Unlinked mentions: Measure brand impact beyond links

 Unlinked mentions still matter. Learn how to track them, evaluate their SEO and PR value, and use insights to strengthen brand visibility and authority.

How often are your brand, products, or people mentioned online without including a link to your site? Odds are, the answer to that question is “more often than you think.”

What you do about those mentions can have a sizable impact on your SEO and search engine visibility. However, it can be difficult and time-consuming to sift through them all, decide which warrant action, and reach out for a link.

In this article, we’ll distill that process down for you. We’ll explore how unlinked mentions impact your SEO, how to prioritize your outreach, what tools can help you streamline the process, how all of this affects LLM visibility, and more.
What are unlinked mentions?

Unlinked mentions are references to a brand, product, person, or website in online content that do not include a backlink. They signal awareness but, because there’s no backlink to your site, don’t pass SEO authority. These unlinked mentions can appear literally anywhere: from industry publications and news articles to social media posts, forums, and competitor analysis pieces.
Unlinked Mentions

Marketers often track unlinked mentions in order to reach out to site owners and ask for links on the mentions. When more of your mentions include a backlink, you’re getting:

    Increased authority: When reputable sites mention your brand, they’re essentially vouching for your industry expertise and relevance. 
    Increased referral traffic: Linked brand mentions can drive highly qualified traffic to your website from audiences already interested in your space.
    Improved entity recognition: Search engines use various signals, including backlinks, to understand what your brand represents and how it relates to topics in your industry. 

But is all of this still relevant in the age of AI with the meteoric rise of large language model (LLM) search tools?

In short, yes. 

However, the increase in AI-powered search and zero-click results has changed how brand authority manifests in search. Linked mentions are not the only way branded terms can significantly and quantifiably move the needle for you.

The AI Visibility Index found that citations and mentions by LLMs are determined by the content you post and the extents to which people talk about your brand—no link volumes or domain authority scores mentioned here. Zapier is a leading example of this; its rich resource content makes it number one in the B2B SaaS space in terms of citations, but only #44 for number of AI mentions.
Zapier Citeds Ources Vs Brand Mentions Scaled

And when it comes to LLMs, Kevin Indig independently confirmed a strong correlation between a brand’s popularity (i.e., how often it’s mentioned and searched by name on the web) and how often it appears in AI searches:
Growthmemo Factors Correlating Brand Search Volume Scaled

A Semrush study on the impact of AI search on SEO showed that nearly 9 out of 10 webpages cited by ChatGPT appear outside the top 20 results in standard organic search for the same queries. The classic SEO signals passed along by link equity simply don’t apply to AI’s understanding of content.

These differences are critical to how you approach your content optimization and visibility strategy.

Dig deeper: Brand mentions and how to make the most of them
Why unlinked mentions are critical for advanced SEOs

Advanced SEOs prioritize unlinked mention outreach because it has quite a few advantages over cold link building outreach.

Those advantages are:

    Unlinked mentions are low-hanging fruit: Sites that already mention your brand clearly see value in your content, products, or expertise. This existing awareness makes them more receptive to adding a link to the mention when approached thoughtfully.
    They contribute to a brand-driven SEO strategy: Converting unlinked mentions to backlinks strengthens E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) signals by connecting contextual references back to your site. This helps search engines understand your brand’s authority on specific topics.
    They help you build relationships: These mentions might come from journalists, industry experts, or publications you’ll want ongoing relationships with. Converting an unlinked mention by reaching out to the publisher can be the start of valuable long-term partnerships.
    They provide more opportunities for conversions: Getting backlinks isn’t just about increasing your position in the search results. Instead, you’re also potentially driving relevant referral traffic to your site, right into your conversion funnels.
    They’re a scalable competitive advantage: While competitors can copy your content strategy or target the same keywords, they can’t easily replicate the specific mentions your brand has earned over time.

The key is approaching unlinked mentions as part of a broader digital PR and authority-building strategy rather than just another link-building tactic.

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How to prioritize unlinked mentions for outreach

Not all unlinked mentions are worth pursuing for backlinks. But then, how do you know if you should try to get a backlink from an unlinked mention?
Mention Outreach

Some mentions are more important than others and can be prioritized on your list. To figure out which ones to prioritize, consider each of these key factors:

    Authority and relevance of the site
    Placement and context of the mention
    Conversion and traffic potential
    Content freshness and evergreen potential
    Author relationship potential
    Page traffic and visibility

Now, let’s take a closer look at each of these, with some hypothetical examples.
Authority and relevance of the site

Consider the authority and topical relevance of the site where you’re mentioned. Depending on your preferred SEO tool, look up the metric that measures the domain’s relative authority. This could be Authority Score in Semrush, Domain Authority in Moz, Domain Rating in Ahrefs, and so on. 

