Ahrefs planted a fabricated brand story on Reddit and Medium with no backlinks. The engines repeated it over the brand’s own site.

That experiment is the clearest evidence yet that earned coverage feeds AI answers directly, whether or not it carries a link. Digital PR was already the best-performing link tactic in the practitioner surveys. What changed is that it now buys two things at once, and most teams are still budgeting for one.

Discuss a digital PR program

What it earns
- Coverage on sources engines already treat as independent, plus the links that coverage tends to carry.
Why it beats guest posting
- About a third of practitioners rank digital PR top for links, roughly twice the share who say that of guest posting.
The regional advantage
- Arabic and Gulf earned media is thinner and less contested. The same budget buys materially more coverage here.
What we will not do
- Paid placements dressed as editorial, fabricated surveys, or releases blasted at lists nobody reads.

The gap between what works and what gets bought

In the practitioner surveys, roughly a third of respondents rank digital PR as their best-performing link method, about twice the share who say that of guest posting. In the same surveys, only about a fifth say they have actually changed how they build links.

That gap is the opportunity. Most teams know what works and keep buying what is easy to buy.

What changed with AI answers

Digital PR used to be justified on links and awareness. There is now a third return and nobody budgeted for it.

When an assistant is asked an open recommendation question, it reaches for sources that read as independent. Editorial coverage, roundups, industry press and analyst notes sit near the top of the hierarchy engines lean on. Your own site sits at the bottom, because a model can tell you chose what to publish about yourself.

The Ahrefs experiment showed how directly this works. They seeded a fabricated backstory for a brand on Reddit and Medium, with no backlinks pointing anywhere, and engines repeated that story in preference to the brand’s own website. Whatever you make of the ethics of the test, the mechanism is now documented.

The practical consequence is that a placement with a nofollow link, or no link at all, still moves your AI visibility. That changes which coverage is worth pursuing.

What we pitch

Journalists do not publish your product. They publish something their readers want, and your name attaches to it. Three things work reliably.

Data you own. Numbers from your own operations, anonymised and aggregated, on a question your industry argues about. The strongest asset available, because nobody else can publish it. It is also what we did ourselves with our Arabic AI citations research, which is why we can talk about this from experience rather than theory.

Expert commentary, fast. A named person at your company with a real opinion, reachable within hours when something happens in your sector. Slow is the same as absent.

A genuinely useful free tool or resource. Harder to build, and it earns coverage for years rather than a week.

What does not work: a release about your funding round, an infographic nobody requested, and a survey of two hundred people phrased to produce a predetermined headline. Journalists have seen all three this month.

The regional advantage

Arabic and Gulf earned media is a thinner, less contested market than the English one. Fewer agencies are pitching, outlets are more open to expert commentary, and the same budget produces more coverage.

It also counts for more here. Because the Arabic published record is thin, each piece of Arabic coverage carries more weight when an engine assembles an answer than the equivalent English piece would.

We pitch in both languages, to both media sets, and report them separately.

What we report

Placements with the outlet and the date. Links earned, split into followed and not, without pretending the nofollow ones are worthless. Referral traffic where it exists, which for most placements is modest, and it is honest to say so.

And the part most agencies do not report: whether a placement subsequently appeared as a cited source in AI answers about you. We run the prompt set before and after a campaign, so the AI effect is a measurement rather than a claim.

Two ways to earn a link

Digital PR against guest posting

Both appear on link-building invoices. They are not comparable, and the surveys have been saying so for years.

Guest posting

Digital PR

Who decides to publish

Guest postingYou, by paying or by asking a site that accepts submissions.

Digital PRAn editor, because the story is worth their readers’ time.

What the link signals

Guest postingThat somebody accepted a submission.

Digital PRThat an independent outlet chose to cover you.

AI answer effect

Guest postingLittle. Engines discount pages that exist to host links.

Digital PRDirect. Editorial coverage sits near the top of the source hierarchy.

Practitioner ranking

Guest postingWell below digital PR in the surveys.

Digital PRRoughly a third rank it their best-performing method.

Cost per placement

Guest postingLow, and it scales until it stops working.

Digital PRHigher per piece, and it compounds.

Risk

Guest postingFootprints are detectable, and networks get devalued in batches.

Digital PRThe story either lands or it does not. No penalty risk.

