More and more searches end in an answer instead of a list of ten blue links. Google shows AI Overviews, ChatGPT searches the web, Perplexity answers with numbered sources. For brands, the question has changed from "how do I rank?" to "how do I get mentioned in the answer?".
The good news is that the answer is familiar. AI assistants do not make up their sources: they read the web. And the web they read most is the one that is most cited.
How AI assistants choose what to cite
When an assistant searches the web to answer a question, it does broadly what a search engine does: it retrieves candidate pages, selects the ones it considers most relevant and reliable, and builds an answer from them, usually with links to the sources. The details differ between products and are not public, but a few things follow from how these systems work:
- They depend on retrieval. If your page or your brand does not appear among the results the system retrieves, it cannot be cited.
- They favour established sources. Media and sites that are widely referenced are more likely to be retrieved and trusted.
- They learn associations. If your brand appears repeatedly next to a topic in different reliable sources, the association between brand and topic becomes stronger.
Classic SEO and AI visibility: what changes and what doesn't
Much of the work is shared, but the goal is slightly different:
- Classic SEO aims for your own page to rank for a query. Success is a position and a click.
- AI visibility aims for your brand to be part of the answer, whether the source is your own site or a medium that talks about you. Success is a mention, a recommendation or a citation.
That second point is important: in AI answers, an article about you in a trusted newspaper can be as valuable as your own page, because the assistant may prefer to cite the independent source.
Why mentions in the media help
An article about your company in a medium people read does several jobs at once:
- It creates a page about you on a domain that assistants already consider trustworthy.
- It links to your website, which helps search engines (and therefore the assistants that use them) find and value your pages.
- It associates your brand with a topic, in natural language, in the kind of text these systems are built to understand.
- It reaches human readers too, who later search for your brand by name.
That is why link building and digital PR have converged. A sponsored article in a relevant medium is no longer just "a backlink": it is a presence in the sources that answers are built from.
What to do in practice
Choose media that are actually read
Real traffic is a reasonable indicator that a medium is relevant and visible. A site with no readers is unlikely to be retrieved often by search engines or assistants. At Linkingpress we show estimated traffic for every outlet so you can compare.
Think in topics, not keywords
Assistants answer questions. Write about the problems your customers ask about and explain clearly what your company does and for whom. A clear sentence like "X is a software for Y that does Z" is easy for both readers and machines to understand.
Be consistent across sources
Use the same brand name, the same description and the same key facts in every publication. Contradictory information makes it harder for any system to describe you correctly.
Cover the languages of your market
Assistants answer in the user's language and often prefer sources in that language. If you sell in Spain, Mexico or China, publish in media from those markets.
Keep your own website in order
Media mentions point to your site. Make sure the pages they link to load fast, explain clearly what you offer and can be crawled.
A simple 90-day plan
- Weeks 1–2: find out where you stand. Write down ten questions your customers ask before buying. Ask them in ChatGPT, Perplexity and Google, and note which brands and sources appear.
- Weeks 3–4: choose your outlets. Look for media in your market that already appear as sources in those answers, or that cover the same topics and have real traffic.
- Months 2–3: publish regularly. Two to four articles a month, each answering one of those questions and describing your brand in the same clear words.
- End of month 3: repeat the test. Ask the same ten questions and compare. Adjust outlets and topics according to what you see.
Frequently asked questions
Do links still matter if people use ChatGPT instead of Google?
Yes. Assistants that search the web retrieve pages much as search engines do, and they lean on well-cited sources. Links and media mentions help you become one of those sources.
Can I pay to appear in AI answers?
You cannot buy a place in an assistant's organic answer. What you can do is be present in the sources it reads, which makes it more likely that your brand is mentioned.
Which media do AI assistants trust most?
No assistant publishes a list. In practice they tend to cite established, frequently referenced sites with real audiences: news media, specialist publications and reference sites in each language.
Do nofollow or sponsored links help with AI visibility?
Assistants read the text of the page, not only the link attribute. A clear mention of your brand in a relevant article can be retrieved and cited whatever attribute the link carries.
How do I know whether an assistant mentions my brand?
Ask it the questions your customers ask, in their language, and note the brands and sources in the answer. Repeat the same questions every month to see the trend, since answers vary from one query to the next.
What not to expect
Nobody can guarantee that an assistant will cite a particular brand: the systems change constantly and their answers vary with each question. What you can do is increase the probability, in the same way that link building never guaranteed a position but did make it much more likely.
If you want to start, browse the Linkingpress catalog, filter by country and language and pick the media your customers read. And if you are wondering whether links still matter, read why link building isn't dead.