Risk/avoid / AI visibility spam

SEO is changing quickly as AI eats up more and more search traffic. So I just wanted to go over one specific tactic that is changed at our agency so you can see an actual example of AI optimization that you might be able to apply for your own business.

So as you might know, one of the biggest factors for ranking in Google has always been backlinks, which is just another website online linking to your website. This is still a factor for ranking in Google and it is still a factor in AI results.

There's some speculation about whether or not it'll always be a factor in AI results, but I think we can at least say that it's less important in AI than it is in traditional search engines. But what we know is important in these AI results are mentions of your company.

And a mention is just that. It's the name of your company in text on another website.

Now, these have had a little SEO value for a while, but not nearly as much as a link...

ctually spending even more time looking for mention opportunities. Now, sometimes these are one and the same, but there's one new tactic that shows a lot of promise.

Start by making a big list of all the types of questions someone might ask ChatGPT, or Gemini when looking for a product or service like the one you're offering. Then type these questions into the smartest models, which right now is going to be ChatGPT.

0 3 and Gemini 2.5 Pro. And we're not so much concerned with which companies they recommend.

We're more concerned with the websites they look at to make those recommendations. So typically, next to each recommendation, they will list the source of their recommendation, and if not, you can just ask them a question like, why did you recommend this company?

We then collect all of those sources into a big spreadsheet, and that becomes our mentioned hit list. What you notice pretty quickly when you're doing this is how terrible a lot of these sources are...

internet couldn't handle it if it was. Ultimately, I think as these AI.

Models get smarter, they'll get better at sourcing from reputable websites. This might be one of the biggest opportunities we've seen in digital marketing.

Eventually, people are gonna figure out the best practices and it will become overly saturated. Now is the time to take advantage of these new opportunities and start building some momentum before everyone else catches on.