How to adapt your backlinks and digital PR for SearchGPT in healthcare

4th Mar 2025

Here, we explore backlinks, brand mentions, and off-page SEO in the context of AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) for healthcare based terms on SearchGPT. You’ll learn how SearchGPT’s citation methods differ from Google’s, why optimizing for your healthcare brand name—beyond just your content and pages—is essential, and how to secure coverage in the right medical and industry-specific sources to build credibility and trust.

What backlinks are being used by SearchGPT?

When looking at the kind of backlinks it is important to think about the context. Looking at an example for Varn Health, we conducted a search on the ‘best healthcare seo agencies in the UK’ and it returned the below result. Content pulls through from Varn’s healthcare SEO agency page but it is the sources listed below we are really interested in. 

Examining the content we can see that whilst some commercial pages are shown including Varn’s there is a high number of long-form content pages listing out good healthcare SEO agencies. These kinds of lists are becoming more common across the web and appear to be what SearchGPT is prioritising when it comes to citations. If your website is mentioned in this kind of content, you are more likely to appear in searchGPT for relevant results. Varn Health for example is featured in the Jake Jorgovan round-up article article but not in similar referral style pages from Ninja or Loopex. 

These represent golden opportunities to reach out and ask for a placement. Having coverage on articles across the web like this in addition to SEO optimised and helpful content in the form of commercial landing pages for your site appears to be the future when it comes to getting featured in the answers of LLMs. 

Are brand mentions becoming more important?

Brand mentions have been a part of SEO for over a decade but their potential importance has often been debated. In the early days pre-2012, their importance was minimal, with a pure focus on backlinks. Following the Penguin and Hummingbird updates, the algorithm developed in terms of context and entity recognition, and this coincided with the Google patent on ‘implied links’ , a hint that unlinked brand mentions could be a ranking signal. 

From 2015-1018, brand mentions became more important and started to play a significant role in signalling authority if they were placed on authoritative sites. This trend has continued up to 2024, with the added dimension of LLMs now clearly leveraging brand mentions in the answers they surface to users. The areas of the mentions may also play a part, as Neil Patel discusses: 

“The more mentions, the more likely AI models are to consider your content high quality.

That could be things like user-generated content reviews, comments, and forum posts. These are the types of information large language models are likely to use, so use social listening tools to discover these comments.” 

What does SearchGPT say? 

Our question: Do you use brand mentions on forums, social posts and wider non-traditional SEO sources in your algorithm when serving answers on brands to users? 

SearchGPT: I don’t have my own algorithm for ranking brands, but I can analyze and synthesize information based on a mix of sources, including brand mentions on forums, social media, news articles, and other online discussions. However, my responses prioritize authoritative sources like official websites, structured SEO-optimized content, and well-cited information.

Are unlinked mentions still a tactic worth pursuing? Google’s grip on search has not vanished just yet, but with their dip below 90% of the market share for the first time since 2015, ensuring your time is spent on the most valuable tactics will be crucial. 

When it comes to healthcare and pharmaceutical SEO, getting this kind of authority is crucial. With the added scrutiny put on content deemed to be in the Your Money or Your Life bracket, having good quality brand mentions on good quality sites will be essential.