01Off-page & authority
Off-page SEO and link building: everything pitched, nothing bought
Off-page from $900 a monthPitched editorial placement, review programmes and digital PR. Everything earned, nothing bought.
Quick answer
Off-page is where most of our delivered work has actually sat across twelve client engagements. It matters more for AI answers than for traditional search, because assistants lean heavily on third-party sources rather than your own site.
Every placement is pitched and earned on merit. We do not pay for placement, because paying is a link scheme under Google’s spam policies, and those policies now explicitly cover generative AI responses.
Key takeaways
- Nothing is bought. Not links, not guest posts, not reviews. Every placement is an editorial decision made by someone who is not us.
- Third-party sources carry more weight than your own site here. ChatGPT’s exclusive citation rate was 73.5% in 2026 research.
- Every new page needs its own off-page work. Publishing is not the end of the job, and most content plans stop there.
- Volume is deliberately modest. Two to eight placements a month. In this category, high volume is a risk signal rather than a value one.
- Review platforms are underrated. Brands with active review profiles were roughly three times more likely to be cited in one 2026 analysis.
- Correcting stale third-party facts is often the fastest win on any off-page list, and it costs days rather than months.
Why off-page matters more for AI answers
In traditional search, your own pages compete directly. In AI answers, an assistant is usually summarising what other people say about you.
ChatGPT's exclusive citation rate was 73.5% in 2026 research — most of what it cites appears on no other platform, and a large share of it is not your site at all. The practical consequence: you can write the best page in your category and still be absent, because the sources the model reads have never mentioned you.
That is an off-page problem, and no amount of on-site content fixes it.
What we actually do
| Workstream | What it involves | How it is earned |
|---|---|---|
| Pitched editorial placement | Contributed articles on publications your buyers read | We pitch an editor with something worth publishing. They decide. No payment |
| Review platform programmes | Getting real customers to leave real reviews | A request flow to actual customers. Never incentivised, never seeded |
| Directory and analyst listings | Category directories, comparison sites, analyst profiles | Submitted with accurate data, then kept current |
| Digital PR | Data, commentary or research journalists can use | You need something genuinely newsworthy. We will say when you do not |
| Community participation | Genuine, disclosed involvement where your buyers discuss the category | Months of real participation. There is no shortcut and faking it is obvious |
| Third-party fact correction | Fixing stale pricing, wrong services or old descriptions elsewhere | Direct outreach to whoever owns the page. Unglamorous and often the fastest win |
Pitched versus paid, and why the line matters
These two things get called the same name and are not the same thing at all.
| Pitched, earned | Paid placement | |
|---|---|---|
| How it happens | You offer something worth publishing; an editor decides | Money changes hands; the post goes up |
| Speed | Weeks to months | Days |
| Volume achievable | Low | As high as the budget |
| Under Google spam policies | Legitimate | A link scheme |
| If policy tightens | Nothing happens | The whole profile is exposed at once |
| What we do | This | Never |
Google's spam policies name link schemes directly, and they now apply to generative AI responses as well as search results. A paid link profile is a liability that compounds quietly until it does not.
Every new page needs its own off-page work
This is the part most content plans miss, and we would rather say it before you sign than after.
Publishing a page does not make it discoverable, and it certainly does not make it citable. Each significant new page needs its own outreach, its own internal linking pass, and often its own third-party corroboration before anything cites it.
Which means a content plan that budgets only for writing has budgeted for roughly half the job. We size off-page work per page rather than treating it as a monthly quota disconnected from what was published.
Across twelve client engagements this has been consistently true. A page launches, and it needs its own separate cycle of work before it does anything. Anyone selling you a content programme that stops at publication is selling you the cheaper half.
Why the volume is deliberately low
Two placements a month on Foundation, four on Growth, eight on Enterprise. That will look thin next to proposals promising thirty.
Earned placement is slow because someone else has to agree. Thirty a month is achievable only by paying, and in this category volume is a risk signal rather than a value one. A profile that grows faster than the work justifies is the pattern spam systems are built to find.
See exactly what each tier includes, including the do and do-not table.
