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This time last year, approximately 76% of citations in Google’s AI Overviews came from the top 10 organic results. In early 2026, research from Ahrefs showed this overlap dropped to 38%, while BrightEdge found it as low as 17%.
Again according to a study by Ahrefs says brand mentions have a strong correlation of 0.664 with AI visibility. Backlinks have a lower correlation of 0.218. Mentions are approximately three times more influential than traditional backlinks for AI inclusion.
*”Unlinked mentions—text written about your brand on other websites—have very little impact on SEO, but a much bigger impact on GEO… LLMs derive their understanding of a brand’s authority from words on the page, from the prevalence of particular words, the co-occurrence of different terms and topics, and the context in which those words are used.”* — Ryan Law, Director of Content Marketing, Ahrefs
*”When it comes to brand visibility in AI Overviews, online brand mentions appear to be more impactful than link building. We found moderate to weak correlations between link metrics and brand mentions in AI Overviews.”*
[https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-brand-correlation/](https://ahrefs.com/blog/ai-overview-brand-correlation/)
You can believe whatever you want or you can just look at the numbers. That being said, doing high quality SEO work will still get you mentioned more but it’s not a matter of just putting up a bunch of thin content and building a bunch of backlinks and having a high DA.
