The best off-page SEO services for AI Search in 2026

When a competitor keeps showing up in ChatGPT and you don't, the reason usually sits on someone else's website: in roundups, on review platforms, in trade publications, YouTube videos and community threads. LLMs build their answers from the pages they retrieve, and most of those pages aren't yours. Muck Rack's analysis of more than 25 million links found that 84% of AI citations come from earned media.

Getting onto those pages is off-page SEO: everything outside your own website that earns links and brand mentions. This guide compares ten off-page SEO services for AI Search: digital PR agencies, link building and placement services, and a full program that combines several levers. We sorted them by what they're best for rather than ranking them, because a UK data-PR agency and a pay-per-placement service solve different problems.

One thing up front: we're Radyant, and we're on this list. More on how we handled that below.

Key takeaways

• Third-party pages carry AI answers. Muck Rack's analysis of 25M+ links puts earned media at 84% of AI citations, while paid and advertorial content sits at 0.3%.
• Brand mentions beat backlink counts. In Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands, branded web mentions correlated at 0.664 with AI Overviews visibility, backlinks at 0.218.
• Off-page SEO covers different jobs. Digital PR, link building, review platforms, communities and your own channels on platforms like YouTube each need a different kind of work, and rarely the same provider.
• Paid placements got riskier in August 2026. Google's updated spam policy counts money for unmarked links as link spam and now names attempts to manipulate generative AI responses.
• Start from the pages AI already cites in your category. Radyant would take one placement on a roundup that LLMs retrieve daily over ten links on pages no LLM ever reads.

What does off-page SEO mean for AI Search?

Off-page SEO is everything that happens outside your own website and still shapes what LLMs say about you. Digital PR and link building are the best-known parts of it. For AI Search, the third-party pages that get cited fall into different groups. The clearest way to tell them apart is who publishes the content. These are the main ones we see:

Most providers on this list cover one or two of these. That's fine, as long as you pick the ones that match the pages engines actually cite in your category.

What does the data say about off-page SEO and AI citations?

The evidence for off-page work is consistent, and all of it is correlation.

• Mentions over links. Ahrefs' study of 75,000 brands found branded web mentions correlated at 0.664 with brand visibility in AI Overviews, against 0.218 for backlinks and 0.326 for Domain Rating. A follow-up covering ChatGPT and AI Mode found YouTube mentions correlated even more strongly, at about 0.74.
• Earned sources dominate. Muck Rack puts earned media at 84% of AI citations across ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, a share that has stayed between 82% and 89% across three editions since July 2025.
• Third-party listicles carry commercial questions. In the Peec AI and Wix study of 1.06 million citations, listicles made up 40.9% of citations on commercial queries. In professional services, 80.9% of the cited listicles were published by third parties. A separate Peec AI analysis found that ranking first in frequently cited listicles came with roughly 13 to 17 percentage points more visibility.
• Review profiles matter. Seer Interactive found brands without a Trustpilot profile were cited in 1% of relevant responses, against 53.5% for brands with even a minimal one.

And the counterpoint: an earlier Seer study found almost no correlation (about 0.07) between coverage on top news sites and ChatGPT mentions. It used an older model without live search, so it is dated, but the lesson holds: coverage pays off when it lands on the pages engines retrieve for your buyers' questions.

None of these studies proves that a placement causes a citation. Big brands tend to have lots of mentions and high AI visibility at the same time, so the correlation alone doesn't show what drives what. What they do show is where engines look, and that's enough to decide where to spend.

How did we pick and evaluate the providers?

We started from 17 published rankings in this niche and the providers that came up again and again, then checked each candidate's own site, pricing pages and public reviews in September 2026. We evaluated them on six things:

1. Off-page coverage. Which off-page levers the provider actually runs.
2. AI Search substance. Whether there is a documented method or case for AI citations, or only new wording on an old service.
3. Method and transparency. Earned or paid placements, and whether the provider says which.
4. Pricing model. Retainer, per campaign or per placement, and whether prices are public.
5. Markets. Where the provider has proven reach: US, UK, DACH.
6. Proof. Named clients, published cases, independent reviews.

What we left out. Link marketplaces and guest-post catalogues that sell placements by domain metrics alone, because they're the clearest case of what Google's link spam policy targets. We also left out full-service GEO and SEO agencies without a distinct off-page offer, since they belong in a different comparison, and local citation services, which matter for local businesses more than for B2B AI answers.

The providers at a glance

*Prices in each provider's own currency, as published on its website or, where marked, on its Clutch profile. "n/a" where no price is public. Checked in September 2026.

