Did you know Can Backlinks Boost Your Brand’s Presence on ChatGPT? New Research Questions Their Impact

 

Seer Interactive, a digital marketing agency, published a new study which found that website mentions in ChatGPT answers are affected with brand mentions on Google rankings. Many brands aim to get discovered on LLMs like ChatGPT and Copilot but optimization for website mentions on LLMs is a bit different. Generative engine optimization is somewhat different from traditional search engine optimization and many brands don't seem to know about it. However, by focusing on producing content that is both high-quality and relevant, brands can significantly improve their chances of achieving visibility on search engines and generative AI platforms like ChatGPT..

To get features on ChatGPT, your website rankings on Google matter but the variety of the content and backlinks don't. The study found that LLMs mentioned websites the most which were ranked on Google’s page one. Some of the Bing rankings also seemed to matter to get mentioned on LLMs. There was some expectation that backlinks might play a big role in getting mentioned on LLMs but the study found that they don't have much correlation with that. If your website has diverse content formats, it also makes it hard for websites to get mentioned on LLMs.

An analysis of 10,000 questions about SaaS industries and finance were asked on ChatGPT 4o API for the study. After running the questions, it was found that backlinks do not have any correlation in triggering brand mentions. There are also some factors other than search rankings that affect LLM mention, like website's on-page optimizations, PR partnerships and many more. There was also a study by DemandSphere and Botify about AI Overviews, mentioning that 75% of websites featured on AI Overviews are from top 12 organic search result rankings. So this shows that if you want to have mentions of your website or blog in AI generated answers on LLMs, make sure your website is ranking well on search results.