tells me which third-party properties are worth pursuing.

For one B2B audience, that might mean Wired, Tom’s Guide, or an active LinkedIn group where buyers discuss vendors in a specific vertical. For another, it might be r/smallbusiness or a Substack newsletter with 40,000 engaged subscribers.

Once I know where the audience spends time, I can create useful content, earn credible mentions, and participate in the conversations already shaping decisions. This is audience-first, performance-driven PR and organic strategy, not generic brand awareness.

AI search leans heavily on outside validation: this chart shows third-party communities, reviews, and earned media driving 93% of citations versus 7% from owned channels.

The data makes the case even stronger. Across the top commercial sectors analyzed, 93% of AI search citations came from third-party sources. If I only invest in content on my own domain, I risk being invisible to the systems now doing much of the brand discovery work.

Understood: I need consistent signals everywhere

Getting found matters, but it is not enough on its own. If machines are surfacing my brand, they also need to understand it accurately.

LLMs do more than crawl my website. They build a consensus picture from everything available online: reviews, Reddit discussions, press coverage, YouTube commentary, Trustpilot ratings, forum threads, and more. If those signals conflict with the story I am telling about myself, I have a real problem.

If I claim premium positioning while thousands of articles question whether the brand is truly luxury, heavy discounting is part of the public record, and review scores are poor, AI is unlikely to recommend that brand as a premium option. The model has read the broader story, not just the homepage copy.

That is why brand messaging consistency has become an SEO issue. Owned, earned, and paid content all need to reinforce the same core associations. Conflicting signals do not just confuse customers; they can weaken AI visibility.

Digital PR plays a critical role here because it helps shape the external narrative. Through strategic media placements, expert commentary, and search-informed coverage, I can influence what journalists write, what audiences remember, and what models learn.

I also have to think beyond one obvious keyword. The query fan-out, or the range of prompts a potential customer might use, requires positive and consistent answers across every touchpoint an LLM might evaluate.

Chosen: I need trust signals that influence the decision

The third challenge is the hardest and probably the most important. Trust has always been an SEO currency, but as clicks decline and zero-click search becomes more common, trust matters even more.

According to an Ahrefs study, brand appearance in AI Overviews is most strongly correlated with branded web mentions. In practical terms, that means the number of times a brand is positively named across authoritative third-party sources is becoming one of the most powerful signals organic marketers can influence.

That is also the core output of strong digital PR. Based on the last 4,000 pieces of U.S.- and U.K.-based coverage driven for clients, 91% of AI search citations included expert insight rather than branded content or product pages.

That tells me expert-backed, editorially independent coverage is critical. Internal experts are now one of the most valuable assets a brand has. Brands that invest in real thought leadership, original research, and data-backed studies are giving both people and AI systems stronger reasons to trust them.

The three content formats I see consistently supporting LLM inclusion are product roundups and listicles that place a brand inside trusted “best of” editorials, reliable data-backed research that journalists and LLMs can cite, and expert thought leadership that positions real people as credible voices in their category.

A glowing Google search bar cuts through streams of digital data, capturing the fast-moving world of search, shopping visibility, and SEO innovation.

What does not work is chasing inauthentic mentions through artificial link schemes, fake expert personas, or manufactured coverage. Google has already flagged these kinds of tactics in its GEO guidance, and models are getting better at distinguishing genuine authority from manipulated signals.

The reputational risk is also high. If I try to manufacture authority and get caught, I do not just lose visibility. I damage the trust I was trying to build.

This cannot be a one-time effort. Multiple studies, including research from Waseda University, have identified a correlation between AI brand visibility and content recency.

Brands that maintain a steady flow of credible, expert-backed third-party coverage do not just appear more often in AI responses. They appear with more confidence.

Frequency and freshness both matter. A one-off PR campaign is not enough. I need to treat credible external validation as an always-on strategic investment.

The framework I use in practice

When I think about brand discovery in 2026, I come back to three words: found, understood, and chosen.

Found: I map the audience’s real sources of influence and make sure the brand is credibly present across the fragmented ecosystem where discovery now happens.

Understood: I work to make sure everything said about the brand tells a consistent story, matches the desired positioning, and reinforces the associations that drive preference.

