Link building for AI search is our name for editorial PR that pays attention to how your brand is described, as well as the destination page and link attribute. The work can create useful third-party evidence about your business. It can't force Google or a chatbot to cite it.
No agency knows exactly how each AI system picks its sources, and the available research is correlational. What we can deliver is verifiable coverage, clear positioning and source material that's easy to find. If you want the background first, our guide to ranking in AI Overviews covers Google's AI features, and backlinks and AI search explains how links and mentions relate to AI answers.
What changes, and what stays the same
Google says normal Search technical requirements and best practices still apply to its AI features, with no special markup or backlink threshold. AI Overviews, AI Mode and ChatGPT tend to lean on pages Google already trusts and on brands that appear in news coverage, and third-party research has found correlations between branded web mentions and AI visibility. The sensible response is to earn accurate coverage and keep your own pages clear. Nobody outside these companies knows the weighting.
What the research supports, and what it doesn't
The evidence falls into three buckets:
- Supported by third-party data: Ahrefs' analysis of 75,000 brands found meaningful correlations between AI visibility and branded web mentions. The strength varied by system, so the useful takeaway is to earn credible third-party coverage. One coefficient won't hold for every system.
- Plausible but unproven: describing your brand consistently across several trusted sources may make it easier for a model to summarise you accurately. It's a sensible inference from how these systems work, but it isn't settled.
- Guesswork: the exact weighting any one system gives to links, mentions, freshness or structured data. These systems are opaque and change quickly, and none of them publishes ranking factors, so anyone quoting a precise formula is guessing.
We build around the first two buckets and won't sell the third as certainty.
How a campaign works
You send the pages you want to strengthen. Our team researches angles, writes the stories and takes them to journalists through our existing relationships, using data stories, reactive commentary and FOI requests where they fit. As placements go live, each one appears in your dashboard with the publication, the link, its attribute and how your brand was described. We keep developing stories until the agreed number of placements is met, with a 45-day target for each batch.
What's included
The deliverables are our standard digital PR backlinks service, with extra attention on how each mention reads:
- editorial coverage on news and industry sites with real readerships, reported with the link attribute and the brand mention;
- data-led and reactive stories that describe your brand accurately inside the article as well as linking to it;
- consistent positioning, so your brand is described the same way from one placement to the next;
- publisher-hosted placements that aren't rented, with publishers keeping control of their own pages;
- dashboard reporting on every placement and mention we can verify.
What stops working
Low-quality networks, automated link drops and paid placements meant to manipulate rankings remain risky under Google's existing spam policies, and there's no evidence that relabelling them for AI search makes them useful. Because the studies are correlational and the systems keep changing, we treat AI visibility as context for sound PR work. It isn't a separate product with special promises.
What we won't claim
We won't promise a spot in an AI Overview, a citation in a chatbot answer or a ranking outcome, because no agency controls those. We won't report an AI citation we can't verify, and most systems don't expose enough to let us. If classic rankings are your only priority, an ordinary link building campaign is the same work without the AI framing, and we'll tell you so instead of charging for a label.
Pricing and next step
This runs through the same backlink packages as our core service, from £4,500 per campaign, with optional monthly billing. To talk through what's realistic for your brand and market, book a call.
Sources
- Google Search Central, AI features and your website, reviewed 12 July 2026.
- Ahrefs, What Influences AI Brand Visibility?, published 12 December 2025.
Related
- Backlinks and AI search, how links and mentions relate to AI answers
- How to rank in AI Overviews, the guide to Google's AI features
- Digital PR backlinks, the campaigns behind the mentions
- Link building services
- Book a call
FAQs
Do backlinks help me show up in AI answers?
They may support discovery and add third-party context, but no public formula shows that a particular backlink causes an AI citation. Editorial coverage can include both a link and a brand mention, and the answer system decides whether to use either.
Are backlinks or brand mentions more important for AI search?
Current third-party research gives brand mentions useful weight. Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands found stronger correlations for branded web mentions than for several traditional link metrics. That's a correlation and doesn't prove cause, so we pay attention to clear mentions without promising a citation.
What do I need to send you?
Just your website and the pages you'd like to strengthen. Our team does the research, writes the stories and pitches them through our journalist relationships, and keeps developing new angles until your agreed number of placements is live.
How is this different from normal link building?
The work overlaps almost entirely. The difference is emphasis: we also check how your brand is described in each placement, because a clear mention is useful to readers and has shown correlations in third-party AI-visibility studies. That doesn't make a mention equal to a link or a cause of citations.
What can you measure?
Placements, publications, brand mentions and coverage. We can't reliably measure whether a specific AI system cited you, because most don't expose that, so we report what we can verify and don't claim credit for the rest.