Link Building in the Era of AI

Link building in AI search: a glossary

Corroboration ledger

What is Corroboration ledger?

A corroboration ledger is a running record of which independent sources assert which claims about an entity, kept so that link work can be measured as evidence gathered rather than as links acquired.

Who uses the term Corroboration ledger?

The term is this book's own, introduced in its measurement chapter.

Teams doing the same work without the term usually keep it as a spreadsheet of placements, which records the placement but not the claim the placement makes.

A link list records where you appear. A corroboration ledger records what each appearance says about you, which is the part a retrieval system reads.

A rank tracker measures position. A ledger measures agreement, and agreement is what the book argues has replaced position as the thing worth tracking.

The book defines the measure precisely: for each canonical triple, count the independent domains stating it in consistent language. It calls that number, triples corroborated across territories, the truest asset metric in the book, and says watching it climb is watching machine confidence being built.

Read about the book's argument.

Related terms

  • Corroboration

    Corroboration is the agreement between independent sources on the same claim about an entity, and it is what raises a retrieval system's confidence that the claim is true.

  • Machine-read testimony

    Machine-read testimony is the body of statements about a brand that AI search systems actually read and weigh, as distinct from the links they were once assumed to count.

  • Entity record

    An entity record is the set of attributes a search or AI system holds about a thing, assembled from every source it has read and used when the system needs to say what that thing is.