What are unlinked mentions?
Unlinked mentions (also called link-free publicity) is a mention of your business on another website, without that website linking to you. Since the website is already mentioning you and is familiar with your business, it gives you a unique opportunity to convert the mention into a link. It is therefore an effective linkbuilding strategy.
You can find unlinked mentions of your company using the 'Content explorer' tool in Ahrefs. Enter your company name and click search. Then select 'Highlight unlinked domains' and enter your domain name to see a list of all unlinked mentions of your company.
You can find unlinked mentions of products (provided they are unique to your company), employees and slogans, for example. The tool does not find all mentions, so in some cases a simple Google search can be a good supplement.
Review each page on the list and consider whether you are likely to get a link related to the mention. Then contact the website owner using our advice in the table below. Remember that a mention is not worthless even if it is not accompanied by a link. There are several indications that link-free mentions are included as a positive signal in Google's algorithm when assessing the authority of your website. But a mention with a link is better, all other things being equal.
Tips for converting unlinked mentions
- Write personally. Don't send the same email to a bunch of different people. Write personal emails and praise those you write to.
- Focus your efforts. Pick a few websites that you can realistically get a link from. If a link doesn't fit naturally on the page, leave it.
- Avoid media. Many media have a policy of not including links in their news articles (unless there is a really good reason for it, or they are paid for it). Media is therefore often a waste of time.
- Stay away from criticism. Do not contact websites that are critical of your company unless you suspect that a dialogue with the website owner could lead to a more positive publicity of your company.
- Give something back. Find a typo, dead link or other error on the page that mentions your business. Not only is it helpful - it also increases their willingness to link, partly because you've helped them and partly because they now have to update the page to fix the error anyway.
