Link building agency for your brand mentions and citations.

Instead of a traditional link building agency, use AirOps to find the publishers AI answers cite and land your brand placements there. Then we measure the citation lift.

By submitting this form, you agree to AirOps processing your information in accordance with our Privacy Policy, including to communicate with you about our products, services, and events.

platform

Link building and mentions built for AI search

Earn your brand a place on the third-party pages AI answers cite. AirOps finds those publishers and earns your placements there. You then see each placement measured against AI visibility by prompt and topic.

AirOps Offsite citations grouped by domain, showing each third-party source with its domain type, citation share and citation count.

How intelligence and measurement guide link building action

Intelligence

Intelligence shows which domains and pages AI answers cite for your category, and where competitors appear without you.

Action

Action turns those gaps into targeted outreach, so your link building agency lands mentions on sites LLMs already trust.

Measurement

Measurement tracks which link building placements drive citations by topic and prompt, next to your search rankings.

Intelligence

Action

Measurement

Where mentions and link building should aim

Your link building and mention work starts with AI citation data. AirOps lists every URL cited across AI responses for the prompts you track, then filters to pages that mention a competitor and leave you out.
‍
For link building, those targets are listicles and review or comparison pages. Industry publications make the list as well. Many low-share domains hold 80-90% of citation share, so the long tail belongs on your list too.

AirOps Domain Type Breakdown showing the domain types cited in AI answers, led by products at 65% and social at 8%.

Targets picked from what AI engines cite

The best link building services start from observed AI citations

The best backlink service ranks targets by evidence. Your external content program scores each source with the AirOps Influence Score. It weighs citation frequency and relevance alongside authority, so domain metrics stay one input among several.

47M observed actions

reveal what worked to drive buyer action, and where.

6B citations

show which pages and publishers answer engines trust.

10M AI search journeys

show how people move from answers to downstream engagement.

70M high value prompts

give concrete insight on how people actually make decisions

A leading corporate card provider wanted to grow their share of voice with enterprise buyers. While prompt tracking said they had already won, AirOps opportunity data showed the true gap.

55%

Overall Share of Voice

Share of Voice with Target Customer

What our link building services include

When you run a link building program with AirOps, the work covers targets, contacts, outreach, placements, and reporting. The AirOps team handles the heavy lifting of execution, and your team focuses on the reviews and the judgment calls only you can make.

AirOps citations table filtered to competitor-only pages, with three URLs selected and the menu open to create a new grid.

Build a target list from competitor citation gaps

Set Brand Referenced to No and pick a competitor, and Citations surfaces the listicles where they appear and you don't. Select those pages and create a Grid, the outreach list your link building agency works from.

Reach the editors and site owners behind each page

Workflows identify ideal contacts at each target and generate personalized outreach with ready-to-use publisher copy. Each editor or list author gets a pitch written for their page, which keeps backlink agency outreach relevant.

AirOps Placements table filtered to Needs approval, with six proposed placements, each with approve and decline buttons.

Place guest articles and listicle mentions with review

Each placement is a guest article or a product mention in a buying guide. Your team signs off on each brief and draft before placement, so every link building agency placement carries your approval.

AirOps chart of Reddit citation share by subreddit, led by r/seogrowth at 6.8% and r/AI_SearchOptimization at 5.8%.

See the Reddit threads and YouTube videos AI cites

The Community view shows which subreddits and threads appear in answers to your tracked prompts, and the Social view does the same for YouTube creators. You see which brands they mention and plan where a contribution fits.

AirOps campaign with 16 new Reddit opportunities, each showing subreddit, subscribers, target prompts and citation share.

Run it on the platform or as a managed service

Teams that own execution in-house use custom-built workflows on the platform. Teams comparing backlink service providers can hand AirOps outreach, inbox management, content, negotiation, and placement reporting end to end.

How we measure mentions and link building

AI answers are where a link building agency proves its value. AirOps tracks mention rate and share of voice across your highest-priority prompts, plus sentiment. Link building results and search rankings sit in the same view.

AirOps Mention Rate by week with a Placement live marker, rising from 5.8% to 8.4% the following week.

Log every placement on your visibility timeline

AirOps tracks each listicle placement or buying guide mention as an event. Those events surface on your visibility trends and performance charts, so each link building agency win sits next to the movement that followed.