Full program

Radyant

Best for: Companies that want off-page work decided by citation data and run together with content, technical SEO and attribution.

We're a Berlin-based growth agency specialized in SEO and AI Search. Off-page work is part of our Growth Partnership, and it starts with citation data. We track the real questions buyers ask AI engines in your category, look at which third-party pages get cited in the answers, and put the effort where those citations come from. Depending on the category, that's a review platform, a YouTube library, a roundup worth pitching for inclusion, or a data study publishers want to cover.

Two examples from our client work:

• Heyflow: We worked on YouTube, Reddit, LinkedIn and review platforms alongside owned content. The AI citation rate more than doubled over six months, and by May 2026, 32 of Heyflow's videos were regularly cited in AI answers. See the Heyflow case.
• deeploi: deeploi already had an OMR Reviews profile. We found the categories it was missing, which put the profile into the category listings AI engines cite. After deeploi's own review acquisition, it earned three Leader badges and one Top Rated badge by Q3 2026. See the deeploi case.

On the digital PR side, we build campaigns from data: proprietary client data, a public dataset shaped into a story, or a new study, and pitch them to publishers in your category. We also pitch for inclusion in the roundups that already get cited for your buyers' questions. Our own example is the Software Prompt Study we ran with OMR Reviews across 20,160 AI chats.

Watch out: We don't sell standalone link building or pay-per-link packages. Off-page work runs inside a Growth Partnership (€7,000–12,000/mo) or a defined project (from €10,000). If you only need links or a single PR campaign, a specialist below is the better fit.

Pricing: Growth Partnership from €7,000/mo, projects from €10,000. Full pricing.

Link building and placements

Respona

Best for: Teams that want placements in the roundups and listicles AI engines cite, with pay-per-placement pricing and fast turnaround.

Respona started as outreach software and now runs a done-for-you service on top of it. It identifies the listicles, roundups and resource pages that AI engines cite in your category, then handles content, outreach and publishing. You set target pages, anchors and publisher tier. Standard turnaround is 28 days, 14 with Express, and ordered placements are guaranteed to go live in that window. An AI visibility tracker covering six AI Search interfaces, including ChatGPT, Claude and Google AI Overviews, is included.

The pricing is the most transparent on this list: $100 to $500 per placement depending on tier, no retainer, no setup fee, volume discounts from $3,000 a month, and no charge for links that miss your guidelines. If your team would rather run PR outreach in-house, Respona also sells the outreach software on its own.

Watch out: Guaranteed placements on a publisher network, priced by Domain Rating, are worth asking about. Check whether publishers are compensated and how links are marked, and use domain pre-approval so you know exactly where you appear. The lower tiers include sites with little traffic, so aim for the pages engines actually retrieve.

Pricing: $100–$500 per placement.

Editorial.Link

Best for: Teams that want editorial links with transparent per-link pricing and pre-approval.

Editorial.Link is a link building and digital PR service with listicle placements for AI visibility in its offer. Every site is pre-approved, and packages start at $1,750 for five links. On Clutch it holds a 5.0 rating from 81 reviews, and its profile says it avoids sites that sell backlinks.

Watch out: It's still priced per link by domain metrics. Ask which of the target pages are actually retrieved by AI engines for your category.

Pricing: From $1,750 for 5 links ($300–$375 per link).

uSERP

Best for: B2B SaaS companies that want links and mentions on high-authority publications.

uSERP is a US agency based in Colorado focused on link building on well-known publications, with an AI and LLM visibility offer on top. Clients on its site include monday.com, Preply and Remote. On Clutch it holds a 4.9 rating from 21 reviews. Packages range from $5,500/mo for five DR60+ links plus niche links to $15,000/mo.

Watch out: It's priced by link count and Domain Rating, which says little about whether those pages get retrieved by AI engines. Its pricing page names both a three-month and a six-month initial term, so clarify that.

Pricing: $5,500–$15,000/mo.

Digital PR

Siege Media

Best for: Mid-market and enterprise brands that want content and digital PR from one team.

Siege Media is a US agency with offices in Austin, New York, Chicago and San Francisco. It positions itself as a GEO agency built on content, digital PR and link building, with Reddit and affiliate work on top. It is the provider named most often across the rankings we reviewed (7 of 17). Clients on its site include Airbnb, Asana, Zoom and Zapier. On Clutch it holds a 4.9 rating from 48 reviews.