We still run guest posting where it makes sense, and it is on its own page. This is the other half of the budget.

How a digital PR program runs

Asset and angle

Weeks 1 to 3
- What you can say that nobody else can, usually from your own operational data
- Anonymised and aggregated so it is publishable without exposing clients
- The angle checked against what journalists in your sector actually covered this year
- A named spokesperson agreed, with a real view and real availability
Media mapping

Weeks 2 to 4
- The outlets that matter in your sector, English and Arabic, listed separately
- Which of them AI engines already cite when asked about your category
- Journalists who have covered adjacent stories in the last six months
- Reactive opportunities identified, with a response window you can actually meet
Pitching

Ongoing
- Individual pitches, not a blast. Each one written for that journalist
- Reactive commentary turned around in hours where the story is live
- Follow-up handled without becoming the agency that will not stop emailing
- Everything logged so you can see what was pitched, to whom, and what happened
Measurement

Monthly
- Placements with outlet, date and link status, followed and nofollow separated
- Referral traffic reported honestly, which for most placements is modest
- The AI prompt set re-run to see whether the coverage became a cited source
- Reported in the portal beside search and paid media

The engagement

What a digital PR retainer covers

This is a slow-compounding service. Campaigns land unevenly and the reporting reflects that rather than smoothing it.

01 Included

Data asset development

Turning your own operational numbers into something a journalist wants, anonymised and defensible.

02 Included

Bilingual media mapping

English and Arabic outlet lists built separately, because they are separate markets with separate journalists.

03 Included

Reactive commentary

A monitored brief so your spokesperson can be quoted while the story is still live.

04 Included

Individual pitching

Written per journalist. No blasts, because blasts are why most PR inboxes have a filter.

05 Included

Coverage and link reporting

Outlet, date and link status, with followed and nofollow shown separately rather than merged.

06 Included

AI citation check

The prompt set run before and after each campaign, so the AI effect is measured rather than asserted.

Not sure you have a story?

Most companies do and cannot see it, because it is sitting in an operations dashboard nobody thought was interesting. Tell us what data you hold and we will tell you honestly whether it is publishable.

Discuss a digital PR program No obligation, reply within 24 hours.

How we report it

What earned coverage does to AI citations

Coverage feeds AI answers whether or not it carries a link. These are two clients where we can show the per-engine citation counts rather than assert an effect.

Delta Medical Labs

5,570 pages cited across AI assistants, July 2026

3,600AI Overview
1,800AI Mode
130ChatGPT
40Gemini

Eduverse

171 pages cited across AI assistants, August 2026

65AI Mode
59AI Overview
47ChatGPT

89.1%of the sites ChatGPT cites, Perplexity never touches for the same questionWellows, 804,058 answers, Sept 2025 to May 2026
79.6%of sources appear on one engine only22.7M citations across 1,146,483 questions, 2026
46xgap in brand citation rate between ChatGPT at 0.59% and Perplexity at 13.05%Study of 34,234 AI responses, 2026

Delta’s AI Overview count is 27 times its ChatGPT count. Eduverse’s top and bottom engines sit 18 pages apart. Same agency, same method, opposite shapes. Any single score we quoted you would have described neither.

Discuss a digital PR programme

Client reviews

All reviews

egyptpyramidstours.com

Marcous Fathy

Business Development Manager

We've just completed our first quarter with Beshoy, and the results have been outstanding. Our organic traffic grew from 3,650 to 18,720, we achieved a 300%+ ROI from reservations, and secured Featured Snippets for multiple tour packages.

24 September 2023

drserkanaygin.com

Dr. Serkan Aygın

Hair Transplant Surgeon

VOCTOS built an SEO strategy that grew our bookings and expanded our visibility to a whole new audience by 375%, with our keywords in the top search results up more than 1600%. Their understanding of Arabic search behavior made all the difference.

7 December 2021

vpnarabi.com

Samy Amin

Head of Editorial, VPN Arabi

VOCTOS developed and executed a full Arabic SEO strategy for our VPN company. We saw a 280% increase in organic traffic, secured the top spot for competitive keywords, and our content got cited 160 times in ChatGPT responses. What really impressed us was how well they understand the Arabic market, not just generic SEO translated into Arabic.

