# Unlinked mentions: the easiest link you will ever earn

An unlinked mention is a page that names your product without linking to it. The writer already decided you were worth naming, so the ask is tiny: add the link so readers can find us. This is the highest reply rate in link building, and it takes an hour a month.

Updated 2026-09-15 · Source: https://porteur.ai/guides/unlinked-mentions

## Why a mention without a link is worth chasing

The hard part of earning a link is convincing someone your product belongs on their page. With an unlinked mention that argument is already won. You are asking for a formatting change.

The mention itself already does something: assistants read the pages they retrieve and name the products that appear on them, and people copy a name into a search box. The link adds the direct route and the ranking signal.

> This is the one outreach task where a polite, specific email gets answered most of the time. Save it for the mentions that deserve it and you keep that reputation.

## How to find your mentions

Three methods, in the order a founder should try them.

1. **The search operator, monthly** Search your product name in quotes, excluding your own domain: "yourproduct" -site:yourproduct.com. Read the first three pages of results. Anything that names you and does not link is a candidate.
2. **An alert, running** Set a standing alert on your product name and on the founder's name. It will bring noise, most of it from scrapers and directories, but it catches the article written the week it appears, which is when the writer still cares about it.
3. **A mentions tool, if you have one** Backlink indexes and media monitoring tools list mentions with and without links, and let you filter to the ones that never linked. This is the only step that costs money, and it is optional for a small product.

Also search the variants people actually type: the name with a space, the name with the domain suffix, and the founder's name. A product called PingFox gets written as Ping Fox, pingfox.com and "the tool by Marta".

## Which mentions are worth an email

Not all of them. Sort what you find into four piles and only write to the first.

| What you found | Do this |
| --- | --- |
| An article, review or list that names you, on a site with an author and a date | Email the author. This is the whole point of the exercise. |
| A forum or community post by a user | Leave it. Asking a member to edit their post for your benefit is the wrong move. |
| A scraped copy of another page, or a directory clone | Ignore. The link would be worth nothing and nobody is home. |
| A mention inside a negative review or complaint | Answer the substance if it is fair. Never ask for a link. |

One more filter: would you send a reader to this page. If the answer is no, the link is not worth your name in that person's inbox.

## The three-sentence email

Say thank you, name the exact sentence, ask once. Send it to the author, not to a generic address.

```text
Subject: thanks for the mention in your uptime piece

Hi Marta,

Thanks for including PingFox in your post on uptime monitoring, in the
paragraph about status pages. Could you link the name to pingfox.com so
readers can get to it in one click? Happy either way, and I am around
if you ever want detail on how the checks work.

Thomas
```

- Quote the location of the mention so they do not have to hunt for it.
- Ask for the link to one page, the one that matches what they described.
- Offer something small and real in return: an answer, a screenshot, a figure. Never money, never a link back as payment.
- Do not follow up more than once. A silent no is still a no.

> Offering to pay for the link, or promising to link back in exchange, turns an editorial link into a link scheme under Google's policy. The ask stays free and one-sided.

## What to ask for when the mention is wrong

Sometimes the mention describes you inaccurately: an old price, a feature you dropped, a category you left. That email is more valuable than the link one, and it earns the link on the way.

Write it the same way. Name the sentence, give the correct fact in one line, offer the source. Editors fix errors because errors embarrass them, and they usually add the link while they are in the file.

Worked example. A roundup says your product starts at a price you never charged. You write: the line about pricing is out of date, the current plans are on yourproduct.com/pricing, and the free check needs no card. The correction lands, and the link comes with it.

## Make mentions happen in the first place

This tactic scales with how often people write your name, so the real work is upstream.

- Use one spelling of the product name everywhere, including your own pages, so a search for it finds everything.
- Publish something quotable: a figure from your own data, a tool, a clear explanation of a hard thing.
- Answer questions in the communities where your buyers are, under your own name, for months.
- Say yes to podcasts and interviews. Show notes name the product, often without a link, which is this page's whole job.

A monthly hour is the right rhythm: run the search, sort what is new, send three emails, log them. It is the cheapest link work there is, and unlike most of it, the people you write to are glad to hear from you.

## Questions

### What is an unlinked mention?

A page that names your brand, product or founder in its text without linking to your site. It carries some of the value of a link already, because readers and AI assistants both read names, but it sends nobody to you directly and Google reads it only as context.

### How do I find unlinked mentions for free?

Search your product name in quotes and exclude your own domain with the minus operator, then read the first pages of results. Add a standing alert on the name so new articles reach you in the week they are published. Paid backlink and monitoring tools automate the same search.

### Do unlinked mentions help SEO on their own?

Google holds a patent describing implied links and its representatives have discussed mentions as context, without confirming a ranking weight. What is certain is that assistants name products from the pages they retrieve, and that people search a name they read. Treat the mention as real and the link as a bonus.

### What reply rate should I expect?

Higher than any other kind of outreach, because the ask is trivial and the writer already likes you. It is still not everyone: some authors have left the site, some pages are frozen, some editors do not add outbound links as a rule. Send three a month rather than thirty.

### Should I ask a forum user to add a link to their post?

No. Community posts are written by people sharing an opinion, not by publishers, and asking them to edit a post for your benefit reads badly and often breaks the forum's rules. Thank them if you want. Leave the post alone.

## Read next

- [The outreach email that gets a reply](https://porteur.ai/guides/link-outreach-email): One paragraph, sent to the person who wrote the page, about their page. The template, the openings that get deleted, and the single follow-up.
- [How to get backlinks for a small product site](https://porteur.ai/guides/how-to-get-backlinks-for-a-small-site): What to build, who to ask and how to measure. A founder’s plan to earn backlinks without spam or spend, with examples and a checklist.
- [Podcasts, interviews and communities: the mentions that compound](https://porteur.ai/guides/podcasts-and-interviews-for-links): A founder's voice earns mentions a company page cannot. How to find shows worth the hour, what to say so people can find you after, and what it leaves.
- [Referring domains: what the count means and what moves it](https://porteur.ai/guides/referring-domains): Learn what referring domains are, how they differ from backlinks, why breadth beats volume, how tools count them, and what actually moves the number.
- [Brand mention](https://porteur.ai/glossary/brand-mention): What brand mentions are, why they matter for a small site, how to find and measure them, and how to turn unlinked mentions into links.
- [Branded search](https://porteur.ai/glossary/branded-search): Branded search means queries with your name in them. See why it signals marketing demand, how to split it in Search Console, and what to do next.
- [Link building](https://porteur.ai/glossary/link-building): Link building is earning links from other sites to yours. Here is what works within Google’s policies, how to measure it, and what to avoid.
- [Reddit for founders: how to talk about your product without being removed](https://porteur.ai/guides/reddit-for-founders): How to promote a startup on Reddit without removals: where launches are allowed, what to write, how to disclose, and how to build trust first.

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