Chosen: I continuously build genuine trust signals through earned coverage, expert commentary, and third-party validation, so that when a person or machine compares the brand with a competitor, credible external evidence tips the decision in my favor.

The brands winning in organic search right now have not unlocked some secret technical trick. They have built reputations worth recommending, and they have made sure machines can understand those reputations clearly.

That is where I believe organic marketing has to go next. Instead of chasing the algorithm, I need to build something worth finding, worth understanding, and worth choosing.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.

July 7, 2026
6 SEO Priorities I’m Rethinking for Stronger AI Visibility

I see plenty of overlap between SEO and AEO, but I do not treat them as the same discipline. The SEO playbook that worked reliably in traditional search will not take me as far when the goal is visibility inside AI-generated answers.

So I keep coming back to one practical question: what should I change first?

Instead of revisiting content structure for AI search, I focus on three priorities I believe deserve more attention now and three SEO habits I would intentionally emphasize less.

3 SEO priorities I would emphasize more

Establish brand authority and strong entities

Before an AI system is likely to cite my brand, it needs to understand that the brand exists, what it represents, and why it is credible. Entity recognition has become foundational to AI visibility in a way that traditional search did not always require, even though Google’s Knowledge Graph has been moving in this direction for years. Large language model training data tends to reward brands that show up consistently across trusted platforms.

When I work on this for clients, I pay closer attention to whether brand information is consistent across Wikipedia, LinkedIn, Crunchbase, industry directories, and any other source an LLM might use to understand an entity.

I also think PR and SEO or AEO teams need to work much more closely together. Earned media mentions are no longer just awareness plays; they are entity-building signals.

E-E-A-T was already pushing SEO in this direction, but author entities matter even more in AI search. When bylined experts have their own credible web presence, they strengthen the authority of the content they create.

When I can invest in entity building before scaling content, I usually see stronger AI citation potential because the credibility infrastructure is already in place.

Build topical depth with content clusters

AI systems tend to favor sources that show comprehensive authority on a subject, not just pages that happen to rank for isolated keywords. A thin content footprint is much more vulnerable in AI search than it was in traditional search.

That means I need to move beyond keyword-by-keyword planning and think more seriously about topic ownership. Instead of only asking, “What do we rank for?” I ask, “What topics do I want AI systems to associate this brand with?”

Internal linking becomes more valuable in this environment because it helps signal relationships between related pieces of content. I also treat content audits as a way to find gaps in topical coverage, not just as a way to identify pages with declining traffic.

When I can go deep in a specific niche, I often see content cited across multiple related queries. One well-built content cluster can create visibility far beyond a single keyword target.

Owning the topic cluster around the problem a client’s product solves can position that brand as a trusted resource before a sales conversation even begins. I also hear more often that buyers are finding those brands in LLMs during their research process.

Earn unlinked brand mentions and community presence

LLMs learn from the broader web, not only from pages with backlinks. A mention on Reddit, Quora, a niche forum, or an industry community can matter even when there is no link attached.

I think this is one of the bigger mindset shifts for SEO teams. AI systems look for patterns in what the web says about a brand across many sources, not only what ranks in Google. Owned content alone cannot manufacture that signal.

Trusted third-party communities such as Reddit can carry particular weight because LLMs have been heavily trained on them and often treat that content as a form of authentic user sentiment.

That makes community participation and digital PR increasingly important SEO-adjacent work. I care about whether a brand is being mentioned in the right places, even when the mention does not come with a backlink.

Old search marketing tools give way to a faster, connected future, with data streams, AI icons, and a glowing search hub symbolizing SEO innovation and community growth.

Monitoring unlinked brand mentions is becoming just as important to me as tracking backlinks. Tools such as Brandwatch and Mention, along with manual Reddit and Quora monitoring, can show where a brand is appearing organically and where it is absent.

I would rather talk with the team about where the brand is being discussed, whether those conversations are accurate, and whether the sentiment is positive than focus only on who is linking to the site.

Brands with an active presence in relevant communities are more likely to surface naturally in conversational, recommendation-style AI answers, including queries such as “What does Reddit think about X?” or “What’s the best Y according to users?”

For challenger brands trying to enter a category, earned community mentions can build AI-visible authority faster than traditional link building, which usually takes longer to accumulate.

B2C brands can benefit especially from genuine community presence because consumer AI queries often lean toward social proof and peer recommendations rather than formal editorial sources.

