Off-page SEO: what it is, which factors matter in 2026 and how to do it

A company can have the best website in its industry, fast, well organized and full of good content, and still sit on page two of Google. The difference is usually outside the site: how many trustworthy sites link to it, how many media outlets mention it and what customers say about it. That is off-page SEO, and in 2026 it matters on two fronts at once: Google results and the answers of assistants such as ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity.

This guide is written for two readers. For the SEO manager, it organizes the factors and the metrics. For the marketing or communications manager, it explains in business terms why a brand's external reputation is also a ranking asset.

What is off-page SEO

Off-page SEO is everything done outside your own site to make search engines see it as more relevant and trustworthy. Its core is backlinks, the links other sites point to yours. It also includes unlinked brand mentions, reviews, your Google Business Profile and, more and more, citations in AI answers.

Google says so in its own documentation. On the page that explains how it ranks results, it states that one of the factors used to determine quality is "understanding if other prominent websites link or refer to the content", because that is generally a good sign the information is trustworthy (Google, How Search Works). Note the detail: link or refer. It is not only about links.

A metric that comes up constantly here is DR (Ahrefs Domain Rating) or DA (Moz Domain Authority): a 0 to 100 score that estimates the strength of a domain's link profile. It is not a Google metric, but it is useful for comparisons. We cover it in what domain authority is and how to increase it.

On-page vs off-page SEO: how they differ

The simplest way to see it: on-page SEO tells Google what your page is about; off-page SEO helps it decide whether to believe you over the competition. Neither replaces the other.

The last row is what changes the conversation inside a company: off-page SEO is not just the specialist's job. What the communications team does with the press is already off-page SEO, even if nobody calls it that.

The external factors that matter in Google and AI in 2026

1. Links from authoritative, topically relevant sites. Still the most measured signal. Backlinko's study of 11.8 million Google results found that the first result has on average 3.8 times more backlinks than results in positions 2 to 10 (Backlinko). It is a correlation, not a recipe, but the pattern repeats across most industry studies.

2. Unlinked brand mentions. An article that names your company without linking to it still adds reputation, and in AI search it can weigh as much as a link, because models read text, not just links. We go deeper in backlinks vs. unlinked mentions.

3. Local prominence. For businesses with a physical location, Google says local results depend on relevance, distance and prominence, and that prominence is based on info like "how many websites link to your business and how many reviews you have" (Google Business Profile Help).

4. Brand and author reputation. What independent media say about the company and its spokespeople feeds the experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trust signals Google describes in its documentation.

5. Citations in AI. AI assistants build answers from external sources, and the press is among the most cited. A well-run off-page SEO strategy today is also an AI visibility strategy.

How to do off-page SEO step by step

1. Measure the baseline. How many distinct domains link to the site, from which outlets, with which anchor texts and which pages get the most links.
2. Compare with competitors. Sites that link to two or three competitors but not to you are the fastest prospect list there is.
3. Pick target pages. Not every link should point to the homepage. Service pages, categories and original studies need their share.
4. Choose media by audience, not just by metrics. An outlet with real traffic and readers in your industry is worth more than a high-DR site built to sell links.
5. Give media something to publish. Original data, studies, available spokespeople and cases. That is the basis of digital PR with backlinks from press coverage.
6. Measure monthly. With a simple dashboard like the one below.

Common mistakes when building external reputation

Buying volume instead of quality. A hundred links from sites with no readers do not replace five articles in real media. Google neutralizes links it detects as manipulation and, in serious cases, applies manual actions.

Repeating the same anchor text. If every link uses the same exact-match keyword, the profile looks artificial. A natural mix includes brand, URL, partial phrases and generic anchors.

Running SEO and communications separately. Communications lands a great article and nobody asks for the link; SEO buys links on sites communications would never approve for the brand. Getting both teams to coordinate is often the cheapest improvement.

Not measuring AI. In Reporter Outreach's State of Link Building 2026 survey (500 SEO professionals), 74% believe backlinks affect visibility in AI search, but only 24% are tracking it (Reporter Outreach).

How much to invest in links and mentions

There is no single rate, because it depends on the outlets, the country and how much original content the company brings. As an international benchmark, the same Reporter Outreach survey shows that 64% of professionals spend USD 3,000 or more per month on link building, and 75% expect costs to rise over the next two years. In Latin America, amounts vary widely with the size of each outlet, so ask for a quote with the media list in front of you.

What matters is measuring the budget against results: new domains, mentions, organic traffic and AI citations. If you want to start with real media and a transparent list, see how we approach link building in Chilean media, with more than 1,400 Latin American outlets available at ESBUENISIMO LINKS.