Link Building for GEO: Get Named on the Pages AI Engines Cite
Link building for GEO (generative engine optimization) means getting your brand named, ideally with a link, on the pages AI assistants cite when they answer questions in your category. The question is which pages those are.
Aim your outreach at the list, comparison and review pages AI engines already cite for your buyers' questions. Google says its AI features need no special optimization, so the work is ordinary outreach, pointed at different pages.
Find them: ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini your buyers' questions and record the sources. How
26% of the sources ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini cited for buyer questions were list, comparison or review pages, and 66% of answers with sources cited at least one.
What changes for link building
Classic link building judges a link by the site it sits on. For AI answers, the page matters: an assistant answering "best invoicing software for freelancers" with search on leans on a handful of pages that answer that question. So the targets become those specific pages, and the ask becomes a mention in the text, with a link if the editor allows it.
How to find the pages to pitch
- Write your buyers' questions. "Best [category] for [audience]", "[competitor] alternatives", "how to [job your product does]".
- Ask each assistant and record the sources. Use ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini with search on, and save every cited URL. Sources change between runs (see the AI citation study), so ask more than once.
- Check what ranks for the assistant's own searches. Assistants rewrite a question into their own searches, sometimes with the year added (see query fan-out). The pages ranking for those searches are where the cited sources come from, so they are worth pitching too.
- Keep the pages that recur. A list cited for several questions, or by more than one engine, is worth more than a one-off.
- Check whether you are on them. If a competitor is listed and you are not, you have a specific, reasonable ask.
- Pitch the editor of that page. Name the page, the section and the sentence you would add, and why your product belongs in it.
Step 2 by hand is slow. MentionAgent asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini your buyer questions and records whether you are mentioned and which pages they cite, and separately finds blog posts in your niche, finds each editor's email and drafts a pitch, for you to approve or auto-send, from $99/mo. It does not track Perplexity, Copilot or Google AI Overviews.
What AI engines cite for buyer questions
MentionAgent asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini a set of buyer questions for each customer site, such as the best tools in a category, alternatives to a competitor, and the problems the product solves, and stores every cited URL. Results from 8 July to 11 October 2026:
| Engine | Cited URLs that are list, comparison or review pages | Sourced answers citing at least one |
|---|---|---|
| Claude | 32.5% | 58.9% |
| Gemini | 25.3% | 80.3% |
| ChatGPT | 23.3% | 56.0% |
| All three | 26.3% | 65.8% |
Gemini cites many more sources per answer, which is why it includes a list page in more answers while its share of list pages is close to ChatGPT's. Either way, two in three sourced answers cited at least one list, comparison or review page: the kind of page a brand can ask to be added to.
Method: MentionAgent's AI visibility records, link-building workspaces only, buyer-question panel generated per site (category, competitor and problem questions); the weekly lead-mining panel and placement probes are left out. A URL counts as a list, comparison or review page when its address contains best, top plus a number, alternative, vs, compare or review. Page titles are not used, because Gemini returns only a domain as the title. For how the three engines differ in other ways, see the AI citation study.
What Google says about its AI features
Google's guidance for site owners on AI Overviews and AI Mode says: "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary." It adds: "You don't need to create new machine readable files, AI text files, or markup to appear in these features." For Google's AI features, then, link building for GEO is ordinary link building.
What does not change
Paid placements are still paid links. Google's spam policies list "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as link spam unless the link is marked rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". Several list publishers who replied to MentionAgent outreach quoted a price for a slot, and a paid slot with a sponsored link can still name you in the text the assistant reads; decide on that basis, and label it honestly. For the difference between optimizing for search and for assistants, see GEO vs SEO.
See which pages cite your competitors
MentionAgent asks ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini your buyer questions, records the pages they cite, and pitches blogs in your niche. From $99/mo, no per-link fees.
See how MentionAgent worksFrequently asked questions
What is link building for GEO?
Link building for generative engine optimization means earning mentions and links on the pages AI assistants cite when they answer questions in your category, so the assistant has a source that names you. The work is the same outreach as classic link building, aimed at a different set of pages.
Do backlinks help you get cited by ChatGPT?
An AI answer is built from sources, and the sources for buyer questions are often lists and comparisons. In MentionAgent's panel, 26% of cited URLs were list, comparison or review pages, and 66% of answers with sources cited at least one. So the useful target is a mention on the pages they cite, not just any link.
Does Google require anything special for AI Overviews?
No. Google's documentation says "There are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, nor other special optimizations necessary," and that you do not need new machine-readable files, AI text files or special structured data.
Which AI engine cites the most list pages?
In our panel, Claude: 33% of its cited URLs were list, comparison or review pages, against 25% for Gemini and 23% for ChatGPT. Gemini cited the most sources per answer, so 80% of its sourced answers included at least one such page.
How do I find the pages AI engines cite in my niche?
Ask ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini the questions your buyers ask, such as the best tools in your category or alternatives to a competitor, and record the cited URLs. The list and comparison pages that come up repeatedly are the ones to pitch.