Watch out: Siege Media is content-led rather than a pure off-page shop, and US-focused. Pricing isn't public; Clutch lists a minimum project size of $5,000+.

Pricing: n/a.

Reboot Online

Best for: Teams that want PR backed by experiments and an explicit AI visibility focus.

Reboot Online is a London agency that sells a GEO service including what it calls AiPR, digital PR aimed at earning both backlinks and AI citations. It is known for running public experiments on how search and AI engines react to content. Cases on its site include TUI, 2K and Resume.io.

Watch out: Some of Reboot's best-known AI experiments used listicles on sites it owns and expired domains. They're useful to show the mechanism, and they're also exactly the tactic engines and Google are starting to discount. Ask how client campaigns differ.

Pricing: From £2,500/mo.

Search Intelligence

Best for: Brands that want digital PR on a clear per-campaign budget without a long contract.

Search Intelligence is a UK digital PR agency based in Oxfordshire. It runs campaign-based PR aimed at high-authority coverage and reports 250+ clients. According to published pricing summaries, a campaign costs between £4,000 and £5,500 depending on volume, with a guaranteed number of links per campaign and rolling monthly terms.

Watch out: The guarantee counts links, and some coverage will be nofollow or syndicated. Explicit AI Search positioning is limited. The pricing comes from third-party summaries, so confirm it directly.

Pricing: £4,000–£5,500 per campaign.

Rise at Seven

Best for: Consumer brands that want creative, search-first PR across several markets.

Rise at Seven is a UK agency with offices in Sheffield, Manchester, London and New York. It combines search-first content with creative digital PR and has an AI Visibility and GEO service line. It runs international PR, including in Germany. Clients on its site include Emirates, Red Bull, SIXT and JD Sports.

Watch out: Rise at Seven is strongest with consumer brands and big creative campaigns. B2B teams with a narrow buyer audience should check for relevant cases.

Pricing: n/a.

Fractl

Best for: Brands that want original research and data journalism as the core PR asset.

Fractl is a US agency based in Florida that builds data-driven campaigns and pitches them to publishers. It frames its work around AI visibility and also offers AI agents for tracking brand mentions in LLMs. Clients include Adobe, Paychex and Indeed. On Clutch it holds a 4.8 rating from 37 reviews.

Watch out: Fractl's typical project on Clutch runs from $50,000 to $199,000, and its press network is US-focused.

Pricing: n/a.

Mashup Communications

Best for: DACH companies that want German-language PR with a GEO angle.

Mashup Communications is a Berlin PR agency. It offers a dedicated GEO service combining PR placements, owned media and storytelling, aimed at visibility in AI answers. For German-speaking markets, where the trade publications engines cite are different from the US and UK ones, a local PR agency with established media relationships makes sense.

Watch out: No pricing and no named AI Search cases on its GEO page. It's a PR agency first, so pair it with someone who tracks citations.

Pricing: n/a.

Should you pay for placements?

Sponsored content, marked as such, is a normal part of media. The risk comes from paid links presented as editorial.

Google's spam policies, updated on 28 August 2026, treat exchanging money for links as link spam unless the links are marked sponsored or nofollow. The same update names attempts to manipulate generative AI responses in Google Search. Self-promotional roundups are under pressure too: Lily Ray documented visibility drops of 29% to 49% on sites publishing hundreds of self-ranking "best of" lists.

Five questions worth asking any provider before you sign:

1. Do you pay publishers for placements, and if so, how are the links marked?
2. Can we pre-approve every domain and page?
3. How do you check that a target page is actually retrieved by AI engines for our category?
4. What happens to placements that get removed or de-indexed?
5. How do you report on AI citations, beyond links and Domain Rating?

Which provider fits your situation?

Start with the pages AI Search interfaces cite in your category. Pick a set of questions your buyers really ask, run them through the engines that matter to you, and note which third-party domains show up in the answers. Our guide to prompt tracking walks through how to set that up. Then match the provider to what you find:

Two more things that matter as much as the provider. First, off-page work amplifies your own pages. If an engine finds you in a roundup and then lands on a thin product page, the mention does little. Second, measure what the work produces: AI citations and brand mentions first, then the leads and pipeline they feed. Our four-signal attribution model shows how to connect the two.

Can you run off-page SEO in-house?

If you have someone who can pitch, build relationships with editors and track citations, a lot of off-page work can run in-house. Our guide to content strategy for AI Search shows how to let your citation data decide which off-page sources to work on first. And if you want to see why listicles work the way they do, our guide on creating listicles the right way covers the other side.

FAQ