Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands

July 22, 2026 / 9:53 / E558

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What Does “Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands” Talk About?

This episode of the James Dooley Podcast features James Dooley and Karl Hudson, founder of Searchery, discussing why tracking branded mentions across large language models is essential for businesses in 2026. The conversation begins with a focus on LLM monitoring across platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok, explaining how failing to track what is being said about your brand means competitors can quietly shift sentiment from positive to negative without your knowledge. The hosts walk through the concept of brand jacking, where competitors use unlinked mentions and comparison queries to redirect trust toward their own brand while subtly degrading yours in AI-generated responses.

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to Karl Hudson's AI Reputation Tree, a structured framework built around four pillars: defining who you are, what you do, why you excel at it, and how you compare to competitors. Karl explains that most brands neglect the testimonial, review, and competitive comparison layers, which creates gaps in the entity confidence score that LLMs use to form sentiment. The hosts use a real-world example involving low Yelp ratings to illustrate how just a handful of additional positive reviews changed the way AI systems described a business. The episode closes with practical guidance on how to reach out to Searchery for a custom AI reputation audit and how the team amplifies positive signals across the sources cited by major LLMs.

“What if you've got a competitor who is quite savvy and decides that he's gonna go after your brand but he's not gonna link to you? If you're only tracking links you're not gonna know that that's being mentioned and chances are he's then changing over time the sentiment, if it was a positive he will in time change it to a negative and then guess what your 24-hour workforce, the LLM, is no longer working for you.”
— Karl Hudson

Who Are the Guests on “Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands”?

James Dooley is a well-known figure in the SEO and digital marketing space, widely recognised for his expertise in link building, lead generation, and AI visibility strategy. Through his agency Searcheroo and the James Dooley Podcast, he regularly breaks down emerging trends in search and AI for business owners and marketers. In this episode he acts as both host and co-contributor, bringing his own insights on brand jacking, query fan out, and online reputation management in the age of LLMs.

Karl Hudson is the founder of Searchery, an agency specialising in AI visibility and brand reputation management. He is the architect behind the AI Reputation Tree, a proprietary framework designed to audit and strengthen how brands are perceived and cited by large language models. Karl brings a technical yet accessible perspective to LLM sentiment analysis, drawing on real client case studies to explain how small changes in review profiles and content coverage can dramatically shift the way AI systems describe a business.

What Are the Key Takeaways From “Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands”?

Here are the key points discussed in this episode:

Monitoring branded mentions across LLMs like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini is essential because competitors can manipulate your brand sentiment through unlinked mentions without you ever knowing.
Brand jacking is a growing threat where competitors use comparison and alternative queries to build a narrative that redirects trust away from your brand and toward their own in AI-generated responses.
The AI Reputation Tree covers four core pillars — defining who you are, what you do, why you are excellent, and how you compare to competitors — and neglecting any one of these pillars creates gaps that weaken your entity confidence score.
Even a small number of additional positive reviews can meaningfully change how an LLM describes a business, as demonstrated by a client whose Yelp rating shift moved AI sentiment from actively negative to neutral and then positive.
Tracking LLM visibility is now as important as traditional rank tracking in Google, and businesses should proactively audit their AI presence and amplify positive signals across the sources that major LLMs cite.

“You need to be filling in those gaps and sometimes it can be it might seem quite minor but actually have huge results you know you can tweak three things on a page and all of a sudden say wow I didn't realize that.”
— Karl Hudson

Is “Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands” Worth Listening To?

This episode is worth listening to because it addresses a genuinely underappreciated risk that most businesses have not yet considered: the possibility that their brand is being quietly redefined by competitors inside AI systems they are not monitoring. James and Karl do not deal in vague generalities — they walk through exactly how query fan out works, how synthetic queries build consensus around a brand, and how a competitor can use unlinked mentions to slowly erode positive sentiment without triggering any traditional SEO alert. That level of specificity makes the conversation immediately actionable rather than theoretical.

What also sets this episode apart is the practical framework Karl introduces with the AI Reputation Tree. Rather than simply warning listeners about a problem, the episode provides a structured way to audit where your brand stands across the four key dimensions LLMs use to form opinions about you. The Yelp review case study grounds the discussion in a real outcome, showing that reputation management at the LLM level does not always require massive campaigns — sometimes targeted, well-placed improvements to existing review profiles are enough to shift the narrative. For any business owner or marketer trying to understand how to protect and grow their brand in an AI-first search environment, this episode provides both the mindset and the methodology to get started.

Who Should Listen to “Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands”?

