Remember when just a few links from relevant niche sites could reliably bring in organic traffic? That time has passed. With Google’s AI Overviews and answer engines like ChatGPT reshaping how people search, the visibility bar is much higher. You now need a more strategic approach to stay in front of your audience. Partnering with a seasoned link building agency is one of the most effective ways to do that—and one of the most critical investments you can make. The right agency doesn’t simply acquire links; it helps establish your brand as a trusted, frequently cited authority in the AI era.
So how do you pick the right partner for your business? Even though the search interface is evolving, the fundamental ranking signals are still largely intact—what’s shifted is how they’re weighted. LLMs depend on reliable, authoritative sources to support their responses. That makes high-quality, authoritative link building more crucial than ever. This article walks you through how to evaluate and select a link building agency that understands these new priorities and can position your brand as a credible leader in an AI-driven SEO environment.
How link building and SEO are evolving
Gartner has forecast a 25% decline in traditional search engine queries as AI systems handle more of the answering. That’s why working with an agency that truly understands AI SEO is no longer optional. But how can you tell which agencies actually do?
The key signals are holistic authority and visibility within AI-generated results. An Authoritas study found that only one in five links cited in Google’s AI Overviews overlapped with a top-10 organic result. Even more striking, 62.1% of the links or domains mentioned in those Overviews did not appear in the top 10 at all…