1 June 2025

Saif Cabinets Decor

Abraam Samy

CEO of Saif Cabinets Decor

When we first came to VOCTOS, our business was almost invisible online despite years of quality work. Their team fixed the technical issues holding us back and built an SEO strategy ready for AI search too. Within months we ranked on Google's first page for over 55 keywords, with organic traffic up around 170%.

4 June 2026

serialtranslation.com

Samy Ibrahim

General Manager of Serial Translation

VOCTOS took over our Google Ads campaigns and brought our CPC down by 53%, while our conversion rate jumped 164.7%, with much higher quality leads coming through. It has been a pleasure working with the entire team.

15 July 2022

Eagle Marble

Ebraam Ayoub

General Manager

The VOCTOS team helped us grow our search visibility by 190%. We appreciate their responsiveness, dedication, and continuous support throughout the project.

25 March 2023

ovistone.com

John Attia

Digital Marketing Director

We hired VOCTOS two years ago to grow our SEO and traffic, and they delivered. What impressed me most was seeing Ovistone start showing up in ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews when people searched for stone suppliers. Our organic traffic keeps climbing and our qualified B2B inquiries have jumped.

13 October 2023

royalhaircenter.com

Dr. Mathew John

Senior Surgeon

When we first partnered with VOCTOS, our clinic had just two physicians and one night doctor, with everyone juggling several roles. We've grown a lot since then, today we have three physicians, a full-time secretary, and dedicated cleaning staff, largely thanks to the steady flow of new patients their marketing brought in.

11 August 2021

nsfx.com

Rami Dawud

Marketing Manager

Beshoy is a true SEO professional, punctual, and the quality of his delivery is fantastic. His analysis gave us real insight and a clear path to build our brand's online presence.

1 May 2019

marketingcollege.com

Nahed Maher

Brand Ambassador

SEO is a complicated world, and few people bring the creative techniques Beshoy does. He stays on top of the latest SEO trends and genuinely cares about getting his clients the most value.

16 October 2016

nrg-digital.com

Ahmed Sabbour

CEO

It's been a real pleasure working with Beshoy. He's innovative, broad-minded, and has a great ability to analyze, summarize, and deliver strong results, even working remotely.

16 October 2016

vintage-vaults.com

Sherif El-Haddad

Founder / CEO

Beshoy has done a great job increasing our SEO ranking. He's also helped boost our conversions and improve the website.

7 December 2023

What we pitch

The assets that actually earn coverage

Journalists publish something their readers want, and your name attaches to it. These are the three that work.

Data you own

Numbers from your own operations, anonymised and aggregated, on a question your industry argues about. Nobody else can publish it.

Expert commentary, fast

A named person with a real view, reachable within hours when something happens in your sector. Slow is the same as absent.

A genuinely useful free tool

Harder to build, and it earns coverage for years rather than a week.

What does not work

A release about your funding round, an unrequested infographic, and a survey phrased to produce a predetermined headline.

The Arabic media list

Thinner and less contested. The same budget buys materially more coverage, and it counts for more in AI answers.

The measurement nobody reports

Whether a placement subsequently appeared as a cited source in AI answers about you.

We run the prompt set before and after a campaign, so the AI effect is a measurement rather than a claim.

Questions about digital PR

How many links will we get?

Nobody honest answers this with a number. An editor decides, not us. What we commit to is the volume of pitches, the quality of the asset and the reporting. Anyone quoting a guaranteed link count is buying placements rather than earning them.

Is a nofollow link worth anything?

More than it used to be. It still carries brand and referral value, and since AI engines cite sources rather than follow links, a nofollow placement on a trusted outlet can move your AI visibility. We report followed and nofollow separately rather than merging them.

Can you guarantee coverage in a specific publication?

No. If an agency guarantees a named outlet, that is a paid placement, and paid placements are increasingly distinguishable from editorial by both Google and the engines.

Do you do Arabic media?

Yes, as a separate list with separate journalists. It is also where the value is highest right now, because fewer agencies are pitching and Arabic coverage carries more weight in AI answers given how thin the Arabic record is.

How long before this shows results?

Coverage can land in the first month or in the fourth. Links and AI citations follow coverage. This is the slowest service we sell and the one with the longest tail, and we will say so before you sign rather than after.

What if we have no data to publish?

Then we look at expert commentary and a resource asset instead. If neither is available, we will tell you digital PR is the wrong spend for you right now.