Brand Mentions vs Backlinks: What It Takes to Get Recommended in AI Search
Elite Renewables‘ weekly lead volume went from around 25 to around 80, and AI platform visibility is one of the main drivers behind it.
The difference wasn’t a bigger backlink profile. AI Search platforms like ChatGPT, Gemini, AI Mode, and Claude increasingly lean on brand mentions: being talked about on the third-party websites they trust when deciding who to recommend.
If you’ve spent years building backlinks, you’ve laid good foundations. But Tim Cameron-Kitchen, Founder of Exposure Ninja, explains why that work now needs a second layer, and how to build it.
Brand Mentions vs Backlinks: How AI Search Decides Who to Recommend
Backlinks still matter. They help you rank in Google, and AI tools often run background web searches that draw on those same rankings.
But Tim Cameron-Kitchen points out that AI platforms don’t simply take your word for it: “AI Search platforms also have their own rules. They don’t always trust what your website says about you. Some of them will instead look at third-party websites for their recommendations.”
These systems pull from news and editorial coverage, reviews, comparison content, directories, YouTube, and forums. Because they read the content itself, a link isn’t required. As Tim Cameron-Kitchen puts it, “just being mentioned and recommended can be enough.”
That changes the question AI tools are asking. It’s no longer who has the most backlinks, but who’s being talked about, where, and in what context.
4 Ways to Build Brand Mentions That AI Tools Trust
At Exposure Ninja, our web-wide brand mentions come from award wins, review sites, speaking invitations, webinars, books, and our YouTube channel. The good news is that most routes are far simpler than that. In Tim Cameron-Kitchen’s words, “almost all of them are much easier than winning awards and going to speak at the House of Commons.”
1. Use Digital PR to Get Featured in the Press
Digital PR used to be about links. Tim Cameron-Kitchen explains how the goal has shifted:
“Today with AI Search, we’re actually not so fussed if we don’t get a link as long as we get a brand mention, because it’s the brand mentions that these AI tools will end up leaning on.”
For Elite Renewables, that meant features in the Mirror, Ideal Home, and Homes and Gardens. For Pyramid Eco, it meant positioning its founder as a mould expert in Hello!, The Spruce, and The Telegraph. The mechanism is simple: monitor journalist request services so that “when journalists need sources for their articles, they can put forward a comment.”
The commercial impact is clear. Pyramid Eco is now generating more leads than it can handle.
2. Get Into Recommendation and Comparison Content
If you sell a tangible product or an in-person service, roundup articles are where AI answers come from. Tim Cameron-Kitchen gives an example:
“When somebody searches for something like ‘best webcams for high-quality Zoom calls’, Google’s AI Overviews actually doesn’t pull from any of the brand’s own websites.”
Instead, it cites PCMag, Wired, YouTube and Tom’s Hardware. So the job is to get into those articles.
That’s the approach Exposure Ninja took with ZUGU Case. The team “identified that Apple-focused publications like Wired, MacRumors, and ZDNet were consistently cited as sources in AI answers,” then targeted them directly. Today, both Google’s AI Overviews and ChatGPT recommend ZUGU for the best-rated iPad case.
It’s worth the effort. Tim Cameron-Kitchen describes AI recommendation traffic as “one of the highest converting traffic sources I’ve ever seen.”
3. Collect Reviews and Customer Proof
Reviews don’t just persuade buyers. Tim Cameron-Kitchen explains that they persuade AI too:
“We all know that people read reviews to influence their purchase choices, but AI tools like ChatGPT also read reviews to influence their recommendation choices.”
For a U.S. personal injury law firm, Exposure Ninja helped double the firm’s online review count while staying within platform guidelines. That meant dedicated review request landing pages, post-case cards and a follow-up email.
Automation is the key, because “the conversion rate on reviews requested to reviews received is pretty low, so if you automate this, it goes out to everyone.”
Video reviews count too. Semrush’s 2026 AI Visibility Index ranks YouTube as the top citation source in Google’s AI Overviews and the fourth in ChatGPT.
4. Join Online Conversations (Carefully)
Reddit appears in a lot of AI answers, which makes it tempting to flood it with promotion. Tim Cameron-Kitchen warns why that backfires:
“The reason Reddit works as an AI citation source is because the community on Reddit is great at policing overly promotional stuff.”
What works is genuine, honest participation in relevant subreddits. Niche communities are the best bet: “the competition will be lower and the relevance can be higher.” Pair that with great products, strong digital PR, and a habit of resolving any complaints raised.
How to Find Your Brand Mention Gaps With Semrush
Four strategies are a lot of work, so prioritisation matters. Using Auto Trader as an example, Tim Cameron-Kitchen shows how Semrush One’s AI Visibility Toolkit compares a brand against competitors like Cazoo, Motors, and Carwow.
The most valuable view is the sources report, filtered to “missing”:
“These are the websites where our competitors are being mentioned, but we aren’t, and we can see the number of times our competitors are being mentioned against our own,” explains Tim Cameron-Kitchen.
Because AI tools already reference these sites, each one is a proven opportunity. For a site like UK Fuels, Tim Cameron-Kitchen suggests a collaborative data study on how fuel prices respond to price shocks: something the publisher would want to share.
Once you’re active, use position tracking to see whether your mentions and AI visibility score are rising. You can try Semrush One here*.
“If you’re seeing missing industry publications, that’s a digital PR opportunity. If you’re seeing missing comparison and review sites, that’s a placement opportunity. If you’re seeing competitors dominating social proof, you might need to build out your review strategy. And if you’re seeing community sources appearing frequently, you need to understand and be in those conversations,” Tim Cameron-Kitchen, Founder, Exposure Ninja.
A Three-Step Plan for Building Brand Mentions
Tim Cameron-Kitchen’s process comes down to three steps:
- Find your gaps. See where competitors are mentioned, and you aren’t.
- Build web-wide authority. Use digital PR, recommendation content, reviews, creator content and genuine conversations.
- Measure and improve. Track which publications drive the most visibility and refine from there.
As he sums up, backlinks “contribute to your ranking in the underlying web search behind AI Search, but they are no longer enough.”
If getting recommended in AI Search is a priority this year, our team can help. Book a consultation call with one of our strategists to build your AI Search Optimisation plan, or request an AI Search Scorecard to see where you stand against your competitors.
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