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How To Get Backlinks For Free: the Unlinked Brand Mentions method

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Ahrefs
Ahrefs

What if I told you there was an easy way to earn hundreds, possibly even thousands of new backlinks? You’d jump at the chance, right? Enter: unlinked brand mentions. Find out what they are and how to get them in this visual presentation by Ahrefs.

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How To Get Backlinks For Free: the Unlinked Brand Mentions method
Backlinks are good. The more (quality ones) you have, the better it is for SEO.
So: what if I told you there’s an easy way to earn hundreds or thousands of new backlinks? You’d jump at the chance, of course!
Introducing: unlinked brand mentions.
And what are unlinked mentions, you ask?
This is what one looks like. In this article, they’re talking about Ahrefs...but there’s no link back.
Here’s another example. This time, it’s an unlinked mention of our Content Explorer tool. Again, no link back!
In these cases, you’re already halfway towards getting a link back. The author is already talking about you – all that’s left is to reach out and convince them to turn that mention into a link. Simple, right?
Let’s dive into the types of unlinked brand mentions you can pursue.
Imagine that you work at Apple. Obviously, you’d start by looking for unlinked mentions of the word “Apple” in articles related to technology.
Now think a step further: What about branded products, services and slogans? Like: Absolutely anything related to your brand will do the trick. As long as it’s mentioned, it’s fair game! iPad iPhone Apple Watch iCloud AppleCare Steve Jobs Tim Cook Jony Ive
Try making a list of things unique to your business. You’ll be surprised at how many there are. Products; Services; Brand representatives; Events; Coined terms (e.g. skyscraper)
Note: hen pursuing unlinked brand mentions, try to prioritize links from high-quality pages. Why? Because PageRank is calculated at the page-level, not the domain-level. So eSo even if you already have a link from elsewhere on a domain, it’s still worth pursuing an unlinked mention on a high-authority (or: high UR) page on that same site.
Got that? Good. You’re now armed with almost everything you need.
Just one question: How do you find unlinked brand mentions in the first place?
#1 Find Them with Content Explorer
What’s a Content Explorer, you ask? It’s essentially a mini search engine within Ahrefs that finds mentions of anything on the web. Let’s head over to https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer and do a search for “Ahrefs”.
This narrows your results down to pages on sites which have never linked to your domain before. That’s 6k+ unlinked mentions. Not bad! Select “highlight unlinked domains” Tick “one article per domain” Search for brand name Content Explorer
Let’s add some filters to restrict the results to: 1. English pages; 3. Pages on sites with a Domain Rating (DR) of 30 or more; 4. Pages with more than 50 organic visits a month Now we’re down to 225 results, which you can export to CSV if you wish. There we go!
#2 Find Domain Name Misspellings
Here’s an article that links to us and one of our competitors: Let’s check the source code.
They’ve accidentally linked to aherfs.com instead of ahrefs.com – a surprisingly common mistake. These are some of the quickest wins when it comes to link-building.
Most of the time, authors of such posts haven’t realised their mistake. They’ll usually be more than happy swap out the link for the correct one if you let them know. Want proof? Here’s what the link looks like in that very article now: All I had to do was to send a quick “heads up!” email to the site owner.
Here’s how to find misspelled links quickly and easily: Enter your domain into this domain typo generator, then hit “generate typos.” Hit “Copy to clipboard” and paste the entire list into Ahrefs Batch Analysis tool. Sort by Referring Domains (desc).
You can see that many of the misspelled versions of ahrefs.com have a ton of backlinks. Let’s take a look at their backlink profiles: Site Explorer nter misspelled domain Backlinks You can usually tell if a link is intended for your site. In this case, most of the links aren’t misspelled – ahref.com is a proper website!
Still, there are a few links that clearly should point to ahrefs.com, such as this one: I found this by searching the Backlinks report for the correct spelling of our brand name (Ahrefs). This filters for any links that use the correct anchor text but have the wrong link (these are likely to be misspelled links intended for your domain.)
That’s a wrap! Now, go get yourself some free backlinks.
This presentation was adapted from an Ahrefs blog post. Find the full processes, along with additional strategies, in our original post at: https://ahrefs.com/blog/unlinked-mentions/

