If you handle link outreach, an existing brand mention gives you a place to check whether a link would help the reader. Brand Unlinked Mentions finds pages that name your business and carry no observed link back to it. Open the page, pick the URL that belongs there, then ask.
Why this list converts
Somebody already decided to name your business. They wrote it into a piece they chose to write, and nobody asked them to. The hard part of outreach is finished before you open the report.
All that is left is a small mechanical request, and you have a real reason to make it: a reader who hits your name in that paragraph has nowhere to click.
Open the page first
Fifteen seconds a row. Do not skip it.
The report shows the page as it was when collected. The publisher may have added the link since. Emailing to ask for a link that is already there tells them nobody looked, and you are better off saying nothing.
While you are on the page, look at when it was published, not when it was found. Those dates can be eighteen months apart. Call an old article recent coverage and the publisher knows a tool found it.
Sort the rows first
Not every unlinked mention is worth an email. The report returns four types of row and only two of them are.
| What you find on the page | Action |
|---|---|
| Named favorably or neutrally, no link | Ask for the link. This is the list. |
| Linked, but to a dead URL or an old domain | Ask for a correction. Easiest email you will ever send. |
| Named unfavorably | Leave it alone. A link makes a bad reference easier to find. |
| One of twenty companies in a list | Skip. You will spend the relationship and get nothing. |
People overlook the second row and it is the best one in the report. A publisher whose link now returns an error is being made to look careless, and you are the one telling them.
Writing the request
Short. Four parts.
- Name the page and quote the sentence you are in. It proves you read it, and that is most of your credibility.
- Give the exact URL you want linked. Match it to what they were discussing. Not your home page.
- Say why the reader benefits. They can find the thing being described.
- Stop there. No pitch for other coverage. No list of your best content. No follow-up sequence for a two-line ask.
Send it where the site says to send it. Publications that take corrections almost always say where, and the stated route reaches whoever actually handles it.
Two rows, worked
The report returns a trade publication's roundup of scheduling tools. You are named in a paragraph comparing three products. The other two are linked and you are not.
Open it. The link is missing, not stripped. The piece is four months old and a note at the top says it was last updated in January.
Send that one. Current page, editorial mention, missing link, and a publisher who visibly maintains the article. Say those things in three sentences.
The next row is from 2021. The byline links to someone who left. Nothing on the site has changed in two years. The mention is real and your email will sit unread. Skip it.
What to expect
A trickle. How many of these you get is set by how often people write about you, and no amount of effort changes that number.
The ratio is what makes it work. The placement exists, the publisher knows who you are, and the email takes three minutes. Nothing else in outreach pays like that. Run it every week, not as a campaign.
When reviewing an unlinked mention, confirm the current page and choose a useful destination. Make the request only when the link improves what the reader can do next.
See Brand Unlinked Mentions, mentions, links and what to ask for, or monitoring brand mentions.