3 SEO priorities I would emphasize less

Chasing high-volume keywords with thin content

AI Overviews can absorb the click for broad informational queries. Ranking No. 1 for a head term increasingly means I may have invested a lot of effort into winning traffic that never actually reaches the site.

Search volume alone is no longer a reliable proxy for opportunity. A query with 50,000 monthly searches that triggers an AI Overview may send less traffic than a query with 2,000 searches that still requires a click.

I would rather create specific, authoritative content that answers a narrower question better than anything else available. I focus more on queries where the searcher needs to act, compare options, or access something only the site can provide. Those needs are harder for AI to fully resolve.

Keyword traffic potential is no longer the first metric I trust. I first ask whether someone will still need to click after AI answers the query. If the answer is no, the opportunity is not what it used to be.

Pursuing exact-match and manipulative link building

Low-quality link volume does not do much for AI citation likelihood. LLMs care more about the authority and relevance of the sources mentioning or citing a brand than raw link counts. The publications that matter for AI visibility usually have real editorial standards, and those are much harder to game.

I would focus on earning coverage and links from the kinds of sources AI systems are more likely to draw from, including trade publications, respected industry blogs, and academic-adjacent resources. The better long-term move is to build content worth referencing, not outreach that exists only to extract a link.

A hundred low-quality links will not necessarily get a brand cited in ChatGPT. Five links from publications the target audience actually reads might matter much more. Source authority is the metric I would watch more closely than link volume.

Optimizing for CTR on standard blue links

A growing share of informational queries are resolved without a click. That makes title tag and meta description optimization for CTR less valuable on queries dominated by AI Overviews. I would rather spend that time trying to become the cited source inside the AI answer.

For queries where clicks still happen, I put more weight on transactional and navigational intent because those searches are more resistant to full AI resolution.

CTR optimization assumes a searcher is choosing between blue links. For more queries now, that choice is shaped before the traditional results even become the focus. The opportunity has moved higher on the page.

The payoff is not always more traffic

There are more shifts I could make, but these are the first ones I would prioritize. I may lose some volume in traditional SEO metrics such as impressions and clicks, but that should matter less if the downstream business metrics remain strong. In AI search, I care more about conversions, pipeline, and revenue than vanity traffic. That is the tradeoff I believe this new search environment increasingly rewards.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.

July 6, 2026
Why Paid Media Is Now a Powerful AI SEO Investment

I believe the lines between paid media, PR, and SEO have officially disappeared.

When I look at baked-in YouTube sponsorships, native UGC, and third-party review incentives, I no longer see them as separate from SEO. I see them as the modern equivalent of buying a high-DA backlink. When I fund these channels, I am investing in the information sources that shape how AI systems understand, evaluate, and recommend a brand.

A recent social media screenshot made this shift especially clear to me. A B2B brand was offering a $250 Amazon voucher to anyone who wrote a review on G2.

To a growth marketer, that may look like a familiar user acquisition tactic. But as an SEO, I saw something more important: a direct investment in the semantic infrastructure AI systems use to judge brands.

The evolution of the authority signal

To understand why I consider a $250 G2 voucher or a paid YouTube sponsorship an SEO strategy, I have to look at how LLMs now define authority.

Authority used to feel transactional and mathematical. You built or bought hyperlinks, and those links helped determine how trusted a page or brand appeared to search engines.

When I moved from link building into digital PR and influencer marketing, I realized Google was getting smarter. I could not rely on links alone. I needed unlinked brand mentions, high-tier media coverage, and contextual relevance. In many ways, I was optimizing for Google’s Knowledge Graph.

Today, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems and LLMs do not just count links or parse knowledge graphs. They look for semantic consensus across the web.

When an AI engine like Perplexity or ChatGPT answers a user query, it crawls the data ecosystems it trusts most for that specific topic. For software, that often means G2 and Reddit. For consumer products, it may mean TikTok transcripts, YouTube, and forums.

So when I pay $250 for a G2 review, I am buying a dense, text-based data point that an LLM can use to understand my brand’s sentiment, use cases, and vector positioning. I am strengthening the signals AI systems may use when deciding whether to recommend my brand.

The permanent ad: Why sponsorships and UGC are the new organic infrastructure

This reality breaks the traditional separation between paid media and SEO.

