SearchEye: Glossary & Placement Guide

This covers everything you need to know about how SearchEye works — from placement types and article formats to platform features, publisher metrics, and plan tiers. Whether you're a new client or a team member onboarding into the platform, this is your reference point.

1. What Is SearchEye?

2. Placement Types

3. Article Formats: New vs. Existing

4. Placement Type Quick Reference

5. Platform Features & Tools

6. Publisher Terms

7. SEO & Performance Terms

8. Plans & Pricing Terms

9. Process Overview

SearchEye is a digital PR and SEO marketplace that connects brands with publishers across 50,000+ vetted media outlets. Brands use SearchEye to secure placements — editorial mentions, backlinks, features, and more — in trusted publications, improving their visibility on Google and in AI-powered search engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity.

SearchEye is not an agency. It is a platform that facilitates direct collaboration between brands and publishers, with AI tools that handle strategy, content, and pitching end-to-end.

SearchEye offers six placement types. Each serves a different goal, and a healthy strategy typically uses a mix of all of them.

What it is: A full editorial article built around your brand, company, product, or leadership. The brand is the central subject of the piece — not just a mention within a broader topic.

What it looks like in practice: Think of it as the classic PR feature. An article titled "How [Brand] Is Changing the Way Startups Approach Digital PR" where the entire piece is about you, your story, your product, or your expertise.

Best for:

• Brand awareness and recognition

• Product reviews and comparisons

• Thought leadership and founder storytelling

• Driving buyer intent at the decision stage

Important to know: Not every publisher offers Brand Features. Because the article is built around a single brand, publishers are selective. Features are typically the most premium placement type and are used more strategically than Brand Mentions.

What it is: Your brand is referenced naturally within a broader editorial article alongside other sources, tools, or context. The article is not about your brand specifically — your brand is included as a relevant reference point within a wider topic.

What it looks like in practice: An article titled "12 Tools Reshaping How Startups Approach Digital PR" that includes a paragraph on SearchEye alongside other platforms. SearchEye is mentioned and linked, but the article covers the topic broadly.

Best for:

• Building AI search visibility (the most effective placement type for this)

• Establishing a consistent brand presence across trusted publications

• Social proof and credibility

• Driving awareness without requiring a full editorial commitment from the publisher

Important to know: Brand Mentions are the core of SearchEye's strategy and the most widely available placement type. Consistent mentions across independent, trusted publications are what AI engines like ChatGPT and Perplexity use to determine which brands to surface in recommendations. If you're optimizing for AI search, Brand Mentions should make up the majority of your placement volume.

What it is: A contextual backlink placed within a new or existing article on a high-authority publication. The brand is not necessarily mentioned by name — the link simply points to your domain from within relevant editorial content.

What it looks like in practice: An article about project management tools includes a hyperlink to your website within a relevant sentence, without explicitly calling out your brand name. The reader can click through, but the primary value is the SEO signal the link passes to your domain.

Best for:

• Domain authority building

• SEO and page-level authority signals

• Referral traffic

• Accessing publishers that don't offer editorial brand placements

Important to know: Some high-authority publications only allow Links as part of their editorial policy — they do not offer Brand Features or Brand Mentions. A Link placement is the only way to get your domain onto those sites, making this type strategically valuable even though it offers less brand visibility than a Mention or Feature.

What it is: A member of your leadership team or brand spokesperson is quoted as a thought leader within a news article, trend piece, or expert roundup. The quote is attributed to the individual by name and title.

What it looks like in practice: An article titled "What Founders Get Wrong About Media Outreach" includes a quote from your CEO sharing their perspective on the topic, credited as: "[Name], CEO of [Brand], explains..."

Best for:

• Thought leadership and personal branding

• Building trust and authority

• Founder or executive visibility

• Positioning leadership alongside recognized industry voices

What it is: A dedicated Q&A or profile piece featuring your leadership team. The entire article is structured around an interview format — questions and answers — rather than a general editorial piece.

What it looks like in practice: An article on Entrepreneur titled "From Bootstrapped to Bloomberg: A Founder's PR Journey" featuring a direct interview with your founder, walking through their story, strategy, and insights.

Best for:

• Brand storytelling and narrative building

• Founder profiles and personal brand development

• Hiring, culture, and company positioning

• Long-form authority content

What it is: A formal news announcement written and distributed to publishers through the SearchEye marketplace. Ideal for genuinely newsworthy announcements.

What it looks like in practice: A funding announcement, product launch, partnership, or major company milestone formatted as a press release and distributed to relevant outlets.

Best for:

• Product launches

• Funding rounds and investor announcements

• Strategic partnerships

• Company milestones

For most placement types, you can choose between two article formats.

The publisher writes a brand-new piece of content that incorporates your brand. SearchEye handles the strategy, pitch, and content creation — you approve everything before it goes live.

Best when: You want full control over the angle and topic, or the publisher doesn't have an existing article that fits your target keyword.

Your brand, link, or quote is inserted into an article that is already published and ranking on Google. Rather than waiting for a new piece to build authority, you benefit from the existing article's traffic and domain signals immediately.

Best when: Speed and SEO impact are priorities, or a publisher has a high-ranking article that is a strong topical fit for your brand.

The SearchEye publisher network contains 50,000+ vetted publications across every major industry, region, and language. Brands browse, filter, and place directly through the marketplace. Publications are pre-vetted and pre-negotiated, so there is no manual outreach required.

