AI Overviews now appear in 68% of local searches, yet only 39% see the classic Local Pack. So which tactic actually builds trust faster: chasing mentions or hunting backlinks? The answer may surprise local business owners.
Key Takeaways
- Combining AI brand citations with manual directory submissions builds local business authority faster than relying on either tactic by itself
- AI Overviews now appear in 68% of local queries, far outpacing the 39% share held by the traditional Local Pack, according to a Whitespark study
- Unlinked brand mentions still carry weight with Google and Bing, meaning a business does not need a hyperlink every time its name shows up online
- Entity consistency, digital PR, and clear content rank among the fastest ways for local businesses to earn trust in both classic and AI-powered search
- Readers will find a practical breakdown of how entity SEO and E-E-A-T work together to decide which brands AI tools choose to recommend
Local business owners keep hearing two pieces of advice that sound like they compete with each other: build backlinks through directory listings, or chase mentions that AI tools can pick up on. Laying the numbers side by side makes the picture far simpler.
AI Overviews Appear in 68% of Local Queries
Search behavior has shifted fast enough to catch many local business owners off guard. A U.S. study by Whitespark found that AI Overviews now show up in 68% of local business queries, while the traditional Local Pack appears in only 39% of the same searches. That gap means a huge share of potential customers are getting their first impression of a business from an AI-generated summary, not from a ranked list of map pins and reviews.
This shift carries a real cost for businesses that still rank well in classic search. Independent analysis has tracked AI Overview presence rising by 58% from the same period a year earlier, and that growing footprint is reshaping where clicks land. Fewer clicks on the organic list does not mean fewer customers paying attention; the battle for visibility has moved up a level, into the summary itself rather than the links beneath it.
The shift toward AI-assisted discovery is also happening on the consumer side. A BrightLocal Local Consumer Review Survey for 2026 found that 45% of consumers now use AI for local recommendations, up from 6% a year earlier, making AI tools the third most-used resource for finding local businesses, trailing only Google and Facebook. Be 1st Online tracks these shifts closely for local clients, and the Be1st Multicast approach reflects a simple idea: a business needs a presence that both traditional search and AI systems can recognize and trust.
What Counts in AI Citations Today
An AI brand citation is any mention of a business name online, whether or not that mention includes a clickable link. A press write-up, a Reddit thread, a podcast transcript, or a product review can all count, as long as the brand name appears in a context that signals credibility. A traditional backlink, by contrast, is a hyperlink from one site to another that Google has used to measure authority since the late 1990s.
AI citations work because large language models read language, not just link structures. Google’s AI systems are trained on enormous amounts of text and rely on semantic search to understand meaning, letting them recognize a brand as a trusted entity whenever it shows up alongside the right topics and sources. A business mentioned consistently and favorably across many corners of the web starts to look, to an AI system, like something real people already know and trust.
The Indirect Value of Unlinked Mentions
A mention without a link might seem like a missed opportunity, but it still does real work. Unlinked brand mentions have been shown to shape how Google and AI engines understand entities, strengthening both authority and trustworthiness even without a hyperlink attached. Google has acknowledged that unlinked mentions of high-quality content can positively influence rankings, and Bing confirmed folding them into its ranking algorithm as far back as 2016.
For a local business, a mention in a neighborhood blog post, a local news roundup, or a community Facebook group carries more weight than it used to. None of those placements need a link to count toward how AI search tools perceive the business’s standing in its market.
Brand Mentions and Backlinks Serve Different Goals
AI citations and backlinks answer different questions for search engines, so it helps to think of them as two separate tools rather than one versus the other.
- AI citations tell AI systems that a brand is talked about, recognized, and generally regarded as credible across many corners of the internet.
- Backlinks tell Google’s traditional ranking systems that a specific page has earned enough trust from another site to be worth a direct hyperlink.
- AI citations are often answer-level references generated inside an AI response, while backlinks are hyperlinks embedded directly in web pages that transfer ranking authority.
Neither tool replaces the other. A local bakery with glowing mentions across food blogs but no links still benefits from AI recognition, while a service business with strong backlinks but almost no brand mentions may struggle to show up in an AI-generated summary at all.
Why Manual Directory Submissions Still Pay Off
Directory listings sometimes get dismissed as an outdated SEO tactic, but the manual version of this work remains genuinely effective. Manual, high-quality directory submission continues to improve visibility, build backlinks, and drive referral traffic in 2026, while automated, bulk submissions tend to be ineffective and can even create risk for a business’s reputation online.
The difference comes down to who reviews the listing. Reputable directories are often moderated by real people, and a manually submitted listing tends to be formatted correctly and written with a unique description, which leads to a much higher acceptance rate than a templated, auto-generated entry. A rejected or poorly formatted listing does nothing for a business, while an accepted, well-written one becomes a lasting citation that both search engines and AI tools can reference.