What this means for you
- Ask any agency whether they pay for placement. The answer, and how quickly it comes, tells you most of what you need to know.
- Budget off-page per page, not per month. A content plan without it has budgeted for half the job.
- Fix stale third-party facts before commissioning anything new. Days of work, and it usually moves first.
Observed Patterns described here come from delivery across twelve client engagements since 2018. Sourcing and limits: our measurement standard.
02Common questions
Questions about off-page work
Do you buy links or pay for guest posts?
No. Every placement is pitched and earned on merit. Paying for placement is a link scheme under Google's spam policies, and those policies now explicitly cover generative AI responses as well as search.
What is the difference between a paid and a pitched guest post?
A paid one is a transaction: money changes hands and the post goes up. A pitched one is an editorial decision: you offer something worth publishing and the editor decides. The second is slower, harder, and it is the only one that survives a spam policy update.
Why does off-page matter more for AI answers than people expect?
Because assistants lean heavily on third-party sources. ChatGPT's exclusive citation rate was 73.5% in 2026 research, meaning most of what it cites is not cited by other platforms, and a large share is not your own site at all.
How many placements do you get per month?
Two on Foundation, four on Growth, eight on Enterprise, plus pitched outreach contacts. The volume is deliberately modest because earned placement is slow. In this category, high volume is a risk signal rather than a value one.
Does every new page need its own off-page work?
Yes, and this is the part most content plans miss. Publishing a page does not make it discoverable or citable. Each significant new page needs its own outreach, its own internal linking pass, and often its own third-party corroboration.
What counts as off-page work besides links?
Review platform programmes, directory and analyst listings, digital PR, community participation, and correcting stale facts about you on third-party sites. That last one is usually the fastest-moving item on any list.
How long does earned placement take to show results?
Weeks to months for the placement itself, and longer before it influences what assistants say. Anyone promising placements next week is describing something bought.
Can we do this ourselves?
Yes, and some clients do. The method is not secret: find the sources that already get cited for your category, work out what they publish, and offer something genuinely worth publishing. The hard part is doing it consistently for months.
Sources
Every figure on this page comes from one of the following. Where a claim is ours rather than a source’s, it carries an evidence label instead.
- Google Search Central — spam policies, covering link schemes and now explicitly in scope for generative AI responses in Search. Primary
- Rankability — State of AI Search, 1,645 citation observations across 31 topics, 2026. Source for the 73.5% ChatGPT exclusive citation rate and the 24.1% cross-platform overlap. Independent study
- SE Ranking — 2026 analysis. Source for the finding that brands with active review profiles were roughly three times more likely to be cited. Independent study
- Google Search Central — Optimizing your website for generative AI features (15 May 2026, updated 10 July 2026). Primary
- Searlixa delivery across twelve client engagements since 2018, labelled Observed with sample and date. Our own
Ask an assistant
Hand this page to an assistant and ask it to summarise or challenge the argument. If it gets something wrong about us, that is itself a useful finding.
→What you are buying
Off-page and digital PR services: what is included
Everything below is earned or pitched. Nothing is bought, and the list of what we refuse is published above.
- Source landscape mapped: which third-party domains the models actually cite for you
- Earned placements pitched to publications in your category, two to eight a month by tier
- Review platform programme: request flow, response templates, monitoring
- Directory and comparison-site submissions, kept current
- Community participation plan for the threads that surface in answers
- Monthly link and mention audit, with disavow recommendations when needed
Who this is for
Brands with a solid site that are invisible in the places other people write about them, and anyone whose competitors keep appearing in AI answers they do not.
Who it is not for
Anyone looking to buy links or guest posts. Google’s spam policies name link schemes directly, and they now apply to generative responses too.
From $900 a month. Two earned placements a month at the entry tier, eight at Enterprise. Every one pitched, none bought. SEO and AI visibility pricing is published in full.
The audit maps which third-party domains already cite you and which cite your competitors instead. That map decides where the placements go. The $99 SEO and AI visibility audit comes back in three working days, and the fee comes off your first invoice if you continue.
→Next step