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How To Get Backlinks For Free: the Unlinked Brand Mentions method

  • 1. How To Get Backlinks For Free: the Unlinked Brand Mentions method
  • 2. Backlinks are good. The more (quality ones) you have, the better it is for SEO.
  • 3. So: what if I told you there’s an easy way to earn hundreds or thousands of new backlinks? You’d jump at the chance, of course!
  • 5. And what are unlinked mentions, you ask?
  • 6. This is what one looks like. In this article, they’re talking about Ahrefs...but there’s no link back.
  • 7. Here’s another example. This time, it’s an unlinked mention of our Content Explorer tool. Again, no link back!
  • 8. In these cases, you’re already halfway towards getting a link back. The author is already talking about you – all that’s left is to reach out and convince them to turn that mention into a link. Simple, right?
  • 9. Let’s dive into the types of unlinked brand mentions you can pursue.
  • 10. Imagine that you work at Apple. Obviously, you’d start by looking for unlinked mentions of the word “Apple” in articles related to technology.
  • 11. Now think a step further: What about branded products, services and slogans? Like: Absolutely anything related to your brand will do the trick. As long as it’s mentioned, it’s fair game! iPad iPhone Apple Watch iCloud AppleCare Steve Jobs Tim Cook Jony Ive
  • 12. Try making a list of things unique to your business. You’ll be surprised at how many there are. Products; Services; Brand representatives; Events; Coined terms (e.g. skyscraper)
  • 13. Note: hen pursuing unlinked brand mentions, try to prioritize links from high-quality pages. Why? Because PageRank is calculated at the page-level, not the domain-level. So eSo even if you already have a link from elsewhere on a domain, it’s still worth pursuing an unlinked mention on a high-authority (or: high UR) page on that same site.
  • 14. Got that? Good. You’re now armed with almost everything you need.
  • 15. Just one question: How do you find unlinked brand mentions in the first place?
  • 16. #1 Find Them with Content Explorer
  • 17. What’s a Content Explorer, you ask? It’s essentially a mini search engine within Ahrefs that finds mentions of anything on the web. Let’s head over to https://ahrefs.com/content-explorer and do a search for “Ahrefs”.
  • 18. This narrows your results down to pages on sites which have never linked to your domain before. That’s 6k+ unlinked mentions. Not bad! Select “highlight unlinked domains” Tick “one article per domain” Search for brand name Content Explorer
  • 19. Let’s add some filters to restrict the results to: 1. English pages; 3. Pages on sites with a Domain Rating (DR) of 30 or more; 4. Pages with more than 50 organic visits a month Now we’re down to 225 results, which you can export to CSV if you wish. There we go!
  • 20. #2 Find Domain Name Misspellings
  • 21. Here’s an article that links to us and one of our competitors: Let’s check the source code.
  • 22. They’ve accidentally linked to aherfs.com instead of ahrefs.com – a surprisingly common mistake. These are some of the quickest wins when it comes to link-building.
  • 23. Most of the time, authors of such posts haven’t realised their mistake. They’ll usually be more than happy swap out the link for the correct one if you let them know. Want proof? Here’s what the link looks like in that very article now: All I had to do was to send a quick “heads up!” email to the site owner.
  • 24. Here’s how to find misspelled links quickly and easily: Enter your domain into this domain typo generator, then hit “generate typos.” Hit “Copy to clipboard” and paste the entire list into Ahrefs Batch Analysis tool. Sort by Referring Domains (desc).
  • 25. You can see that many of the misspelled versions of ahrefs.com have a ton of backlinks. Let’s take a look at their backlink profiles: Site Explorer nter misspelled domain Backlinks You can usually tell if a link is intended for your site. In this case, most of the links aren’t misspelled – ahref.com is a proper website!
  • 26. Still, there are a few links that clearly should point to ahrefs.com, such as this one: I found this by searching the Backlinks report for the correct spelling of our brand name (Ahrefs). This filters for any links that use the correct anchor text but have the wrong link (these are likely to be misspelled links intended for your domain.)
  • 27. That’s a wrap! Now, go get yourself some free backlinks.
  • 28. This presentation was adapted from an Ahrefs blog post. Find the full processes, along with additional strategies, in our original post at: https://ahrefs.com/blog/unlinked-mentions/