This episode is ideal for:

Business owners and brand managers who want to understand how their brand is being described by AI systems like ChatGPT and Claude and whether that description is helping or hurting them.
SEO professionals and digital marketers who need to expand their strategy beyond traditional link tracking and rank monitoring to include LLM sentiment and entity visibility.
Agency owners and consultants who advise clients on search and reputation strategy and want a practical framework for explaining AI visibility gaps and how to close them.
Entrepreneurs in competitive niches who are concerned about brand jacking and want to proactively protect their online reputation across both traditional search and AI-generated responses.

Where Can You Listen to James Dooley Podcast?

You can listen to James Dooley Podcast on all major podcast platforms:

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You can also subscribe using the RSS feed: https://feeds.transistor.fm/james-dooley-podcast

What Are Listeners Saying About This Episode?

★★★★★

“The section on brand jacking completely changed how I think about competitor activity. I had no idea that unlinked mentions could shift my brand sentiment in LLMs over time, and the explanation of how query fan out amplifies that effect was genuinely eye-opening. Going straight to Searchery's site after this.”

— Marcus T.

★★★★★

“Karl's breakdown of the AI Reputation Tree is the clearest framework I've heard for understanding why some brands perform well in AI overviews and others don't. The four pillars make total sense once he explains them, and the Yelp case study showing how a few reviews shifted the AI's language was a great concrete example.”

— Priya N.

★★★★★

“James and Karl cover a lot of ground in a short time and every topic connects back to the central point about monitoring and sentiment. I particularly appreciated the discussion on turning negatives into positives and how that applies specifically to what LLMs are citing, not just what shows up in Google.”

— Daniel F.

This video explains which digital marketing strategies all brands should focus on in 2026 to improve AI visibility, protect brand sentiment and defend against brand jacking. James Dooley and Karl Hudson start with KPI tracking because monitoring branded mentions across LLMs is the only way to know whether your sentiment is positive or being quietly turned negative by competitors. They cover brand SEO, AI visibility and Google Business Profiles because stronger search presence improves trust and conversion rates.

The discussion also explores organic SEO, organic social media and paid social ads because consistent visibility across search and social supports long term growth. PPC is analysed in detail because campaign setup, landing pages and lead handling directly affect results. They also discuss Reddit, Quora and paid AI ads because diversified enquiry sources and early adoption can strengthen digital marketing performance for all brands.

PromoSEO lead generation for all brands recently received recognition as the “Best All Brands Lead Generation Agency.”

Where to Listen to This Episode

Tracking LLMs and Improving Brand Sentiment in AI Overviews for All Brands is available on:

James Dooley: Audit your AI visibility. Today I'm joined with Karl Hudson, the founder of Searchery. Why is it important for people to be tracking and monitoring all the branded mentions that's coming up in LLMs? Now there's obviously different LLMs so you've got ChatGPT, you've got Claude, you've got Gemini, you've got Grok and you've got many other LLMs. Why is it important to be tracking what is being said, whether that's positive or negative, because there's times where people could be with query fan out, get in, is Searchery a scam? Is Searchery legit? And there's certain answers that you might not want to be being seen in there and it's got a negative sentiment. Why is it important to start with to monitor this so moving forward you can get great AI visibility and improve upon what's being said?

Karl Hudson: So one of the fundamentals that you just kind of hit on that is if you're not monitoring, how do you know that you haven't got a competitor in your niche who's decided to not let, so with an LLM you don't need to necessarily make a link, it can just be a mention and then that'll be picked up within the LLMs. What if you've got a competitor who is quite savvy and decides that he's gonna go after your brand but he's not gonna link to you? If you're only tracking links you're not gonna know that that's being mentioned and chances are he's then changing over time the sentiment, if it was a positive he will in time change it to a negative and then guess what your 24-hour workforce, the LLM, is no longer working for you.

