Definition
Link building is the work of earning hyperlinks from other websites to your own pages, so that search engines treat your content as more trustworthy and discoverable. Backlinks remain one of the signals Google's ranking systems use, and link building is a standard part of SEO.
Google's spam policies draw the line between earning links and manipulating them. Buying or selling links that pass ranking credit, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation and low-value content built mainly to manipulate links all count as link spam. Paid placements and sponsorships are allowed if the links carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". Sustainable link building therefore looks like publishing things people want to reference: original research and data, free tools, detailed guides, expert commentary for journalists, and partnerships that produce genuine coverage.
AI search changes how much links matter and why. Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode are rooted in its core ranking systems and retrieve pages from its search index, so links still help indirectly: pages that rank for the queries an AI system generates are more likely to be retrieved and cited. But brand presence seems to matter more than raw link counts. In a 2025 Ahrefs study of 75,000 brands, branded web mentions had a Spearman correlation of 0.664 with how often a brand appeared in AI Overviews, against 0.218 for backlinks and 0.295 for referring domains. The study measured correlation, not cause, and a separate Ahrefs analysis found the mention effect much weaker for ChatGPT and Perplexity than for Google. Still, the direction is consistent: being discussed across the web, linked or not, tracks with being named in AI answers.
Authority also matters less at the very top than link builders often assume. Promptwatch's data on ChatGPT citations by domain rank found that sites rated DR 46 to 75 took 46% of ChatGPT's citations in August 2026, while sites rated DR 91 to 100 ended the month with 4.4%. A relevant, mid-authority publication in your niche can be a better placement target than a mention on a giant general site.
In practice, link building for AI search blends with digital PR and third-party mentions:
- Find which domains AI assistants cite for your target prompts, and pursue coverage, reviews or listings on those specific sites
- Publish original data that journalists and bloggers cite, since it earns both links and named mentions
- Get included in the comparison articles and 'best of' lists that AI answers draw on in your category
- Keep anchor text and brand naming consistent, which helps both search engines and language models connect mentions to your entity
- Skip tactics Google flags as spam, and avoid manufacturing inauthentic mentions, which Google's AI guidance says are less helpful than they appear
Measure results on both sides. For search, track referring domains, rankings and referral traffic. For AI, track whether new coverage leads to more brand mentions and citations in AI answers for the prompts that matter, and whether the sites you earned placements on are the ones assistants cite. Our guide to growing citations in AI covers the AI side, and a citation source audit shows where to aim outreach first.
Examples of Link Building
- A cybersecurity vendor publishes an annual breach-cost survey that earns links from 60 news sites and is quoted by name in AI answers about breach costs, so one asset improves both rankings and brand mentions.
- An HR software company finds that ChatGPT repeatedly cites three mid-sized HR blogs for its category prompts. It pitches data-backed guest articles to those blogs instead of chasing a placement on a major business magazine.
- A travel startup that paid a group of unrelated blogs for links receives a manual action in Search Console, losing rankings and, with them, its pages' eligibility to be retrieved for AI Overviews.
- A SaaS brand earns a spot in two widely cited 'best project management tools' roundups and tracks its AI mention rate on comparison prompts rising over the following weeks.
