Unlinked mention
An unlinked mention is a place where a website names your brand, product, or research in its text without linking to you. Asking for the link to be added is one of the highest-conversion requests in link building, because the endorsement already exists.
Also called: brand mention, unlinked brand mention, link reclamation
The reason it converts is that nothing needs to be persuaded. The writer already decided you were worth mentioning; adding an anchor is a two-minute edit that makes their own page more useful. Compared with pitching a stranger cold, the ask is small and the relationship is already positive.
Finding them means monitoring for your brand name, your product names, your executives' names, and any data or study you have published - and then filtering hard, because most matches are your own properties, syndicated duplicates, or contexts where a link would be inappropriate.
Timing matters more here than anywhere else in link building. A request that arrives while the article is still current is a quick edit; the same request six months later means digging up an archived post nobody is thinking about, and conversion drops accordingly.
How Outlink AI runs this in practice: Unlinked mentions & niche edits.
Related terms
Broken link building
Broken link building is finding links on other sites that point to pages which no longer exist, then suggesting your own working page as the replacement. The pitch works because you are reporting a real defect on someone's page, not asking a favor.
Editorial link
An editorial link is a link someone chose to add because it was useful to their reader, with nothing given in exchange. It is the category of link search engines are trying to reward.
Digital PR
Digital PR is public relations run with search visibility as an explicit goal: earning coverage, citations, and links in online publications rather than pursuing print or broadcast placement for brand awareness alone.
Anchor text
Anchor text is the visible, clickable words of a link. Search engines read it as a description of the page being linked to, which is why it influences what that page is understood to be about.
Last reviewed 2026-07-30. All glossary terms
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