Once upon a time, backlinks ruled the kingdom. An army of SEO agencies was busy buying, swapping, and manufacturing links (they still are). Google rewarded them handsomely.
Then came Large Language Models (LLMs). And here’s the shocker: LLMs don’t use links. They use mentions.
That opened a can of worms. Suddenly, platforms like Reddit, Quora, and specialist communities, the ones that never accepted spammy backlinks, became goldmines. But not for the reasons you think. Not for links, but for names.
Here’s the catch: the real mention comes only if humans cooperate. Not dummy blogs. Not low-quality directories. Real experts in each field, talking about you. Again and again. We are working with some of the world’s largest brands to facilitate this ‘expert-first’ AI SEO strategy.
If you want to appear in AI search results, your brand name has to show up often, in credible places, alongside experts who matter. That credibility is finite, and you can’t automate your way into it.
Why This Matters Right Now
LLMs are not a side channel, they’re the main funnel. People are already skipping Google, asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity instead. These tools don’t spit out 10 blue links. They summarize. If your brand isn’t in that summary, you’re invisible.
Case in point: Monday.com’s stock dropped 40% in August, largely because they lost AI search visibility. Their SEO acquisition channel was decimated overnight.
VCs are rushing into “AI visibility tracking” startups. But here’s the truth: the tools are commoditized. They diagnose; they don’t cure. Every company is quickly reaching parity by “optimizing content for LLM ingestion.” That’s table stakes.
The moat is elsewhere: credibility, recency, and expert association.
What LLM Rankings Actually Are
Think of them as “SEO for AI assistants.”
- Google SEO: fight for top 10 link positions.
- LLM SEO: fight to be named in the answer.
Example:
- Google search: “best CRM for small business” → list of links.
- ChatGPT: “What’s the best CRM for small business?” → Salesforce, HubSpot, Zoho… done.
If you’re not named, you’ve just lost a high-intent lead.
The Platforms That Matter
Don’t assume it’s just OpenAI. The “Big Four” drive consumer + business queries today:
- OpenAI (ChatGPT), general-purpose market leader.
- Google Gemini, plugged into search + AI Overviews.
- Anthropic Claude, precise, context-rich.
- Perplexity, blends AI with live citations.
Back in the day, it was Google or nothing. Now it’s a fragmented landscape. Which means you need to track across all.
How to Track (and Why It’s Hard)
There’s no “LLM Search Console.” Tracking means creating realistic prompts and running them across models.
- Use ICP-specific prompts (“best CRM for freelancers,” “alternatives to [competitor]”).
- Layer geography + persona context.
- Test across OpenAI, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity.
- Record mentions, competitors, sentiment.
- Repeat often, because LLMs are biased toward the last 3–6 months of content.
Do this manually, and it’s thousands of runs per month. Tools like GrowthOS by GrowthHackers automate this, but the workload is still real.
The 3-Step Playbook
Recruiting experts and arranging ‘mentions’ partnership deals with publications, and doing this regularly, is a lengthy process, which is why we’ve built an AI agent to automate this process and are now working with some of the world’s largest brands to strategically increase their AI rankings.
If you’re serious about showing up in AI search results:
- Make your content crawlable, structure, schema, no technical walls.
- Collaborate with experts + publications, hyper-specific, credible thought leadership that maps to ICPs.
- Repeat step 2. Frequently. Recency bias is real: fresh mentions win.
Beyond the Dashboard
Semrush, Moz, Ahrefs, GrowthOS, they’ll tell you where you stand. But the cure isn’t a dashboard. It’s connecting dots:
- Content on sites with organic authority.
- Co-mentions with experts who already have trust.
- Citations on platforms AI actually consumes.
This is AIO, AI Optimization, not old-school SEO.
The Long View
We’re heading into a world where AI assistants will recommend brands through your phone, your Tesla, even your robot cleaner.
If your brand doesn’t rank, you don’t exist. Paid ads won’t capture high-intent, long-tail queries.
Think about it: when you have a specific, urgent question, do you type into Google? Or do you ask AI? Prompts are the new search.
This is why, long-term, companies will put 80% of their marketing budgets into AI search rankings. This is the final GTM.
Bottom Line
Tracking is just the start. The true game is credibility.
Backlinks built SEO. Mentions will build AIO.
But only if they’re real mentions, from real experts, in real communities.
That’s where the winners will come from.