If a website scores high in domain authority metrics, it should probably be toward the top of your list of unlinked mentions to target for backlink outreach.

Example: A website with a domain authority of 81 would be a priority, whereas a domain authority of 35 might be lower on your list of sites to contact.

Another factor to consider is the topical relevance of the site. How relevant is the site to yours?

Example: Your SaaS product that helps nonprofits collect and manage donations is mentioned in an article about how to successfully manage donations on nonprofithub.org, a website devoted to helpful advice for nonprofits. While the site’s authority score isn’t as high as some others, that mention is incredibly relevant for your site and should be high on your outreach list. 
Placement and context of the mention

The location on the page and context of your mention within the content both significantly impact the importance of an unlinked mention. 

Editorial mentions within the main article content tend to carry more weight than passing references in sidebars, author bios, or comment sections. This is especially true if the article you’re mentioned in is contextually relevant to your business.

Also, pay attention to how your brand is discussed. Mentions that reference specific features, products, reports, or expertise tend to send traffic to your site that’s much more likely to convert than casual name-drops.

Example: Your donor management platform is mentioned in a sentence like “Tools like Donorbox, Kindful, and [YourBrand] have revolutionized how nonprofits manage donors and donations” within a comprehensive guide about donor management. This contextual editorial mention comparing you to established players is a link you should definitely prioritize on your list.

On the flip side, say the same website you were mentioned on in the example linked to you in a landing page sidebar in a list of sponsors for a conference. This type of mention, while definitely not worthless, doesn’t carry the same weight as the editorial mention and is therefore lower priority.

Even lower priority still would be a link from the conference event venue, since it’s not at all contextually relevant to your business.
Conversion and traffic potential

Backlinks aren’t just for search engines. They’re for humans, too! You want to drive relevant traffic to your website through your backlinks.

Think about whether the linking site’s audience aligns with your target customers and if traffic from this source might convert. A highly relevant, engaged audience outweighs raw authority metrics for unlinked mention priority.

Consider the site’s typical content, commenting activity, and whether their audience would realistically be interested in your content and product or service.

Example: A mention on a popular small business podcast’s website with an engaged community of nonprofit execs actively seeking business tools would be an absolutely fantastic backlink to have. Even if the domain authority is moderate, the audience alignment makes conversions from that traffic more likely.

On the flip side, say you have a mention on a high-authority tech news site that covers enterprise software, but your product targets small businesses. The authority is appealing, but audience mismatch reduces any traffic’s conversion potential. So you could drop this unlinked mention to the middle of your list.
Content freshness and evergreen potential

Recent mentions are often easier to convert because the content is still fresh in the author’s mind, and they may be more responsive to outreach. However, don’t ignore older mentions in evergreen content that continue getting traffic.

Check the publication date and try to determine whether the content is still being updated or referenced. Evergreen guides, resource lists, and comprehensive tutorials often get periodically updated, making them valuable long-term targets.

Example: A mention in a “[current year] Guide to Donation Management Tools” published three months ago is ideal. It’s recent enough for easy outreach but evergreen enough to provide ongoing value if converted, whereas an article with last year in the title isn’t as worthwhile targeting for outreach.
Author relationship potential

Research the author to determine if they regularly cover your industry and could become a valuable long-term contact. Authors who frequently write about your space are worth building relationships with, even if the current mention isn’t perfect.

Look at their recent articles, social media presence, and whether they’ve covered similar companies or topics. Building a relationship with one industry journalist could lead to multiple mentions over time.

Example: The author has written 15 articles about SaaS tools in the past year and actively engages with industry leaders on LinkedIn. Even if this specific mention is brief, the relationship potential makes it worth prioritizing.
Page traffic and visibility

A backlink on a high-traffic page that ranks well on Google search engine results pages (SERPs) or gets cited often by LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude is significantly more valuable than one buried on a low-visibility page. Check if the page mentioning you receives regular organic traffic and has visibility for relevant keywords or prompts.

Use tools like Semrush or Similarweb (or even some simple keyword searches and LLM prompts) to see if the page appears in Google results for industry-relevant terms. Pages that rank on the first page of Google or get cited in LLM responses for competitive keywords and topics will drive more referral traffic and pass more authority.

