The Role of Backlinks in GSO and AI Overviews

If you’re trying to improve your rankings on Google, it’s a no-brainer that you’ll need to build a strong backlink profile. 

Google uses backlinks to judge the quality and trustworthiness of a site, which is why link-building is such a major aspect of traditional SEO. 

But in the emerging generative search world (ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews), do backlinks still carry the same weight?

It turns out that they do. 

As ChatGPT states when asked, AI models were trained on the web, and backlinks are what shapes the web:

As you can see, backlinks play a more significant role than just boosting search rankings on Google. 

They improve your general online visibility and increase your credibility, both of which are valuable for more than just traditional SEO. 

Backlinks will also:

1. Raise brand awareness
2. Generate referral traffic 
3. Increase trust with your target audience (by appearing on credible websites) 
4. Improve your visibility in AI-generated responses (ChatGPT, Claude, etc.) 

So, you have tons of incentives to build valuable backlinks besides trying to improve your rankings on Google. 

In this guide, we’ll teach you:

• How AI tools interpret authority 
• Modern link-building strategies that improve GSO (generative search optimization) and SEO 
• Best practices for making your backlink profile GSO-friendly 

Stick around to learn more! 

How AI Tools Interpret Authority and Citations 

First, it’s important to understand how AI tools provide responses to user queries. 

They typically take a two-pronged approach:

1. For general knowledge inquiries, tools like ChatGPT rely on their existing training data. Most AI tools are trained on vast amounts of data coming from books and publicly available websites. However, this data is finite and does not get updated. That means each AI tool will have a cutoff for its training data, like mid-2023 for ChatGPT. 
2. For more specific queries requiring the most up-to-date information, generative AI programs tap into the Internet to fetch real-time data. When doing so, they look for top-ranking articles and popular content coming from trusted domains. How did these domains establish trust in the first place? You guessed it, by building authoritative backlinks. 

Therefore, the more authority and trust your brand has (achieved through backlinks), the easier it will be to get featured in AI-generated responses. 

To make your content even more appealing to AI, you should frequently back up your claims with high-quality sources from TLDs like .gov and .edu, as these carry serious trust signals. 

Also, if your website has had stellar SEO and domain authority for more than a few years now, the chances are high that your brand appears in the training data for major AI platforms. 

This is advantageous because you’re twice as likely to get mentioned in AI responses. In other words, you can appear in both real-time internet searches and general knowledge (evergreen) responses. 

If you’re new to the game, don’t fret, as you can always use effective link-building tactics to improve your brand’s online visibility in search engines AND AI tools. 

Modern Link-Building Techniques for GSO 

Speaking of effective link-building tactics, let’s learn some right now. 

In terms of GSO, you’ll want to target premium editorial links from trusted sources, as these will have the most impact on your visibility. 

This means you’ll need to aim high and target the cream of the crop. 

Other link-building tactics, like leaving backlinks in social media comments, won’t be nearly as effective. 

While these tactics are still SEO best practices (as they help you build a more natural-looking backlink profile), we’re most concerned with improving your authority online. As we’ll explore in a moment, diversity is still important, but your top goal should be to boost your credibility. 

Bearing that in mind, here are some of the most powerful GSO link-building techniques. 

Using digital PR to build high-DA backlinks 

The principles of digital public relations (PR) reign supreme when it comes to generating top-tier backlinks. 

That’s because digital PR is all about networking with online media professionals to improve brand visibility. 

Popular techniques include:

• Using SOS (Source-Of-Sources) to network with journalists. Formerly known as HARO (Help-A-Reporter-Out), SOS is a platform that connects journalists with subject matter experts. Daily emails go out containing journalist queries needing experts from various fields, which presents the perfect opportunity to build valuable backlinks on relevant media and news sites. 

• Creating original research. Nothing generates backlinks like original research, as everyone in your field will be jumping over themselves to link to it. However, you must ensure that the research you conduct is relevant, accurate, and valuable to your audience. 

• Developing thought-leader content. Certain types of content, like infographics and videos, attract more shares online. In fact, visual content is shared 40x more than other types of content, so it should be your main focus. At the same time, center this content on trending topics that matter to your target audience. Publishing this type of content on a consistent basis can help you build topical authority and achieve thought leader status. 

• Media and news outreach. Which online publications does your audience consume the most? Once you find out, start reaching out to their journalists to see if you can secure brand mentions and pitch content ideas. 

Best Practices for Generative-Friendly Backlink Profiles 

Next, let’s look at some best practices for making your backlink profile as GSO-friendly as possible. 

While digital PR is the king of the castle for building authority, you’ll also need to mix in some other backlink types for the sake of diversity. 

As stated before, lower-quality backlink types, like social media and forum comment links, don’t build credibility as much – but they do make your profile appear more natural. 

Why is that important?

It is because if Google only sees top-quality digital PR backlinks for your website, it’s a sign that you’re trying to manipulate the search rankings (which you are, but SEO is a delicate balance between satisfying Google and marketing your business). 

Some ways to diversify your backlink profile include:

• Uploading your business information to various directories 
• Leaving backlinks in forum comments 
• Promoting your content through social media and email marketing
• Get featured on relevant industry podcasts 

Also, each backlink you generate must hold relevance to your website’s content, otherwise it won’t count. 

Lastly, the anchor text you use plays a role, too. 

Using the same anchor over and over again (like using your brand name or a search keyword) signals spam to Google, so mix things up. 

Case Study: How a Strong Backlink Profile Improves AI Visibility 

Does a strong backlink profile actually correlate with better visibility on AI tools?

Let’s find out by analyzing one of our clients. 

We’ve done the SEO for a prominent financial firm for a while now, and their backlink profile is top-notch. 

As you can see, they have an excellent Domain Rating (DR) and loads of backlinks coming from tons of referring domains. 

Now, let’s see how often they appear in Google AI Overviews. 

To maintain our client’s confidentiality, we won’t show the keywords or the URL. 

Just know that every time a symbol appears, it means the client is showing up in AI Overviews:

As you can see, their top-ranked content frequently appears in Google’s generative AI Overviews, and their backlink profile is definitely contributing to it! 

So, if you want to achieve similar results, you’ll need to build a stellar backlink profile. 

Do you need help building premium backlinks to appear in more generative AI searches?

Our renowned link-building services have something for everyone, and we guarantee results, so don’t wait to get in touch!