The path to AI search visibility now runs beyond links: from PageRank and PR mentions to consistent brand signals across the datasets LLMs rely on.

Historically, paid ads were temporary. I turned off the budget, the traffic stopped, and SEO had to carry the long-term work. If I run a dynamic programmatic ad on YouTube or a banner ad on a website, that old model still applies because LLM web scrapers generally ignore dynamic ad placements.

But baked-in influencer sponsorships, native user-generated content, and podcast reads behave differently because they become part of the content itself.

First, there is the hardcoded transcript. When a YouTuber reads a native sponsor segment such as, “I use Brand X to manage my business taxes,” that message is baked into the video file, and YouTube automatically transcribes it.

Then comes LLM ingestion. When an LLM crawls the web, or when a multimodal AI watches the video, those spoken words can be indexed. The AI can associate the brand with the semantic concept of business taxes.

That creates a new half-life for paid media. Long after the campaign ends and the initial views slow down, the transcript can remain part of the information an LLM can access.

As someone who spent years bridging the gap between digital PR and SEO, I used to judge a campaign’s ROI by immediate referral traffic, brand search lift, and backlink quality. Now, I also have to think about the algorithmic half-life of my creative assets.

Activating the convincer: Bringing paid and PR into the visibility supply chain

The visibility supply chain treats content like an industrial product that passes through strict organizational “gates” before it enters the digital ecosystem. In that model, companies need a strategic duo: the hacker, or technical architect, and the convincer, or cross-departmental visibility advocate.

This convergence of paid media and AI visibility is exactly where I believe the convincer has to step in.

If my paid media team is buying YouTube sponsorships based only on demographic reach, or if my product marketing team is buying G2 reviews just to hit a quarterly quota, we may be damaging LLM visibility without realizing it.

The reason is simple: LLMs need information density and semantic alignment.

If a user writes a rushed, generic review like “Great tool, highly recommend!” just to receive a $250 voucher, it may pass the human layer, but it fails the machine layer. To a RAG system, that sentence is low-density noise.

Old search marketing tools give way to a faster, connected future, with data streams, AI icons, and a glowing search hub symbolizing SEO innovation and community growth.

The convincer’s job is to realign the review strategy and help internal teams understand how every initiative can build LLM visibility.

For example, I would rather incentivize users to write detailed, context-rich problem-and-solution statements, such as: “We used Brand X to solve our cross-border compliance issues in Europe.” That gives AI the entity-relationship mapping it needs to recommend the brand for cross-border compliance.

The new marketing playbook: Optimizing dataset partnerships

If I want a brand to be recommended by AI systems, I have to study where the major AI players are getting their data.

We know OpenAI and Google have struck multimillion-dollar deals to train on Reddit’s real-time firehose. We know Grok trains on X. We also know Apple and others are licensing major journalistic archives.

That means target audience research is no longer just about finding where customers spend time. For me, it is also about dataset matching.

If I am planning an influencer campaign, a digital PR push, or a community-building initiative, I need to ask one critical question: Is this content entering a data pipeline that the primary LLMs trust and crawl in real time?

Stop optimizing pages. Start optimizing budgets.

I no longer believe SEO can be isolated inside a technical department or limited to a content blog. That does not reflect how AI visibility is built anymore.

The next time I sit in a budget allocation meeting and see a line item for influencer marketing, podcast sponsorships, or third-party review incentives, I will not treat it as temporary media buying.

I will reframe it as infrastructure. I am building the digital foundation of a brand’s AI persona. I am buying the AI equivalent of backlinks. If I do not intentionally structure those paid assets to feed the visibility system, I am leaving the brand’s future visibility up to chance.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.

July 6, 2026
The AI Mention Effect: Measuring Real Browse Behavior

I’m measuring downstream web browsing after AI brand mentions, focusing on what happens once a brand shows up in an AI-generated answer or recommendation.

For me, the AI mention effect is about connecting visibility inside AI experiences with real user behavior afterward, especially whether those mentions lead people to search, click, browse, and engage beyond the original AI response.

Inspired by this post on Try Profound Blog.