See which placements moved AI visibility

Attribution shows which placements drive citations by topic and prompt. Co-mention rate on a cited article can jump after your brand is added to it.

AirOps Themes table of top sentiment drivers, led by workflow automation at 15% volume with a 99.9 sentiment score.

Track share of voice and sentiment in AI answers

Sentiment shows what AI engines say about your brand, broken down by theme and topic. Compare mention rate and share of voice with competitors, including answers that cite Reddit threads, to see how earned mentions change the story.

AirOps Reddit campaign chart showing a 14.0 percentage point increase in cumulative mention rate by Day 9 across 2 engaged threads.

Connect link building to pipeline

Campaigns capture a baseline before action and a post-action window that measures what changed. A user-attributed form at sign-up captures 5-10x more AI-sourced traffic than analytics alone, so you can report spend against pipeline.

Get an audit of the sources AI cites

The AirOps External Content team maps the pages AI cites in your category where competitors appear without you.

Pricing Plans

Solo

For individuals building content for one brand or project.

ChatGPT Insights Only
35,000 Tasks for Content Production
1 Brand Kit, 3 Knowledge Bases
Basic CMS & SEO Integrations
Community & Live Chat Support
Single-User Access

Pro

For small teams building content for one brand or project.

Insights Across 7+ Answer Engines
100,000 Tasks for Content Production
1 Brand Kit, 5 Knowledge Bases
CMS, SEO, AEO, Social & Project Integrations
Community & Live Chat Support
Unlimited Seats for Your Team

Enterprise

For organizations building enterprise-grade content and tailored solutions.

Custom Prompts & Pages Limits
Multiple Regions, Personas & Languages Tracked
Custom Agent Builds
Custom Task Limits
Unlimited Knowledge Bases & Brand Kits
Dedicated Account Manager & Training
1:1 Expert Onboarding
Unlimited Seats & Collaboration Functionality

"We were able to focus our energy on the highest-value initiatives for the business in a matter of weeks."

Nick Fairbairn
SVP of Growth, Chime

“We set out to change the narrative around Sanity in AI search, not just show up more often. Staying the brand the models name most, and climbing in the categories that matter, is exactly the signal we were after, and we can see it happening week to week.”

Richard Lawrence
Principal, Agentic Operations & Growth Marketing, Sanity

“If we wanted to 10x the growth we were starting to see, we needed a system that handled SEO, AEO, content production, all of it. AirOps was the first to actually deliver results.”

Shani Mithani
Head of Growth, Venn

Frequently Asked Questions

What makes the best link building agency for AI search?

The best link building agency earns placements on pages AI engines already cite and proves the lift. The AirOps team asks one question of any link-building provider: do the models cite its links? AirOps answers it with citation data and outreach your team reviews. Attribution by prompt and topic sits next to your search rankings.

How do I hire a link building agency?

To hire a link building agency, start with the pages AI answers cite for your category and ask each candidate how it picks targets. Ask any SEO backlink company for proof that its placements moved mentions, and confirm who approves content. AirOps shows you those cited pages first, and your team reviews every placement.

Which link building agency should a head of SEO shortlist with an in-house content team?

A head of SEO with an in-house content team should shortlist a link building agency that works alongside that team. The best SEO company for backlinking builds target lists from AI citations and reports mention rate next to rankings. AirOps offers Offsite workflows for teams that own execution and a fully managed service for teams that want it handled.

How much does a link building agency cost?

Pricing at a link building agency or link building company depends on link count, site authority tier, niche competitiveness, service type, and contract length. Each backlink provider sets its own model, often per-link fees or monthly plans. AirOps scopes each engagement on a call, either on the platform with your team running execution or as a fully managed service. Book a scope through Work with us.

How long does link building take to work?

Link building works at two levels. A single placement shows up first in its co-mention rate, the share of answers that mention you when that page is cited. Topic-level mention rate moves once enough placements at high co-mention rates are live. AirOps logs each placement next to your mention rate by topic and prompt, so you can see how the work moves visibility.

What is a link building agency?

The job of a link building agency is to earn mentions and links for your brand on third-party sites that search engines and AI answers trust. Backlink building services in the USA and elsewhere center on guest articles and link insertions earned through blogger outreach. A digital PR link building agency adds press coverage. AirOps runs each placement as evidence for AI search and ties it to your AI visibility.