Which Mentions Help Your Business Show Up in AI Answers?

Reddit mentions tracked AI visibility more closely than any other mention type Ahrefs studied, at 0.75 on a scale where 1 is a perfect match. News coverage scored 0.67, a little below ordinary webpage mentions at 0.70. For a contractor, being talked about in many places looks like a better bet than chasing one big press feature.

That is the short version. The longer version matters, because this is a correlation study, not a recipe. Here is what the numbers say, what they don't, and what I'd do about it if I ran a plumbing, HVAC or roofing company.

What did Ahrefs actually study?

Ahrefs compared seven types of brand mentions against how often the same brands showed up in AI answers. According to Louise Linehan at Ahrefs, the study covered 10,000 brands and 260 million non-branded AI prompts, published November 3, 2026.

"Non-branded" matters. These are prompts where nobody typed a company name. It is the same situation as a homeowner asking an AI assistant who to call for a water heater problem.

The seven mention types were Reddit threads, domain mentions, webpage mentions, the total traffic of those webpages, news articles, YouTube and TikTok. The AI platforms measured were ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews.

One honest note: these are big brands across many industries, not local contractors. The study doesn't say anything specific about home services. I'm applying the pattern, not quoting a home-services result.

Do Reddit mentions matter most for AI visibility?

Reddit mentions had the strongest link to AI visibility in the study, at about 0.75 on the Spearman scale. That figure counts mentions inside Reddit threads that rank in Google. It was the highest of the seven types, though every type correlated strongly.

Here is the full list from the study:

Reddit mentions in ranking threads: 0.75
Domain mentions: 0.70
Webpage mentions: 0.70
Total traffic of webpage mentions: 0.70
News article mentions: 0.67
YouTube mentions: 0.64
TikTok mentions: 0.60

Ahrefs points to a reason this might not be a coincidence. Reddit licenses its content to both Google and OpenAI. Ahrefs also reports that across its Brand Radar database of about 500 million AI prompts, Reddit is the second most cited source across ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews, just behind Wikipedia.

For a contractor, that means the places real customers talk honestly about local services carry weight. A thread where someone asks for a trustworthy electrician and three neighbors name your company is the kind of mention I'd want.

Don't take that as a green light to spam Reddit. Fake accounts get caught and banned, and they hurt your name. Earn the mention by doing work people want to talk about.

Does a local news feature beat other mentions?

No. In the study, news article mentions scored 0.67, slightly below general webpage mentions at 0.70. Ahrefs says press coverage still shows a strong positive link to AI visibility, but it does not appear to carry extra weight compared with mentions on ordinary webpages.

I find that useful because a lot of owners treat a newspaper feature as the finish line. It is nice to have. It is not the whole game.

Ahrefs' advice for earned media is to aim for a wide spread of mentions across many sites, as well as big-name coverage. In contractor terms, think of a local chamber of commerce page, a supplier's "find an installer" listing, a homeowner association newsletter, a local sports sponsorship page and a news story. Each is a different place your name appears.

None of these is glamorous. Together they add up.

Does it matter how big the site is that mentions you?

Probably less than you'd think. Ahrefs found that webpage mentions and the total traffic of those webpages both scored 0.70 across the three AI platforms. A mention on a quiet page seems to count about as much as a mention on a busy one.

Ahrefs draws the conclusion that pitching small, niche sites may get you just as much AI visibility as pitching large publications.

That is good news for a local business. You can't get into a national magazine, but you can get onto a local supplier's site, a trade association page or a community blog. Those are reachable.

Caution: "seems to count about as much" is how the study words it. It's a pattern in the data, not a guarantee that any single mention will move anything.

Do more mentions always mean more AI visibility?

More mentions go with more AI visibility, but with diminishing returns. Ahrefs found that brands with 10 times more webpage mentions had about 3.7 times more AI mentions. For Reddit, 10 times more mentions went with about 5.5 times more AI mentions.