July 3, 2026
Paid Brand Mentions in GEO: The Risky Trap I See

As traditional SEO shifts toward GEO, I keep seeing one idea gain momentum: visibility in AI search depends heavily on off-site brand mentions. Because of that, marketers are being pushed to look beyond on-site content and invest more heavily in off-site marketing if they want to show up in AI answers.

I agree that off-site signals matter more in AI search, and there is growing industrywide consensus around that point. The problem is that this shift has also created room for opportunists to repackage shady SEO tactics as legitimate GEO work.

Unfortunately, I believe much of what is being sold under the GEO umbrella is unethical, low quality, and potentially fraudulent.

The deception I see under the GEO umbrella

I have personally audited the work of top-rated GEO vendors that offer brand mention outreach services. What I found was not sophisticated digital PR or thoughtful reputation building. I found providers charging premium prices for questionable work that often looks like paid link building with new packaging.

The first tactic I see is vendors using “research studies” to support their sales narrative. Claims such as “X% of AI visibility is driven by third-party sources” can be stripped of context and used to convince marketers that they need an aggressive, high-volume system for manufacturing brand mentions.

I also see these programs framed as “partnership” building. During the sales process, GEO vendors may describe the work as a way to build relationships with other brands. In practice, many of the so-called opportunities are low-quality paid-placement inventory schemes.

Some vendors are selling PBN brand mentions, placing brands on Private Blog Networks for roughly 10 to 15 times the cost of a typical SEO backlink. Others sell topically irrelevant placements on sites that might publish one page about LMS software and another listicle about crypto wallets.

I have also seen Reddit astroturfing presented as GEO work. Agencies use aged accounts to mass-post brand mentions across irrelevant subreddits, and many of those “mentions” are removed within 30 days because they violate community guidelines.

Why paid brand mentions look like black hat link building to me

When I look at what some GEO outreach vendors are pitching, I see an evolution of black hat link building. It is unethical, and it amounts to an attempt to manipulate AI systems.

I see clients being asked to approve paid mentions

I have seen this happen in Slack. The agency creates a “placement opportunity” for approval, and an internal marketing liaison has to review it. Often, that person is a junior specialist who has not been trained to evaluate whether the referring page is legitimate.

The pitch usually includes a prompt topic, domain authority, citation rate, and publisher placement fee. In one example I reviewed, the fee was $250 in exchange for adding the brand mention.

I also see publisher fees added on top of agency retainers

This is the part I think deserves much more scrutiny. The GEO vendor may pay the publisher fee directly, then invoice the client to recover the cost. That means the client is not only paying the agency retainer, but also funding the paid mention itself.

Why I think volume without relevance creates risk

My view is simple: third-party validation is only valuable when it comes from credible, topically relevant brands. A mention is not automatically useful just because it exists somewhere on the web.

Many GEO vendors argue that AI visibility is a “volume game.” They claim that generating a large number of mentions will meaningfully increase a brand’s “mention rate” in AI answers. I think that framing misses the point.

When vendors treat GEO as a mention-rate, citation-rate, and volume problem, they often ignore the quality and relevance of the source. That is a serious flaw, especially when reputation is central to how brands are understood online.

In one example, I saw a page with several outgoing commercial anchors to LMS software vendors. To me, that is a hallmark signal of paid links. If GEO is a reputation problem, I would not want my brand mentioned on a page loaded with paid links to competitors.

Why inauthentic brand mention spam may only work temporarily

I think some spammy GEO tactics appear to work right now because many LLM citation systems are still immature compared with Google’s advanced spam detection. It is possible that some LLMs currently reward mention volume from low-quality sources that Google would normally ignore.

That creates a temporary window of effectiveness, perhaps one to two years, before AI platforms improve their authority and spam signals. I believe marketers who prioritize high-volume mentions over brand safety risk confusing LLMs about their entity and damaging their reputation.

Lily Ray’s view aligns with this concern. She argues that some GEO and AEO companies lack the experience to anticipate how Google and AI platforms may treat their tactics once stronger countermeasures are built into training data, indexes, and results.

She also points back to the first Penguin update in 2012, when Google began suppressing inorganic links. In that context, paid mentions on low-quality sites look like another evolution of spammy link building, and I think it is naive to assume search and AI platforms will not eventually catch on.

The unnecessary risk I see GEO vendors creating

This type of work can cause real damage. Glenn Gabe has described it as an evolution of paid link schemes, and I think that description fits what many marketers are being sold.

