Brand mentions vs backlinks in AI search: a 75,000-brand study

In Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands, branded web mentions correlated with how often AI assistants name a brand at 0.66 in ChatGPT and 0.71 in Google's AI Mode, while backlinks barely registered: the number of backlinks correlated at 0.218 in the AI Overviews edition of the study. YouTube mentions were the strongest single signal, at about 0.737, and branded anchor text sat between them at 0.51 to 0.63.

For a young product, that points to one priority: get described by name on the kinds of pages engines read. Below are the numbers, how the study was done and where it falls short, then where to earn mentions first, checked in September 2026.

What did the 75,000-brand study find?

It found that off-site brand signals track AI visibility far better than link counts. Across ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews, YouTube mentions and branded web mentions correlated most strongly with how often a brand appeared in AI answers, followed by branded anchors and branded search volume, while backlinks, URL rating and page count correlated weakly.

Two factors sit outside the table because Ahrefs reported one figure for all three assistants. YouTube mentions, meaning the brand name in a video's title, transcript or description, correlated at about 0.737, "outperforming every other factor." Number of pages on the brand's site correlated at about 0.194, which Ahrefs read as "almost no relationship" between content volume and AI visibility.

The figures come from two Ahrefs posts. The May 2025 study covered AI Overviews only and reported mentions at 0.664 against backlinks at 0.218, about three times stronger. The December 2025 follow-up added ChatGPT and AI Mode, added YouTube, and found link metrics weak "once again." Ahrefs also found that brands in the top quartile for web mentions earned up to 10 times more AI Overview mentions than the next quartile, and that 26% of brands studied had none at all.

How was the study done, and what are its limits?

Ahrefs took domains with a Domain Rating above 40, used each one's highest-volume keyword with at least 800 monthly searches as the brand name, then counted mentions of those brands across millions of AI responses in its Brand Radar tool. It measured the relationships with Spearman correlation, and warns that "correlation isn't causation."

Three limits matter for a small product:

• The sample is established brands. A DR above 40 filters out most young companies, so the pattern describes how visibility is distributed among brands that already have some footprint.
• The measure is mentions, not citations. A brand named in an answer counts even if its site is not linked.
• The big names dominate. Ahrefs found the three assistants largely mention the same brands, with pairwise correlations of 0.749 to 0.821, and summed it up as "they're still mostly mentioning Nike, Apple, and Amazon."

Ahrefs' own advice for smaller brands follows from its data: build YouTube presence, earn genuine mentions in articles and guides, and target ChatGPT first, since it "shows the weakest correlation with established brand authority metrics."

Why would mentions matter more than links to an AI model?

Because language models learn and retrieve from text. A page that describes your product by name gives the model words to associate with your brand whether or not it links to you. Ahrefs' Director of Content, Ryan Law, put it this way: unlinked mentions "have very little impact on SEO, but a much bigger impact on GEO."

Google describes the same behaviour from the other side. Its guide to generative AI features says they "can show what's being said about products and services across the web, including in blogs, videos, and forum discussions." An engine answering "what is the best invoicing tool for designers" is summarising what the web says, so the brands the web talks about are the ones it can name.

What counts as a brand mention to an AI engine?

A mention is your brand name written on a page someone else published, whether or not it links to you. Ahrefs measured "branded web mentions" as the brand name appearing anywhere across the web, "branded anchors" as "the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink that features the brand name," and YouTube mentions as the name in a video's title, transcript or description.

Two practical consequences follow. First, the name has to match. A review that calls you "Beacon," a directory that lists "BeaconHQ" and a podcast page that says "Beacon Invoicing" are three strings, and an engine may not connect them. Bing's guidelines ask for exactly this: "Use clear and consistent naming" and "Avoid ambiguous references." Pick one form of your name and ask everyone who writes about you to use it.

Second, the page has to be readable. A mention inside a page that blocks AI crawlers, loads its text only through JavaScript, or sits behind a login may never be seen. When you choose where to earn mentions, prefer public pages whose text is in the HTML.

Do backlinks still matter?

Yes, for different reasons. Links still help pages rank in Google and Bing, and AI Overviews, AI Mode and Copilot ground their answers in those indexes. Domain Rating also correlated more with AI Overviews than with the other assistants. And a link whose anchor text is your brand name counts twice: it is a link and a branded mention at once.

What does not work is buying either. Google asks that paid placements carry rel="sponsored", and Bing lists "link buying, link spamming, private networks, and artificial social promotion schemes" among practices that reduce visibility. Google's AI guide is equally direct about mentions: "seeking inauthentic 'mentions' across the web isn't as helpful as it might seem."

Where should a young product earn mentions first?

Start with the page types engines already cite and that will describe you honestly: independent reviews, directory and marketplace listings, comparison articles, podcast pages, community answers and videos. Each one puts your exact name next to your category on a page you do not own, which is the pattern the correlations reward.

The data gives two of these extra weight. Profound's analysis of citations from August 2024 to June 2025 found Reddit accounted for 46.7% of the citations among Perplexity's ten most-cited sources, so community presence matters most there; how to show up without breaking subreddit rules is in Reddit and AI citations. And because YouTube mentions topped Ahrefs' list, video deserves a plan of its own, covered in YouTube and AI visibility.

Reviews are usually the fastest to arrange. How to get one, and what makes a review page credible to readers and engines, is in how to get your product reviewed.

How do you track brand mentions in AI answers?

Write the ten questions a buyer asks before they know your name, run them in ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Google's AI features each month, and record whether your brand is named and whether your site is linked. Mentions without links still count as visibility; links tell you which of your pages is doing the work.

When you are named, note which sources the engine cited. When a competitor is named instead, open the pages cited for them. That list is your outreach list: the reviews, comparisons and threads where you are missing. Why engines lean on those third-party pages rather than your homepage is explained in why AI cites review sites and directories.

For Microsoft Copilot specifically, Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report counts how often your pages are cited and shows the grounding queries behind them. Google's Search Console has a generative AI performance report too, which counts impressions of your links in AI Overviews and AI Mode.

Get a permanent third-party page about your product

A LaunchScaler Review article is one mention you can arrange directly: an editor-written, labelled review of your product, published permanently and indexed on LaunchScaler's blog, with 3 links back to your site. It also puts you in the weekly newsletter, shares the review to the community feed and adds a Featured badge to your listing for the launch week. It costs a flat $59, one time, and you order it against a product you have claimed. Order your review.