Example: Your donor management tool is mentioned in an article titled “Best Donor Management Software for Remote Teams” that consistently ranks around the third position in the SERPs for “donor management software” (a keyword with 2,400+ monthly searches) and frequently gets cited when users ask ChatGPT or Claude about donor management tools. This page likely receives many monthly visitors from both traditional search and AI-driven discovery, making a link extremely valuable.

On the other hand, say your brand is mentioned in a deep blog post about the author’s personal nonprofit management setup, and the page has never ranked for any meaningful keywords, receives minimal traffic, and rarely appears in AI responses to productivity-related questions. While still worth pursuing if easy, landing a hyperlink here should be a lower priority than high-visibility mentions that perform well across both traditional search and AI platforms.
The best tools for unlinked mentions

When it comes to finding and tracking unlinked mentions at scale, Semrush offers two different tools that can guide your initiative in different ways: Brand Monitoring and Brand Performance. 

Brand Monitoring is a powerful tool that can find and monitor unlinked brand mentions across the web, whereas Brand Performance measures and analyzes your brand’s mentions in AI-generated responses.

Let’s take a look at the specific capabilities of each tool to see how they can help you with the different stages of your unlinked mention outreach strategy.
    Brand Monitoring    Brand Performance
Primary focus    Discovering and tracking brand mentions across the web    Tracking AI platform visibility and competitive positioning on LLMs
Data sources    News sites, blogs, forums, social media platforms    AI platforms like Google AI Mode, SearchGPT, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini
Key strength    Finding unlinked mentions across the entire web with real-time alerts    Strategic analysis of brand perception in AI-generated responses
Mention detection    Automatically identifies mentions with/without backlinks    Analyzes brand mentions within AI conversations and responses
Competitor analysis    Track competitor mentions and share of voice across the web    Track share of voice and sentiment among top competitors in AI-generated responses
Important insights    Sentiment analysis, estimated reach, domain authority, author information    Sentiment tracking, topic associations, strategic recommendations, competitive positioning
Actionable outputs    List of unlinked mentions ready for outreach    Strategic recommendations for getting more mentions

Brand Monitoring: Mention discovery and tracking

Brand Monitoring excels at finding mentions across the entire web, and it has powerful filtering and alert capabilities to keep you updated in real time. 
Semrush Brand Monitoring Scaled

This tool can be your primary discovery engine for unlinked mention opportunities: All you have to do is filter by mentions without backlinks:
Semrush Brand Monitoring Unlinked Mention Opportunities Scaled

Plus, not only can you monitor your own mentions, you can also check out what mentions your competitors are getting. Track your share of voice, monitor a brand, monitor people, or track any keywords of your choice.

Core features:

    Multi-source coverage: Monitors news sites, blogs, forums, and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube
    Advanced filters: Set up complex queries using “with all of these,” “with any of these,” and exclusion operators to find precisely the mentions you want
    Real-time alerts: Get immediately notified when new mentions appear, negative sentiment is detected, or unusual spikes in coverage occur
    Backlink detection: Automatically identifies whether each mention includes a link back to your site, making unlinked mentions easy to spot
    Rich mention data: Each mention includes sentiment analysis, estimated reach, domain authority, and author information

Brand Monitoring is awesome for unlinked mention strategies when you need to:

    Cast a wide net to find all brand mentions across multiple channels
    Track how competitors are mentioned and identify content gaps
    Track mentions around product launches, PR campaigns, or industry events
    Set up automated alerts to catch new unlinked mentions as they appear
    Monitor brand perception and prioritize positive mentions for outreach

The filters are an essential and valuable part of Brand Monitoring. Here are a few examples of how you can use them:

    Backlinks filter: Use the backlinks filter to show only mentions without links to your site. This is an easy, quick way to find unlinked brand mentions.
    Authority filter: With the authority filter, you don’t have to spend time looking up the authority of every domain. It’s included in the results! You might start by focusing on unlinked mentions on high-authority sites.
    Sentiment filter: In general, you’ll want to prioritize positive and neutral mentions for outreach, without going for negative mentions at all.
    Date range: Recent and evergreen mentions will be easier to target through outreach. To start, try focusing on recent mentions (like in the last 30-90 days).
    Source type: Want to look at PR mentions first? Or maybe discussion forums? Use the source type filter to filter by news, blogs, or discussions based on your goals.

