How Important Are Backlinks for AI Overviews?
Why Brand Mentions—and Smart Link Strategies—Are the New SEO Priority
With Google’s rollout of AI Overviews, the search landscape is changing fast. We’re heading toward a future where most of what we know as traditional search will be collapsed into a single, AI-generated response.
And that means one thing for marketers and SEO teams:
If you want search visibility, you’ll need to understand how to rank in Google’s AI results.
To better understand which factors are driving brand mentions in AI Overviews, Ahrefs recently analyzed over 75,000 brands. The results were eye-opening: brand web mentions (linked or unlinked) had the strongest correlation to AI visibility.
But here’s where it gets interesting: while traditional link-building metrics like Domain Rating (DR) and backlink count still have value, the game has changed. Brands that combine citations (mentions) with branded backlinks are positioned to win.
At LinkNova, we’ve spent 16 years helping enterprise brands dominate competitive SERPs. Today, we help those same clients future-proof their visibility strategies for AI-driven search.
Let’s break down what this shift means—and how you can adapt.
The Study: What Influences AI Overview Visibility?
In this massive data project, Ahrefs used the Spearman correlation coefficient to examine how various off-site and on-site SEO factors relate to brand mentions in AI Overviews.
Here are the top findings:
| FACTOR | CORRELATION WITH AI OVERVIEW MENTIONS |
| Branded web mentions | 0.664 |
| Branded anchor text | 0.527 |
| Branded search volume | 0.392 |
| Domain Rating (DR) | 0.326 |
| Referring domains | 0.295 |
| Number of backlinks | 0.218 |
| Branded ad traffic | 0.216 |
| Ad cost | 0.215 |
In other words, the top 3 factors are all off-site, text-based indicators:
- Mentions of your brand online,
- Anchor text using your brand name, and
- Search volume for your brand.
Backlinks, long considered the backbone of SEO, showed a modest 0.218 correlation in recent studies. While this may suggest their role is evolving, it underscores that the quality of links and the context of brand mentions now carry greater weight than sheer volume.
What Are Brand Mentions?
A brand mention is any reference to your company name online, whether or not it includes a hyperlink.
According to Ahrefs Director of Content, Ryan Law, unlinked mentions have minimal impact on traditional SEO, but a major impact on AI Overview visibility:
“LLMs derive their understanding of a brand’s authority from words on the page—the prevalence of particular words, the co-occurrence of different terms and topics, and the context in which those words are used.” — Ryan Law, Ahrefs
In other words, while hyperlinks remain a key signal, AI increasingly values the overall presence and frequency of your brand being mentioned—link or no link.
And it’s not just Ahrefs confirming this. Kevin Indig recently found brand search volume is the best predictor of mentions in AI-generated responses from ChatGPT. The evidence across the industry is stacking up:
The more your brand is mentioned online, the more likely you are to appear in AI Overviews.
Why Smart Link Building Still Matters
Even though backlinks show a weaker correlation (0.218) than mentions, don’t throw out your link-building strategy just yet.
Here’s the nuance:
- Backlinks with branded anchor text scored a 0.527 correlation.
- That’s more than double the impact of plain backlinks.
This proves that links can serve as citations if they include your brand name in the anchor text. These hybrid mentions are the sweet spot—you get the PageRank benefits of a backlink and the visibility boost of a citation.
At LinkNova, this is our speciality:
We build branded links that help your website rank and your brand show up in AI Overviews.
How to Increase Branded Mentions (and Branded Links)
Want to become visible in AI Overviews? You need a proactive digital PR and link strategy. Here’s how we help our clients do it:
PR & Thought Leadership
We pitch original insights and data to top-tier publications. Every article quoting your CEO or citing your research is a branded mention—and sometimes a branded link.
Strategic Co-Marketing
We help you partner with complementary brands to co-create reports, webinars, and studies. These joint ventures are often cited across multiple domains.
Customer Stories & UGC
User-generated content—testimonials, reviews, case studies—can multiply your mention footprint. We design programs to incentivize users to share their success.
Industry Roundups
We get your brand featured on curated “Best Tools,” “Top Agencies,” and “Market Leaders” lists—an excellent source of branded links with high editorial control.
