They will not take your word for it. We map every independent source that vouches for you, find the gaps between them, and close the ones that matter — until the network holds without you holding it up.
| Cluster | Sources | Anchors |
|---|---|---|
| Owned | 312 | 2 |
| Earned | 618 | 3 |
| Community | 310 | 2 |
Most brands have trust in exactly one place: their own site. That is the one source a sceptical reader discounts entirely. What actually convinces them is finding the same claim in three places that have no reason to agree.
So we treat it as a graph. Every source that mentions you is a node, every citation between them is an edge, and the useful question is not how many nodes you have but whether they are connected.
| Month | Density |
|---|---|
| Jan | 0.09 |
| Feb | 0.11 |
| Mar | 0.12 |
| Apr | 0.15 |
| May | 0.17 |
| Jun | 0.16 |
| Jul | 0.21 |
| Aug | 0.24 |
| Sep | 0.26 |
| Oct | 0.30 |
| Nov | 0.34 |
| Dec | 0.38 |
One hub, three clusters, and the cross-links between them. Node size is the number of connections; colour is the cluster. The cross-links are what we are really building — a cluster that only points at you is a dead end.
| Cluster | Anchors | Linked sources | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owned | 2 | 10 | Properties you publish and control. |
| Earned | 3 | 13 | Third parties who chose to cite you, unpaid. |
| Community | 2 | 10 | Rooms your customers were already in. |
We crawl for every existing mention and plot it, including the ones you had no idea existed. Most clients are surprised in both directions.
We fill the obvious absences first — the reference sources a careful reader checks and currently does not find you in.
We work the edges between clusters. A press mention that cites your own documentation is worth more than either on its own.
Once density passes roughly 0.3 the network starts producing citations we did not place, which is the point at which it is working.
Owned sources are the easiest to create and the least persuasive. Earned and community sources are slower and do nearly all the convincing.
| Anchor | Index |
|---|---|
| Documentation | 88 |
| Editorial | 71 |
| Press | 96 |
| Creators | 79 |
| Analysts | 54 |
| Forums | 83 |
| Groups | 62 |
Both cohorts kept publishing at the same rate. The difference is whether anyone was deliberately connecting the sources to each other.
| Quarter | Mapped web | Unmapped |
|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 100 | 100 |
| Q2 | 112 | 103 |
| Q3 | 127 | 106 |
| Q4 | 141 | 104 |
| Q5 | 138 | 109 |
| Q6 | 166 | 111 |
| Q7 | 191 | 114 |
| Q8 | 219 | 118 |
Mostly about the difference between this and SEO, which is a fair thing to ask.
No, and the distinction matters. Link building optimises for a search engine; this optimises for a sceptical human who is checking whether you are real. The two overlap, but where they diverge we follow the human — which means we will not place a citation somewhere nobody reads.
By giving it something worth citing. Usually that is data: the numbers you already have and nobody else has published. Journalists, analysts and community moderators all need material, and original data is the one thing that is genuinely scarce.
It is the share of possible connections between your sources that actually exist. Low density means you have a list of mentions; high density means you have a network. Networks survive a source going quiet, lists do not.
Mapping takes about two weeks. Seeding the obvious gaps takes a quarter. Getting density past the point where the network produces citations on its own has taken between nine and eighteen months in the programmes we have run.
No. We do not attempt suppression, and you should be sceptical of anyone who offers it — it fails publicly and it fails badly. We add accurate sources and let weight of evidence do the work, and we flag anything defamatory for your lawyer rather than pretending it is a marketing problem.
A program review is a 45-minute read of your current numbers. You leave with the three charts above, filled in with your data, whether or not we work together.