Brand Performance: AI platform market position analysis

Brand Performance is part of Semrush’s AI SEO Toolkit. Instead of traditional brand mentions across the web, it analyzes your brand’s visibility across the major AI platforms. It focuses on showing your competitive positioning amongst your competitors and provides actionable recommendations to gain more visibility in LLMs.
Semrush Brand Monitoring Search Scaled

This tool analyzes millions of AI conversations to reveal how your audience perceives your brand compared to competitors. Track your brand’s visibility, sentiment, and association with key topics across platforms like Google AI Mode, SearchGPT, ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini.

Core features:

    Multi-platform visibility tracking: Monitor how different AI systems interpret and respond to queries about your brand
    Share of voice analysis: See how your brand is mentioned compared to competitors across AI platforms
    Sentiment and attribute tracking: Understand the tone and attributes used to describe your brand in AI responses
    Topic association mapping: Discover emerging topics and user interests connected to your brand
    Competitive positioning insights: Analyze competitor strengths and weaknesses in AI-generated responses
    Strategic recommendations: Get specific, actionable recommendations for refining your brand’s positioning, messaging, and product offerings

Brand Performance is awesome for unlinked mention strategies when you need to:

    Identify unmet customer needs and market gaps that competitors may be overlooking
    See whether your mention-linking efforts are improving your overall market position in AI platforms
    Focus your mention-building efforts on topics that will have the biggest impact on AI visibility
    Monitor long-term trends in your AI platform performance and competitive position

Can Brand Monitoring and Brand Performance be used together?

You can absolutely use the Brand Monitoring and Brand Performance tools together to create an incredibly powerful, brand-building workflow consisting of the two types of mention tracking.

Here’s an example workflow with both tools:

    Monitor and discover: First, set up both tools to get baseline reports on traditional web mentions and mentions in AI-generated responses. How does your share of voice compare to your competitors for both mention types?
    Unlinked mention outreach: Next, use Brand Monitoring to find and prioritize your unlinked mentions. Begin reaching out to those that provide the most link benefits.
    Measure: Over time, use Brand Performance to monitor your mentions in AI-generated responses. Watch to see if unlinked mention outreach (combined with other GEO strategies) is helping to increase your brand’s AI visibility and improve your share of voice. 
    Optimize: Use Brand Performance insights to refine your Brand Monitoring queries and targeting, focusing on the types of mentions that improve both traditional SEO and AI visibility.

Level up: Use AI-powered workflows for unlinked mentions

Artificial intelligence can dramatically improve both the efficiency and effectiveness of unlinked mention outreach strategies, as long as you’re keeping a human touch involved. 

Here are a few practical ways to put AI tools to work in your unlinked mention strategy:

    Entity recognition at scale: Use AI-powered tools with named entity recognition (NER) to scan large content datasets for variations of your brand name, product names, and key personnel. This catches mentions that simple keyword searches might miss, including misspellings or informal references.
    Sentiment classification: Apply AI sentiment analysis (like Semrush’s) to automatically categorize mentions as positive, negative, or neutral. This allows you to prioritize outreach to positive mentions while flagging negative mentions for your mitigation strategy.

Brandmonitoring Overall Sentiment Scaled

    Outreach personalization: Tools like the AI Backlink Builder can analyze the publication’s writing style, recent content themes, and author background to generate personalized outreach emails that match the site’s tone and demonstrate genuine familiarity with their work.
    Predictive conversion scoring: Train AI models on your historical data to predict which unlinked mentions are most likely to convert based on factors like site authority, author responsiveness, mention context, and relationship history.
    Automated clustering and campaign planning: Group similar mentions by topic, publication type, or geographic region (like the mention filters you see in Semrush) to enable batch outreach campaigns rather than individual emails. AI can identify patterns that make certain mention types more likely to convert.

Remember, the key here is combining AI efficiency with human relationship building. Let technology handle the heavy lifting while you handle messaging and human connections.
Moving beyond traditional link building

By identifying, prioritizing, and converting unlinked brand mentions to valuable backlinks while building genuine relationships with the authors, you create a sustainable link building campaign practice that compounds over time. Beyond link building, brands that use unlinked mention outreach establish themselves as authoritative voices that naturally attract high-quality mentions and links.

Focus on providing genuine value across your outreach efforts, and you’ll find that unlinked mention outreach builds lasting industry relationships that benefit your SEO strategy for years to come.

Unlinked mention outreach is one valuable method of link building, but what are the others? Is link building still an SEO tactic you should prioritize? What makes a “good” backlink, anyway?