For fifteen years, a backlink was a backlink was a backlink. Its primary purpose was to help you rank in Google. A link from a reputable site helped. A link from a low-quality site hurt or did nothing. You built links because they improved rankings. That was the entire economic model. Link building became an industry. Entire companies existed just to secure links for their clients.
Brand mentions are different. A brand mention is when someone writes about your business by name, not necessarily linking to you. They might mention you in an article. They might quote your founder. They might reference your product. They might compare you to a competitor. The mention doesn't require a link. In fact, many of the most valuable mentions don't include links at all—they're in publications or books or podcast transcripts where linking isn't common.
In the Google era, brand mentions without links were invisible. They didn't affect your ranking. They had brand awareness value, but no ranking value. In the AI era, brand mentions are becoming more valuable than backlinks. Why? Because AI systems learn from mentions, not links. They learn that you exist, that you're talked about, that you're relevant. This shift is fundamental and most businesses haven't noticed yet.
Why Mentions Matter More Than Links to AI
AI models learn from text. They learn patterns about what entities are mentioned together, what industries companies belong to, what reputation they have. When your company is mentioned in a reputable publication, that mention becomes part of what the model learns about you. If you're mentioned in ten different publications, the model learns that you're significant and talked about. If you're linked to but rarely mentioned by name, the model has less to learn about you.
This is why media coverage and brand building matter now. Every time a publication mentions your company by name, you're adding a data point to your AI visibility profile. If a journalist writes about your category and mentions your company alongside competitors, you're winning. If they mention you in a trend story, even without linking, you're building authority. The mention is the signal, not the link.
AI systems also understand context better than search engines. They understand that a mention in a credible publication is meaningful even without a link. They understand that being quoted in an article shows expertise. They understand that being compared favorably to competitors is a positive signal. Google never developed sophisticated tools to measure these things because Google focused on links. AI models care about mentions because mentions are what training data is made of.
Building a Mention-Focused PR Strategy
If links don't matter as much and mentions are primary, your PR strategy should shift. You're not trying to secure links anymore. You're trying to get mentioned. These are different goals that require different tactics. Link-building typically involves guest posting—you write an article for someone else's publication and you get a link in return. This works for rankings but isn't the best way to build mentions.
Mention-building is more about earned media—getting journalists to write about you because you're interesting or newsworthy. You pitch stories. You make yourself available for quotes. You contribute expertise to conversations. You position your company as an authority worth writing about. When a journalist writes about you, they mention you by name. That mention builds your authority with AI systems.
This requires different skills than link building. You need to be able to identify journalists covering your space. You need to build relationships with them. You need to have a story worth telling or expertise worth quoting. You need to be accessible and responsive when a journalist wants to talk. Link building is transactional. Mention building is relational. It's harder but more valuable in the long run.
Earned vs. Paid Mentions
There's a meaningful difference between earned mentions and paid mentions. An earned mention is when a publication decides to write about you or mention you because it's editorially relevant. You pitched a story and they covered it. You made news and they reported it. A paid mention is when you pay a publication to write about you or mention you. You bought an ad or a sponsored content placement.
AI systems can sometimes tell the difference. Earned mentions in editorial content carry more weight. Paid mentions are less valuable because systems understand that payment doesn't necessarily mean credibility. This means you should prioritise getting earned mentions over buying mentions. It's harder and takes longer, but the results are better. If you're going to invest money, invest it in building relationships and making your company interesting enough to earn coverage, not in buying coverage directly.
There are edge cases where sponsored content makes sense—some publications blend editorial and sponsored in ways that are hard to distinguish, and the content itself might be good enough to earn mention in other places. But the primary goal should be earning coverage. Make your company interesting. Tell a real story. Be helpful to journalists. Build relationships. That's how you get mentions that matter.
Mentions at Scale
One mention is nice. Ten mentions is a pattern. You start to look like you're a company worth talking about. When an AI system evaluates you, it sees mentions across multiple publications and learns that you have authority. The pattern matters more than any individual mention. This is why consistency and volume of mentions matter.
Aim for steady mention building. One solid mention per month is good. Two is better. More is great if you can achieve it without exhausting your team. But be realistic about capacity. You can probably land one real media mention per month with focused effort. Do that consistently for a year and you'll have twelve mentions. For two years, you'll have twenty-four. That's enough to establish authority in most spaces.
The compound effect is powerful. After three months of consistent PR, you'll start to notice that journalists are reaching out to you. You've built momentum. You're becoming a known name in your space. This momentum makes it easier to get more mentions. Early mentions attract more mentions. The flywheel turns.
Mentions as a Moat
Mentions are harder to fake than links. You can't manufacture real mentions easily. You can't buy bot mentions. Real mentions come from real publications making real editorial decisions to cover you. This creates a genuine moat. If you've accumulated hundreds of mentions across reputable publications and your competitor hasn't, the competitor can't close that gap quickly. They have to spend months building their mention profile.
This is why starting early matters. If you start building mentions now and your competitors are still optimising for links, you'll be ahead in the AI era. By the time they notice the shift, you'll have already established a mention profile that's hard to replicate. It's not about speed. It's about doing the work consistently over time.
The Transition Period
Right now, we're in a transition period. Links still matter for Google rankings, which still matter for some traffic. But mentions are becoming more important for AI discovery, which is growing as a proportion of total discovery. The winning strategy is to do both: maintain your link profile because Google still matters, but shift your PR focus to building mentions because AI is growing faster.
But if you have to choose—if you're resource-constrained and can't do both—prioritise mentions. A strong mention profile will serve you well in the AI era. A strong link profile that comes at the expense of mentions will serve you well in Google but leave you invisible in AI. The future belongs to mentions. Invest there.
— Sam