Marketing leaders are not just wasting time and money. They may be buying tactics that disappear, damage brand reputation, confuse LLMs about their entity, and pull resources away from more durable marketing work.

There may also be legal risk. The FTC says paid advertisements must include clear disclosures. Yet after paid or “negotiated” brand mentions are added to content pages, many websites do not update those pages to disclose that the placements were sponsored.

How I evaluate GEO vendor claims about off-site mentions

When I evaluate GEO vendors, I start with one basic concern: many prioritize mention volume over source quality. That does not mean every off-site mention strategy is bad, but it does mean the claims deserve pressure testing.

If a vendor claims that most AI brand discovery comes from third-party sources, I ask whether that actually proves paid or negotiated low-quality mentions cause a brand to appear more often in AI answers. In my view, it does not.

If a vendor says listicles and third-party pages are the main lever, I ask whether that supports paying to appear on thin, irrelevant, AI-generated listicles. Again, I do not think it does.

If a vendor argues that AI search is different and traditional SEO quality judgment no longer applies, I push back. Google says the opposite for its AI search features: SEO best practices still matter, there are no special optimizations required for AI Overviews or AI Mode, and pages still need to follow Search policies.

More broadly, I do not see substantial evidence that adding a paid mention to a cited page will make a brand appear more often, that low-quality long-tail publishers improve AI search visibility, that citation rate beats source quality, or that traditional SEO and brand safety principles are obsolete in AI search.

Paying for “25 brand placements” to chase a “10-15% mention-rate lift” is not how I think marketers should approach AI search. I would rather pursue off-site mentions that reflect genuine category validation from trusted businesses, reputable publishers, and real communities.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.

July 3, 2026
Unlocking AI Search Success with Adobe’s New Tool

I’m excited to share how Adobe’s latest tool is changing the game for businesses eager to boost their brand visibility in AI-driven searches.

With the backing of 300 million AI prompts and the comprehensive data of Semrush, this platform is adept at tracking mentions, gauging share of voice, and identifying content gaps across prominent AI platforms.

Adobe introduced a pioneering solution for brands aiming to bolster their visibility and trustworthiness across AI interfaces. As part of the Adobe CX Enterprise, this tool offers an agentic AI system to streamline customer lifecycle management, covering everything from initial acquisition to fostering long-term loyalty.

AI traffic is skyrocketing. The way LLMs are utilized for product and service research represents a major pivot for both marketers and consumers. Recently, Adobe revealed data underlining this massive surge in AI traffic to U.S. retail sites—up by an impressive 1,324% from October 2024 to May 2026. The travel industry saw an even greater increase of 2,215% in the same timeframe.

As Vice President of strategy and product, Loni Stark, remarked to MarTech, “We used to get back the same thing—a SERP page with links. Now results seem random, but aren’t when scaled, and companies lack tools for this.”

Understanding brand visibility in AI search. Adobe Brand Visibility marks Adobe’s first venture into generative engine optimization (GEO), following its acquisition of Semrush. By integrating Adobe LLM Optimizer with Semrush’s AI Optimization tool, it provides unmatched insights.

Drawing from a staggering database of 300 million real-world AI search prompts, Adobe Brand Visibility helps teams pinpoint which prompts lead to brand exposure or loss.

Additionally, utilizing Adobe’s first-party data from owned channels, marketers gain a holistic view of how their brands appear on platforms like ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. Metrics encompass mention frequency, reach, competitive share of voice, and content gaps, allowing AI agents to offer prioritized recommendations that teams can rapidly implement and evaluate results.

Competitive intelligence unleashed. Adobe Brand Visibility offers tools for competitive brand analysis, comparison, and trend tracking, enabling marketers to effectively benchmark against competitors.

Featuring advanced SEO intelligence driven by Semrush’s extensive data of 28.5 billion keywords and 43 trillion backlinks, this platform underscores the continued importance of SEO fundamentals for AI search visibility. It shows the potential for existing search authority to yield AI citations and identifies opportunities for content investments across channels.

While there’s still much to learn about leveraging LLMs for brand visibility, Stark is confident in Adobe’s leadership position in this emerging space.

As Stark stated, “Adobe had proprietary data while Semrush offered data and trends. Though we may not have all answers, we possess unrivaled data.”

