Definition
Earned mediaEarned media is coverage of your brand that other people publish without being paid, such as press articles, reviews, forum discussions, social posts, and mentions in industry roundups. It sits alongside owned media (channels you control, like your website) and paid media (advertising).
How Searchable measures this
Searchable's Sources view classifies every page AI engines cite for your tracked prompts by type, including editorial, review, forum, social, competitor, and your own site, so you can see which third-party pages shape answers in your category and which ones leave you out.
Earned vs owned vs paid media
Marketers usually split media into three types by who controls it and who pays for it. The split matters for AI search, because each type plays a different part in what an AI engine says about you.
| Type | Who controls it | Examples | Role in AI answers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Owned | You | Your website, blog, docs, and email list | Main source for your own facts, such as pricing and features |
| Earned | Other publishers and users | Press, reviews, forums, roundups, and social posts | Main source when engines compare and recommend brands |
| Paid | You, through a purchase | Search ads, display ads, and sponsored posts | Separate from organic answers, though some engines now show ads beside them |
Some marketers add a fourth type, shared media, for social posts and reshares. In AI search it's usually grouped with earned media, because someone other than you published it.
Why earned media matters in AI search
When a buyer asks an AI engine which tool or product to choose, the engine tends to answer from pages that already compare options. Your own site describes one product, while a review, roundup, or forum thread covers several at once, so earned coverage often decides which brands make the shortlist.
Our own data shows how small the brand's own site is in these answers. We analyzed more than 30 million citations for roughly 8,700 brands from August 17 to September 27, 2026, and a brand's own site made up 4.2% of citations in answers to unbranded category prompts. Editorial sites made up 19.8%, and competitors' sites made up 41.7%.
The 41.7% figure shows that earned media isn't the only lever. Competitors' own pages, such as comparison and alternatives pages, are cited heavily too, and from your point of view they're neither owned nor earned.
Which earned media AI engines cite
Engines don't treat all earned coverage the same, and each one leans on different source types:
- Editorial and review sites are cited often on comparison and "best" questions, because they cover several brands in one place.
- Forums and Reddit show up for questions about real-world experience, though engines differ widely. Reddit was cited for 4,814 brands across all six engines in our data, but for only 882 on ChatGPT.
- Video is cited heavily by Google AI Overviews, which cited YouTube for more than 4,000 of the brands in our analysis, and much less by other engines.
- Social posts made up only 3.1% of citations in the same data, though Perplexity cites LinkedIn for more brands than any other engine does.
The practical step is to look at what's cited for your own prompts on each engine, instead of assuming one source type matters most everywhere.
How to earn coverage that AI engines use
Earning coverage for AI search uses the same methods as digital PR, with one change in what you aim for. The test for a placement is whether AI engines cite it for the questions your buyers ask, which a big publication doesn't guarantee.
- Find the pages already cited. Run your buyers' prompts and list the third-party pages each engine cites. These pages shape the answer, whether or not they mention you.
- Get onto the lists that leave you out. If a roundup cited on your prompts names your competitors and skips you, contact the publisher with what's new and why you belong.
- Give people something to cite. Original data, clear benchmarks, and expert commentary give journalists and creators a reason to mention you.
- Fix wrong facts in existing coverage. An outdated review can teach an engine the wrong price or feature list, so ask publishers to update it.
A mention without a link still counts here. AI engines read the brand name in the text, which is why unlinked brand mentions matter more in AI search than they did for link building.
How to measure earned media in AI search
Traditional earned media metrics count coverage: articles, reach, and estimated audience. For AI search, the better question is which earned pages are cited in answers to your prompts, and whether those pages mention you.
Track the source types cited for your prompts over time, per engine, and compare how many cited third-party pages mention you against how many mention your competitors. Our earned vs owned decision tree walks through choosing between building your own page and earning coverage for a given prompt.
Frequently asked questions
News coverage, product reviews, ratings on review sites, mentions in industry roundups and comparison articles, forum and Reddit discussions, podcast appearances, and social posts by customers or creators. The common thread is that someone else decided to publish it, and you didn't pay for the placement.
See how AI engines talk about your brand
Get a free report on where ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Google AI name and cite you.