Directory listings also feed directly into the brand recognition that AI tools rely on. Brands with a strong, consistent presence across review directories and solid topical authority on Google tend to appear far more often in AI-generated answers than brands with neither, pointing to directories as more than a backlink source: they are part of the evidence AI systems use to decide a brand is real and worth recommending.
How Entities Earn Trust in Both Systems
Trust builds gradually in both systems, through consistent, verifiable signals that search engines and AI models can check against each other. This is why entity-building has become its own discipline inside local SEO.
A strong local business entity typically shares a few traits: a consistent name used across every web property, a verified physical or service area, clearly defined service categories, and dependable citations across trusted directories. Each of those pieces acts like a puzzle piece that helps search engines and AI tools assemble a confident picture of who a business is and what it offers.
Entity SEO and the Google Knowledge Graph
Entity SEO is the practice of shaping a business into a clearly defined, well-connected entity inside Google’s Knowledge Graph, a massive database that stores information about real-world people, places, and organizations. This matters just as much for a family-owned plumbing company as it does for a national chain, because the Knowledge Graph does not care about size; it cares about clarity and consistency. Estimates of the Knowledge Graph’s scale vary over time: one estimate put it at over 1.6 trillion facts about 54 billion entities, while an earlier disclosure cited over 500 billion facts about 5 billion entities. Google also removed more than 3 billion entities from the graph in a single week in June 2025, a sign that quality and trust now matter more than raw size.
Getting verified in the Knowledge Graph depends heavily on consistent brand mentions across sources Google already trusts. A business that shows up with the same name, address, and service description across its website, its social profiles, and a handful of respected directories gives Google far less reason to doubt who it is or where it operates. That verification, once earned, feeds directly into both classic search results and AI-generated summaries.
E-E-A-T’s Role in AI Search Results
E-E-A-T, short for Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness, remains the framework Google uses to judge content and brands, and AI search tools have effectively absorbed the same standard. Of the four elements, Trustworthiness carries the most weight in 2026, meaning a business needs more than polished content; it needs verifiable signals that it is who it claims to be.
AI-powered search tools lean on this same logic because E-E-A-T is a content quality framework they inherited rather than invented from scratch. A business that demonstrates real experience, clear expertise in its service area, and a track record other sources vouch for stands a far better chance of being the brand an AI system chooses to name in its answer.
Combining Citations and Listings for Speed
Treating AI brand citations and directory submissions as rivals wastes time that could go toward building both at once. Brand mentions rank as the single most important AI visibility factor at 94% importance, with reviews and sentiment close behind at 91%, and brand and entity authority following at 87%, according to a survey of 500 marketers and business owners. In that same survey, backlinks ranked last among AI visibility factors, registering only 3% importance. That does not make backlinks worthless for classic rankings, but it does make clear that a business chasing AI visibility needs to put its energy into mentions and entity strength first.
Digital PR for Building Brand Citations
Digital PR stands out as one of the most effective ways to generate the kind of brand citations AI systems notice. AI tools learn about local businesses largely from news articles, trade publications, and local media coverage, which means a feature in a regional business journal or a quote in a local news story does real work toward building entity authority. Securing coverage in respected outlets gives a brand the kind of third-party validation that is much harder to fake than a paid link ever was.
For a local business, digital PR does not need to mean a national headline. A mention in a city chamber of commerce newsletter, a quote in a local news segment about small business trends, or a feature in an industry trade publication can all build the same kind of recognition AI search tools are trained to look for.
Clear Content Helps AI Overviews Cite You
AI Overviews reward clarity above almost everything else. Businesses that plainly explain what they offer, what it costs, and how their services work tend to show up more often in AI-generated summaries, simply because that kind of content is easy for an AI model to lift and restate accurately.
Generative Engine Optimization, often shortened to GEO, is the discipline built around this exact goal: making content easy for AI-powered search tools to find, understand, and cite when generating an answer. AI search platforms weigh semantic understanding, source authority, contextual relevance, and how fresh the data is, so a business that keeps its service pages current and written in plain language gives itself a real edge over a competitor whose site reads like a wall of jargon.
Why Local Businesses Need Both Strategies
Picking one tactic over the other means leaving visibility on the table in whichever system gets ignored. A business that only chases backlinks may see solid classic rankings while remaining invisible inside AI Overviews, since AI systems weigh brand mentions and entity authority far more heavily than hyperlinks. A business that only chases mentions without ever cleaning up its directory listings risks inconsistent data that undermines the very entity trust AI tools are looking for.
The businesses that gain ground fastest build on every front at once: consistent entity details across the web, manually submitted listings on reputable directories, media coverage that generates genuine brand citations, and content clear enough for an AI Overview to quote directly. Each of those pieces reinforces the others, making every additional effort slightly more effective.
Local business owners ready to put this combined approach into practice can start by auditing how their name, address, and services appear across the web, then build outward with consistent brand visibility strategies designed to strengthen both traditional search rankings and AI-generated recommendations.