SearchEye's autonomous AI agent. Sofia analyzes your brand, industry, and campaign goals, then identifies the exact publications and articles where your brand should appear — across Google, ChatGPT, Reddit, and other platforms. It handles strategy, pitching, and content generation.

An AI content engine that writes articles, briefs, and pitches for placements. ContentAI produces the full article or insertion content that gets submitted to the publisher. All content is sent to the brand for approval before anything is submitted to the publisher.

AI-generated placement strategy for each publication. When you select a publisher in the marketplace, StrategyAI produces a complete plan: target keywords, article title, content brief, pitch rationale, and URL recommendations.

AI-generated publisher pitches. PitchAI writes the outreach message to the publisher on your behalf, tailored to the specific publication and placement type. You can review and edit before it is sent.

Verification tooling that confirms live placements meet quality standards after publication.

SearchEye connects to third-party SEO and AI visibility tools including Ahrefs (domain authority data), SEMrush (keyword and competitive intelligence), AthenaHQ (LLM citation tracking), DemandSphere (AI search rankings), and others. These data sources power publication scoring, filtering, and strategy generation.

A curated set of 20+ publishers available only through SearchEye, at rates 70–90% below what brands would pay going directly. These relationships are pre-negotiated by SearchEye on behalf of all platform users.

Any media outlet, blog, news site, or digital publication listed on the SearchEye marketplace. Publishers set their own editorial requirements and determine which placement types they accept.

A metric from Ahrefs that measures the strength and authority of a website's backlink profile, on a scale of 0–100. Higher DR generally indicates a more authoritative site. DR is one of the primary filters when evaluating publisher quality.

The estimated monthly visitor count for a publication. Displayed on each publisher listing. Higher traffic publications tend to have broader audience reach and stronger SEO signals.

A percentage discount is applied to marketplace placement costs, available on Agency and Enterprise plans. The discount is applied automatically across eligible publishers.

The percentage of submitted placement orders that are successfully published. SearchEye's current fulfillment rate is approximately 80–85%. If a placement cannot be fulfilled, credits are refunded to the account.

Whether a given publication is cited by large language models (ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Claude) when answering questions in your industry. Publications with high LLM citation rates are more valuable for AI search visibility. SearchEye surfaces this data through its AthenaHQ and DemandSphere integrations.

A hyperlink from one website pointing to another. Backlinks from high-authority publications are one of the strongest signals Google uses to determine a site's authority and ranking. SearchEye's Link placement type is built around securing backlinks.

A backlink is placed naturally within the body of an editorial article, in a context relevant to the linked content. Contextual backlinks carry more SEO weight than links placed in footers, sidebars, or author bios.

A general term for how much trust and authority a website has accumulated, as measured by its backlink profile. Often used interchangeably with Domain Rating (DR) in the context of SearchEye's marketplace.

The degree to which a publication or article is related to your brand's industry or subject matter. Placements on topically relevant sites carry stronger SEO signals than placements on unrelated sites.

The likelihood that your brand will be surfaced by AI-powered search tools — ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and others — when users ask questions related to your industry. AI search visibility is built through consistent Brand Mentions across trusted, independent publications, which AI engines use as source signals.

The page displayed by a search engine in response to a query. SearchEye placements on high-authority sites improve a brand's ranking on SERPs over time through accumulated backlinks and editorial mentions.

SearchEye charges a monthly platform fee (subscription) plus per-placement publisher spend billed separately.

For brands getting started with digital PR and AI visibility. Includes up to 10 brands, a $10,000 monthly spend cap, and access to all 50,000+ publishers. Exclusive deal pricing at $100/mention.

For agencies and teams managing multiple clients. Includes up to 50 brands, a $100,000 monthly spend cap, a 25% publisher discount, and exclusive deal pricing at $40/mention. API access included.

Full-service tier with white-glove support. Includes everything in Agency plus 10+ hours of done-for-you outreach per month, managed by SearchEye's team.

The monthly subscription cost for accessing the SearchEye platform. This is separate from publisher spend — actual placement costs are billed on top of the platform fee.

The amount paid per placement, based on the specific publication's rate. Publisher spend varies by outlet — factors include DR, traffic, industry, and placement type. Rates on SearchEye are pre-negotiated and lower than going directly to publishers.

The maximum monthly publisher spend allowed per plan. Spending beyond the cap requires an upgrade to a higher plan tier.

This is how a standard placement works from start to finish.

Step 1 — Browse and Select The brand (or SearchEye's team, on Enterprise) browses the marketplace, filters by DR, traffic, niche, and placement type, and selects a publication.

Step 2 — Generate Strategy StrategyAI generates a placement strategy — keywords, article angle, content brief, and pitch rationale. The brand reviews and approves.

Step 3 — Content and Pitch Created ContentAI writes the article or insertion content. PitchAI writes the publisher outreach. Both are sent to the brand for review and approval before anything is submitted.

Step 4 — Submitted to Publisher Once approved, the pitch and content are sent to the publisher. The publisher reviews and accepts or declines.

Step 5 — Published Upon acceptance, the content is published. The brand receives the live link. VerifyAI confirms the placement meets quality standards.

Step 6 — Credits Refunded if Unfulfilled If a publisher declines or the placement cannot be fulfilled, credits for that order are returned to the account automatically.

Last updated: May 2026. For questions, contact the SearchEye team or visit help.searcheye.io.