Mostly AI Case Study
340%
Organic Traffic Growth
Jan 2024 — Nov 2024 · Organic traffic growth · Data from Ahrefs
Objective
What we set out to achieve
Mostly AI builds synthetic data — AI-generated datasets that mirror real data without exposing actual customer information. The problem: almost nobody was searching for “synthetic data platform” and the few who were didn't find Mostly AI. We needed to build domain authority fast and get the site ranking for the data science and AI privacy keywords that their buyers actually search for.
Starting Point
Where Mostly AI started
About 500 organic visitors a month when we started. DR 28. The synthetic data space was still new enough that there was real opportunity in organic search, but Mostly AI didn't have the backlink profile to rank for any of the data science or AI keywords that would bring in enterprise buyers.
Our Approach
Our playbook for dominating the data intelligence space
49 links in 11 months, with a focus on getting the highest-DR placements early to give authority time to compound.
Editorial Link Insertions
We found existing articles about data science, synthetic data, and AI privacy that were already getting traffic, then got Mostly AI linked from within them. These in-context placements carried more weight than fresh content because the pages had established authority.
Guest Posting
We placed guest posts on DR 80+ technology and data science publications. The posts covered real use cases for synthetic data, which gave editors a reason to publish them and gave Mostly AI backlinks from the kind of domains their audience trusts.
High-Authority Links
HubSpot, Cloudways, Venngage — these are DR 80+ domains. Getting linked from them pushed Mostly AI's domain authority up fast and gave them credibility in a category where most buyers hadn't heard of them yet.
Listicle Placements
We got Mostly AI into data tools and AI platform roundup lists. Being listed next to better-known names in those articles sent referral traffic and helped Google connect Mostly AI with the broader data intelligence category.
Challenges
Obstacles we overcame
Emerging Product Category
"Synthetic data" as a category barely existed in most publishers' content. There weren't many articles to get links from. We worked around this by targeting adjacent topics — data science, AI ethics, privacy compliance — where plenty of high-authority content already existed and a mention of synthetic data fit naturally.
Accelerated Timeline
11 months isn't long for a link building campaign, especially starting from DR 28. We front-loaded the high-DR placements — HubSpot, Cloudways — in the first few months so the authority gains had time to compound before the campaign ended.
Results
Key takeaways
Jan 2024 — Nov 2024 · Organic traffic growth · Data from Ahrefs
Emerging Categories Offer First-Mover Advantages
Mostly AI now has backlinks that newer competitors in synthetic data will spend years trying to match. Building authority in a new category early means you get placements before editors start getting pitched by everyone else.
Quality Over Quantity Drives Faster Results
49 links in 11 months. That's it. You don't need hundreds of links if the ones you build are from the right domains and point to the right pages. DR went from 28 to 52 on fewer than 50 links.
Adjacent Topic Targeting Expands Reach
Since "synthetic data" didn't have enough content to link from, we went after AI, data science, and privacy articles. This gave Mostly AI a backlink profile that covers more of the topic map than a narrow approach would have.