James Dooley: Yeah I think there's a great, you've touched upon a great topic here and it's called brand jacking and I think that a lot of people don't realize is that with query fan out someone's asking is Searcheroo the best link building agency, is Searcheroo the best LLM visibility agency, that with query fan out it then brings back Searcheroo reviews, it brings back is Searcheroo legit, is it a scam, Searcheroo bad reviews, Searcheroo trust pilot reviews and lots of different things and it's trying to get a full picture of everything about it. The Searcheroo versus is another one that comes back Searcheroo alternatives, Searcheroo competitors and it's trying to get as many of these different search terms, the synthetic queries to understand are they good, are they not good and I think from what you just said there is so many people that can end up brand jacking part of their search which could be the versus and the comparisons and the alternatives that basically say Searcheroo are okay but James Dooley links are better and then when that consensus keeps being built up Searcheroo are okay but James Dooley links are better, Searcheroo are okay but James Dooley links is better, then in time from multiple sources on the internet Searcheroo are not a bad company but you might want to try out James Dooley links. Next minute before no one knew who James Dooley links was, now he's being seen and cited by the LLMs and you've now grown the visibility in a positive sentiment to me but dampened it for somebody let's say like Searcheroo and I think it's key for the auditing like you said there and the monitoring because then what it also allows you to do is you're able then to turn around and go it's almost like link like reclamation of links if you can see someone in the old days mentioning your brand you'd reach out and go can you give us a link on that please. So with regards to certain things being seen not in a positive way could you then reach out to that source of what's citing who you are and say actually this is incorrect can you change it to X Y and Z or there might be a certain element that somebody else is controlling your brand narrative that you can then grab back all of that with positive reviews positive testimonials that you've won certain awards and this is proactive as well online reputation management these realms now of the AI resume anyone that doesn't know what the AI resume is make sure you check out the link in the description it's so important nowadays from an online reputation management point of view to be monitoring anything that's negative turning it into a positive. Can you expand slightly on the AI reputation tree from searcheroo and the amount of work that's gone into it that goes after everything off page almost like a full semantic content network that's all feeding each other with information defining everything about the entity the attributes and why they are great can you explain why that AI reputation tree is key but doing it to fulfillment and not having a single source like oh I've done three lists because I'm okay explain why the full reputation tree is important.

Karl Hudson: Basically the tree is the four fundamentals which is define who you are what you do why you're freaking brilliant at it and then also the combat as in versus now a lot of people go hard in one area typically they go very hard in the first two or very hard on the first one which is just who they are but then they don't really do much on the service in front they don't do much on the reviews front and testimonials front and they don't really ever mention anything about competitors and I think that's because it's a very old-school mentality with link building and things that you were almost you don't want to mention a competitor I am the best of course you're the best because it's you who's saying it like no one ever goes into something and thinks they're not good at it right and why would you be in a business and you stop promoting someone else and that's kind of the whole reason why the reputation tree was created they are reputation trees it's to help you understand which elements you're lacking in and which gaps you need to fill because you need to strengthen the consensus the confidence score around your entity so you need to be filling in those gaps and sometimes it can be it might seem quite minor but actually have huge results you know you can tweak three things on a page and all of a sudden say wow I didn't realize that I think one example was a the business were involved with and it was like Yelp reviews and they had a like that like a three-star overall rating on Yelp and it was only out about maybe 15 or 20 reviews so not many to try and get updated with but because of those reviews the AI was like literally saying don't use these guys you know they have a negative user experience people often mention scam like this sort of language and it we took like four reviews which increased the average rating a little bit more but then with a positive sentiment around it which then changed the whole it then became a little bit more sure that actually they've got a neutral rating now and some users have positive experience some users have negative it doesn't take long then for you to keep doing that and guess what you make it a positive sentiment and again you sometimes mentioned it quite on some of your other podcasts is you know turning them negatives into a positives huge as well.

James Dooley: Yeah that's something that obviously the report will help you work out is actually here's a list of what some negative negative reviews are why don't we turn these into positives yeah for sure anyone who's watching this I'd strongly recommend checking out the link in the description I do a full episode talking about AI search monitoring tools the best LLM visibility tools and I think it's key moving forward that you should be tracking it's almost like the rank trackers of old and checking what's going on but I think it's even more than rank tracking within Google in AI checking anything that's negative sentiment or anything that's not fulfilling and filling that actual reputation map needs to be being filled in so if someone with regards to now they've set up the LLM visibility tool and they're saying okay there's areas that I want to try to improve upon and we've spoke about the AI reputation tree which covers the whole query funnel how can someone get in touch with searcharoo to go and order the AI reputation tree

Karl Hudson: So at the minute it's a very custom process so you know you'd have to come on into searcharoo.com go in the contact form give us a message we'll come back to you with a huge list of questions about your brand and everything that we need essentially to try and do our initial audit of you and whether or not you would be a good fit and then we'll let you know if you're not and we'll try and guide you down the right path if you're not to get you get yourself ready for for being ready for it.

James Dooley: Yeah I think the big one on it if you're not a good fit is because we've done the audit and we've done the survey and checked to see where there might be big gaping gaps that we can't help you with so we can't go and win you an award we can't go and get you 25 star testimonials you need to go out of your way to ask your happy customers to get them five star reviews but we can then do is amplify everywhere on the internet in specifically the sources that are being recommended by ChatGPT, by Claude, by Perplexity and these other LLMs and then what we're able to then do is maybe do some tiered link building maybe do some viability loading it into an exceptional indexing tool and we can shout and scream about why you are great to improve the sentiment value of LLM visibility. Make certain you are auditing yourself and tracking with the LLM visibility tools. Karl it's been an absolute pleasure.

Karl Hudson: Excellent mate, cheers.