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.

June 18, 2026
Is Zero Click Marketing Evolving with New AI Branded Links?

On May 7, 2026, something remarkable happened that completely shifted the landscape of AI-driven brand traffic. As I watched, ChatGPT quietly launched the most significant single-day transformation I’ve seen all year.
Overnight, the referrals from OpenAI to various brand sites practically doubled. It felt like each mention of a brand by ChatGPT was suddenly more valuable—because they turned into clickable referrals directly to the brands’ homepages.

Inspired by this post on Try Profound Blog.

May 19, 2026
Harnessing Brand Signals: The Evolving SEO Authority Model
For over two decades, I’ve witnessed backlinks as foundational to SEO. Google’s PageRank revolutionized search by using backlinks as proxies for trust.

Backlinks were more than just pathways; they were votes of confidence. The more votes you gathered from authoritative sources, the better your rankings soared.

But times have changed. As Google advanced, AI systems evolved, and the necessity for hyperlinks diminished as entity-based understanding gained ground.

Today, visibility isn’t solely dependent on links. It’s amplified by the broad range of signals signifying your brand’s mentions, citations, and trust across well-regarded platforms.

This shift sees search engines and AI prioritize these overarching signals.

AI’s Role in Evolving SEO

Modern AI models assess trust and expertise in unprecedented ways. They’ve reshaped authority, focusing less on backlinks and more on diverse digital signals.

AI can now:
- Identify and relate entities online.
- Interpret sentiment and context.
- Spot artificial link patterns.
- Gauge brand prominence sans hyperlinks.
- Evaluate reputation from reviews and citations.
- Integrate information across varying sources.
Mentions in respected publications, even link-free, enhance entity authority. Consistent expert citations affirm expertise. These are the signals forging a new era where authority becomes a rich network.

The Shift to Entity-First SEO

With Google’s move away from pure link signals, the notion of entities—people, brands, concepts—gains importance. Google elevates brands based on identity and conversation rather than just their backlink profile.

In essence, entity-first SEO involves mapping and understanding brand interactions and references across trusted sources.

An example: An outdoor brand with a modest backlink profile gained visibility in AI Overviews for “best hiking backpacks” due to mentions in Reddit discussions and YouTube reviews, illustrating real-world relevance sans hyperlinks.

If your brand consistently figures positively in related talks, it’s seen as relevant and trusted—characteristics essential for success.

Combining PR-Style Links with Editorial Influence

PR-style links and editorial coverage indicate real-world authority, shunning algorithmic manipulation.

Editorial Links Versus Volume-Based Building

Volume-focused link building loses ground as AI discerns unnatural patterns. Quality-driven, relevant links, coupled with PR signals, grow increasingly essential.

Editorial PR links from credible sources signal genuine credibility, like a trusted expert affirming a brand’s significance.

AI not only checks link presence but evaluates surrounding context, striving to reward the most authoritative entities.

Building Multi-Signal Authority

The potency of multi-signal authority lies in blending various signals. As the digital landscape evolves, quality shines over quantity.

AI prompts this evolution by advancing traditional, relevance-based links alongside diversified brand signals.

Strategic placements can yield:
- Brand mentions affirming presence.
- Citations validating expertise.
- Positive sentiment enhancing trust.
- Topical relevance and growth-enabling links.
- Boosted Knowledge Graph associations.
- Secondary coverage spreading influence.
Multi-signal authority offers AI the understanding that your brand is recognized, trusted, and worth conversation.

PR signals, albeit crucial, are but a fragment of the comprehensive authority ecosystem AI evaluates.

Decoding the New Authority Framework

Today, authority hinges on varied and consistent validation signals, akin to human assessment—through reputation and recognition.

It’s no longer just links. Authority encompasses:
- Brand strength: Upward branded search and direct traffic echo real-world recognition.
- Entity validation: Consistent NAP, schema, cohesive profiles confirming brand ID.
- Topical authority: Content depth, expert collaboration underscores knowledge.
- Reputation signals: Trust reflected in reviews, citations, sentiments.
- PR signals: News, interviews, industry mentions bolster relevance.
These interwoven signals forge a comprehensive authority profile, which AI recognizes. The dominating brands have the most impactful multi-signal authority footprint.