Branded Anchor Text
Generic anchor text like “click here” is a missed opportunity. We secure branded anchor links that reinforce your name in both link graphs and LLM training data.
Forum & Community Authority
We position your brand as the go-to expert in niche forums, Slack groups, Reddit, and Quora. Authentic engagement earns natural mentions—and real authority.
What About Other Ranking Factors?
The study also found that factors like Domain Rating (DR) and total number of referring domains correlated modestly with AI Overview visibility.
Paid factors like ad cost and ad traffic showed the weakest correlations of all (0.215 and 0.216). That means you can’t just buy your way into AI results with traditional paid advertising. Google’s generative models are looking for organic, contextual signals of trust and authority.
The Visibility Cliff: Why the Top Brands Win (and Others Don’t)
Here’s perhaps the most dramatic finding from the study:
Brands in the top 25% for web mentions earn 10x more AI Overview mentions than those in the next tier down.
Meanwhile, 26% of brands had zero AI mentions at all. These are often companies with decent backlinks but low web chatter.
This “visibility cliff” reinforces a harsh truth: If no one’s talking about your brand, AI won’t either.
And that’s the real shift—AI Overviews don’t just reward technical SEO. They reward presence, relevance, and recognition.
Free Tip: Track Your Brand’s AI Overview Footprint
Even though backlinks show a weaker correlation (0.218) than mentions, don’t throw out yoWant to know how your brand is doing in AI results right now?
Use Ahrefs Brand Radar to:
- Monitor mentions of your brand in AI Overviews
- Track branded web mentions across the open web
- Watch branded search volume rise or fall
Tools like this are becoming essential for SEO teams trying to bridge the gap between search engines and AI systems.
LinkNova: The Agency That Builds Brands into AI Overviews
For 16+ years, LinkNova has helped enterprise brands earn links, rise in rankings, and secure visibility in even the most competitive SERPs.
Now, we’re taking those strategies to the next frontier:
Link building that doubles as brand-building—designed for both PageRank and AI Overviews.
Whether you need high-authority branded links, strategic PR campaigns, or a full-stack visibility plan, LinkNova delivers. We blend traditional SEO best practices with AI-era insight to help your brand show up, stand out, and scale.
Let’s build the mentions that get you seen—by search engines, users, and AI.
How to Get Started NOW
See what service best suits your business’ SEO goals.
Collaborate with our team to determine the metrics and strategies that will get you the results you want to achieve.
Check out our success stories for an idea of what to expect.
Why Work with LinkNova
As a pioneer in link building, we’ve been providing world-class services since our inception in 2008. Since our beginnings forming the core of Ayima, a leading UK digital marketing agency, we have been a trusted partner for many companies around the world.
Thanks to our team’s 120 years of combined link building experience, we consistently meet and exceed the high standards set by the industry, our clients, and our partner publishers. This means you can be assured that we can help you hit your own business goals through our various packages, no matter your company’s niche. As a one-stop solutions provider for all your industry-specific link building needs, we can help you position yourself as a leader in your niche by increasing traffic to your site and improving your brand’s reputation.
Launched our initial Link Building team in 2008
We’ve built well over 150,000 links across all industries
Provide a culture of growth and support for our staff
A highly tenured, extremely motivated & reliable team
Where will my links go?
Learn more about the authoritative websites that we’ll work with to help you build a natural backlink profile.
Industry-specific websites
We’ll link to professional websites, industry news websites, and personal blogs that cover topics relevant to your niche, such as food, lifestyle, travel, event planning, and more.
Geographically-relevant websites
Let us know where your business operates—and where your ideal customers come from—so we can start acquiring backlinks from the likes of local news sites and bloggers.
Linguistically-relevant websites
LinkNova also boasts multi-lingual campaign experience in over 10 languages, including German, Arabic, Hindi, and more. Feel free to provide additional language requirements so our experts can target more relevant websites and create more compelling content for your local business.
See how we helped this NYC real estate startup achieve an over 443% increase in organic page landings in less than a year!
Case Studies
Discover the real-world impact of our link building strategies through detailed case studies. See how our work translates into success.