So the first mentions you earn are worth chasing, and the thousandth is worth less than the tenth. For a small contractor, that is encouraging. You don't need to be everywhere. You need to stop being invisible.

Invisible is a real problem in the data. When Ahrefs looked at single platforms, many brands got no AI mentions at all:

46% in ChatGPT
23% in AI Mode
18% in AI Overviews

Across all three, only 14% got zero AI mentions, because a brand one platform skipped was usually visible on another.

The study also says brand size explains part of the link between mentions and AI visibility, but not all of it. Bigger brands get more mentions and more AI visibility, so some of the pattern is just size. Be careful not to read this as pure cause and effect.

Does this work the same in ChatGPT, AI Mode and AI Overviews?

Not exactly. Ahrefs found ChatGPT was the least tied to off-site mentions, across 6 of the 7 factors. All three platforms still showed strong links, but ChatGPT's answers followed outside mentions less closely than AI Mode and AI Overviews did.

In practice, I wouldn't try to game each platform separately. The same groundwork helps across all of them: real reviews, a consistent business name and being talked about in several places.

What I would do is check where you stand on each one. Our AI Visibility Report shows whether your business gets named when people ask AI assistants for your service in your area. That beats guessing.

What should a home-services business do with this?

Build mentions the slow, honest way: do good work, make it easy for people to talk about it and show up in more than one place. The study says "mentions are the new links," but which mentions you earn matters less than earning a spread of them.

Here is the process I'd follow:

Find out where you stand. Ask ChatGPT and Google a few questions your customers would ask, like who the best roofer in your town is. Note whether you appear, and who does.
Search for your own name. Look at Reddit, local forums and Facebook groups. See what people already say about your company and whether it is accurate.
Answer questions honestly where you are invited to. If someone asks about a repair in a local thread, a straight answer from a real person with your real name does more good than a sales pitch.
Get listed on a few relevant sites. Supplier installer directories, trade associations, the chamber of commerce and local sponsorships are all realistic.
Keep your Google Business Profile in order. Your name, phone number, services and reviews should say the same thing everywhere. A free Google Profile audit is a quick way to spot gaps.
Repeat. A few new mentions every month beats a burst of effort followed by nothing.

One gap worth naming. Customer reviews were not one of the seven mention types in this study. I wouldn't read that as reviews not mattering. Reviews are still the first thing a homeowner looks at, and they are a big part of how you earn mentions in the first place. It just means this particular study didn't measure them.

What doesn't this study tell us?

It doesn't prove that getting more mentions causes more AI visibility. It shows that brands with more mentions tend to also have more AI visibility. Larger brands do both, so the two move together partly because of size.

Also, this was 10,000 brands, not local service businesses, and the AI landscape changes fast. Treat it as a direction, not a rule.

What I take from it is simple. Be a business that gets talked about, in many places, by real people. That was good advice before AI search and it still is. If you want a starting point, get your free Local Visibility Score and see how you show up today.

Common questions

Should I post about my business on Reddit?

Only if you're useful. Reddit mentions had the strongest link to AI visibility in the Ahrefs study, but self-promotion gets removed fast. Answer real questions honestly, use your real name and don't spam. A mention from a customer who recommends you unprompted is worth far more than your own post.

Is a news article worth the effort for a contractor?

Yes, but don't put all your effort there. Ahrefs found news mentions correlated at 0.67, slightly below general webpage mentions at 0.70. A news feature helps, but a spread of mentions across many sites looks like the stronger plan.

Do mentions on small websites count?

They seem to. In the Ahrefs data, mentions weighted by page traffic scored 0.70, the same as raw webpage mentions. That suggests a mention on a quiet local site may count about as much as one on a busy site. It is a correlation, not a promise.

How many mentions do I need before AI assistants name my business?

Nobody can give an honest number. Ahrefs found diminishing returns: 10 times more webpage mentions went with about 3.7 times more AI mentions. The practical point is that early mentions matter most, and going from none to some is the biggest step.