Brand Mention
A brand mention is any time your business's name shows up on a page you don't own, like a news story, a review, a blog post or a forum thread, with or without a link to you. Google's handbook for its search quality raters tells them to judge a business's reputation by what independent sources like these say about it.
Source: Google, Search Quality Rater Guidelines (September 11, 2025), section 3.3.1 Reputation of the Website, checked October 29, 2026
What Brand Mention means for your business
When a business says one thing about itself and reputable independent sources say another, raters are told to trust the independent sources.
A mention with no link is often called an unlinked brand mention. People now use the phrase for AI answers too, where it means your name is in the words of the answer, not just your page in the list of sources under it. Some writers say entity mention for the same idea when the thing named is a person, a product or a place.
We'd start with what's already out there. Search your business name, read what each page says, and note anything out of date, like an old phone number or a service you've dropped. Where a site names you without a link, we'd get the details fixed before asking for a link. Then ask the AI tools your buyers use the questions they'd ask, and see which businesses come back. If AI answers in your field keep naming competitors and not you, we'll find where those competitors get written about and where you could be too.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview answered in the sense of tracking what people say about a brand, cited monitoring and PR software companies, and counted AI answers as one place mentions appear. ChatGPT split mentions into linked and unlinked and cited no sources.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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