Brand Strength’s Quiet Influence

Brand strength silently prevails over other signals. Data reveals brands ranking in the top 25% for web mentions average far higher AI Overview citations than their counterparts.

This aligns with Ahrefs’ analysis of ~75,000 brands, underscoring branded web mentions and search volume as indicators of genuine brand presence.

Consider two fitness apps: one with extensive generic backlinks, another actively part of social and media conversations. The latter’s real-world engagement ensures consistent AI Overview visibility.

Leading brands in AI Overviews have robust brand presence supported by consistent links, mentions, and relevance.

Future Predictions for 2027 and Beyond

By 2027, link building evolves from a numbers focus to a confidence-driven model with new metrics like Share of Authority.

Here are my predictions:

Prediction 1: Visibility via “Share of Model” Metric

Strategies will shift towards “seeding” information in places AI relies on, moving away from mass low-tier blog outreach to user-chosen platforms like Reddit, which AI values.

Brands frequently appearing in AI training data will gain visibility, defining the new authority landscape.

Prediction 2: Brands as Primary News Sources

In AI-led ecosystems, proprietary data will emerge as critical, offering natural, highly trusted authority signals.

Data evolves from mere content to a powerful signal engine, enriching PR coverage, citations, and discussions.

Traditional link building remains vital, but data-driven assets are vital accelerants.

Prediction 3: Rising Value of Unlinked Mentions

While foundational, traditional links will gain strength from semantic context and relate directly to brand mentions enhancing entity strength.

Exploring AI’s Expanding Role in SEO

The off-page SEO future merges traditional link building with AI-driven signals recognizing links as just one part of a broader array AI processes.

Both remain essential: links for foundational relevance, AI for context, sentiment, and entity evaluation.

Links are the foundation. Signals construct the skyscraper.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.
April 30, 2026
Navigating the New SEO Landscape: Visibility Over Traffic

I’ve noticed a shift in SEO from the traditional “rank, click, and convert” strategy towards a new model that emphasizes being scraped, summarized, and recommended. This change marks the beginning of the dark SEO funnel era, transforming how we measure success in search engine optimization.

Today, up to 84% of B2B buyers use AI tools to discover vendors, and an astounding 68% initiate their search journey with AI rather than Google, according to recent data from Wynter. It’s clear that tools like ChatGPT influence initial decisions, with Google merely acting as a verifier.

If, like me, you’re still considering SEO success through traffic, you’re likely focusing on an outdated model. Here’s what we need to prepare for.

Marketing professionals are already acquainted with the concept of dark social, where sharing happens away from trackable channels. Dark SEO is its algorithmic counterpart, where AI, rather than peers, offers brand recommendations, followed by a Google search for validation.

In this new phase, traditional analytics fail to capture the path from ingestion to recommendation to verification—all obscured within the dark SEO funnel. This gives direct or branded search undue credit, even though the groundwork was laid by SEO.

In this evolving dynamic, Google’s role is changing. A surveyed CMO mentioned using Google only when they know exactly which software or product they want. AI is for evaluation, Google is for verifying—a fundamental shift in our understanding of search behavior.

To succeed, we must understand two visibility types: brand mentions and LLM citations. In traditional SEO, the aim was to get clicks from links. In AI-driven search, it’s about visibility. An LLM could highlight your brand when relevant, impacting how users perceive and search for it.

Brand mentions occur when an LLM explicitly names your brand as a preferred solution—something influenced by your brand’s presence in relevant conversations and media. On the other hand, URL citations represent instances where AI uses your data as a credible source, an opportunity driven by unique data and information gain.

Emphasizing on relevant platforms like review sites and communities helps establish authority. As AI algorithms recognize your brand’s consistent presence, it can become an authoritative recommendation source.

When direct traffic is no longer a primary metric, leadership desires proof that SEO remains effective. This involves measuring more than just clicks. We should pivot to metrics like LLM recommendations visibility, branded traffic, product page visits, and conversion rates.

Ultimately, we’re heading towards a state where brand visibility is the triumph, and traffic is its byproduct. Adapting to this dark funnel era means we need to prioritize inclusion, recommendation, and intent over traditional traffic metrics. By focusing on high-intent queries and third-party visibility, you ensure the strategic progression of your brand in this new SEO landscape.

Inspired by this post on Search Engine Land.

February 27, 2026