Ahrefs’ Digest #222: Sponsoring creators, how to get promoted, and more

Welcome to a new edition of the Ahrefs’ Digest.

Here's our meme of the week:

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Quick search marketing news

• Google introduces AI mode. You can now ask complex, multi-part questions or follow-ups.

• DOJ says Google must sell Chrome (and Android could be next.)

• Google now sees more than 5 trillion searches per year.

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Best of the week

We Spent >$1 Million Sponsoring Creators. Here’s What We Learned About B2B Influencer Marketing: We’ve spent over one million dollars and sponsored hundreds of creators, educators, and influencers, even including big names like Linus Tech Tips. Here are the nine lessons we’ve learned.

Leverage, Not Luck: Why Most Marketers Stay Stuck: Generally, companies don’t like to give promotions. They’re expensive and risky. But you can overcome this with leverage: Leverage is your ability to instill a need for your company to promote you, a chance for the company to avoid something painful, or gain something wonderful. These are the four types of leverage you can use.

AI Search Has A Citation Problem: Findings: Premium chatbots provided more confidently incorrect answers than their free counterparts. Generative search tools fabricated links and cited syndicated and copied versions of articles. Content licensing deals with news sources provided no guarantee of accurate citation in chatbot responses.

STUDY: What Drives Brand Mentions in AI Answers?: Brands ranking on page 1 of Google showed a strong correlation (~0.65) with LLM mentions. Bing rankings also mattered but less so (~0.5–0.6).

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Latest on the Ahrefs podcast

This week’s podcast guest is Borko Kovacevic, co-founder of Poddster & Podyx, and former CMO at Microsoft Singapore. Here’s what we covered:

• Where podcasting stands in 2025: is it on the rise or losing steam?

• Should businesses jump into podcasting? What’s the real ROI?

• Is it easier than we think? And how much of it should you outsource?

• Why 99% of podcasts fail—and the key traits of those that don’t

• The hidden networking and growth advantages of having a podcast

Listen to the full episode on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.

See you next week,
Si Quan

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