How MADX Took Nosto From Invisible to #3 in AI Search

Nosto, an ecommerce search, personalization and merchandising platform, went from invisible in AI answers to the third most-cited brand in its category in six months. Working with MADX on digital PR, technical SEO and content, Nosto moved from last of ten tracked brands to #3 in AI search share of voice, and nearly tripled its keywords ranking in Google's top three, from 56 to 153.

Who is Nosto, and what was the problem?

Nosto is a Commerce Experience Platform used by enterprise and Shopify Plus retailers for onsite search, product discovery, personalization and merchandising. It competes in a crowded category alongside Bloomreach, Algolia, Dynamic Yield and Constructor.

Nosto was a known brand with a quiet problem: it was missing from the conversations that happen before a shortlist exists. Its category keywords had slipped, the best ecommerce search and personalization roundups rarely named it, and AI engines, asked to recommend a tool, returned competitors instead. In a market where buyers now open ChatGPT or read a Google AI Overview before they ever reach a vendor site, being absent from the answer is being absent from the deal. The goal was direct: make Nosto one of the brands the answer names.

What did MADX do?

Three workstreams ran in parallel, each pointed at the same outcome, becoming a brand AI engines are comfortable recommending.

1. Digital PR and link building through honest buyer guides

Buyers shortlist search and discovery tools from best apps roundups, so we earned Nosto a place in them. Through digital PR and link building, we placed Nosto across 16 independent guides on DR 51-90 publications, among them Porto Theme (DR 90), AIJourn, WP Fastest Cache, Ecommerce Fastlane, European Business Magazine and The Brand Hopper. The takes are honest: real reviews, real trade-offs, Nosto named for the jobs it genuinely does best while competitors are credited where they lead. No blanket number-one claims, which read as spam to readers and models alike. Referring domains rose from 5,550 to 5,977 over the engagement, and every placement pointed at the homepage with anchors about search, discovery and recommendations, a deliberate bet on winning the AI recommendation.

2. Technical SEO and schema

We ran a full technical SEO audit and cleared the issues holding pages back: orphan and non-indexable URLs in the sitemap, stray 4XX and 3XX responses, and internal links still pointing to HTTP. Site health climbed from 70 to 86. We then rolled out structured data across the site, Organisation, WebPage and Breadcrumb schema site-wide, plus Article, Author, ImageObject and SoftwareApplication schema, so search engines and AI models can read exactly what Nosto is and cite it with confidence.

3. Content and GEO positioning

We published more than ten new buyer-intent and best-practice guides, covering ecommerce search, semantic search, product discovery, recommendation engines and the best AI tools for ecommerce, alongside honest competitor comparison pieces. This is the core of generative engine optimization: giving the models clear, citable, first-party content and earning the third-party citations they trust, so Nosto surfaces in AI Overviews and chat answers.

How did Nosto go from invisible to #3 in AI search?

Ahrefs Brand Radar tracks a market set of ten brands in ecommerce search and personalization. In April 2026 Nosto sat last, with a 0% share of voice. By July 2026 it was third, ahead of Constructor, InsiderOne and Dynamic Yield, and clear of the long tail.

The pattern is consistent across surfaces. On the ten bottom-funnel buyer questions MADX tracks, the questions buyers actually ask before shortlisting, Nosto holds a 54.5% share of voice, third of ten. On ChatGPT alone, the highest-traffic AI surface, that figure is 78.6%.

Does Google's AI Overview now cite Nosto?

Yes. On Google itself, Nosto is now a cited source inside the AI Overview for commerce queries. The number of commerce queries citing Nosto in the AI Overview grew from 80 to 150 (+88%), and the brand now triggers an AI Overview in five countries: the US, UK, India, Australia and Canada. For 'best Shopify Plus search and discovery apps' Nosto is named first, alongside Algolia and Klevu, where six months earlier it was not mentioned at all.

What happened to Nosto's Google rankings?

The same honest guides win in classic search too. Nosto's count of keywords in Google's top three nearly tripled over the engagement, from 56 to 153, an increase of 173%.

Underneath that number are the buyer guides themselves, now ranking at the top for the terms that matter, in several cases above higher-authority competitors.

Why did honest buyer guides work when generic PR does not?

AI models are trained to be cautious about promotional language. A guide that calls every tool the best of everything is a signal to discount it. A guide that says Nosto is strong for enterprise merchandising, that a competitor is better for a headless build, and backs each claim with detail, reads as a credible source, and credible sources get cited. That editorial honesty is why the placements earned citations rather than sitting unread. Schema made the pages machine-readable, technical fixes made them crawlable, and each placement compounded the last. It is a repeatable system, not a one-off spike.

Frequently asked questions

How long did it take Nosto to reach #3 in AI search?

About six months. Nosto moved from a 0% share of voice (last of ten tracked brands) in April 2026 to #3 in the category by July 2026, measured with Ahrefs Brand Radar.

What drove Nosto's growth in AI search and Google?

Honest, PR-led buyer-guide placements on 16 DR 51-90 publications, a technical SEO rebuild that lifted site health from 70 to 86, site-wide schema, and more than ten new buyer-intent content guides.

Did organic rankings improve too?

Yes. Keywords in Google's top three grew from 56 to 153 (+173%), with guides ranking #1 for terms like 'best ecommerce search' and #2 for 'ecommerce merchandising best practices', above higher-authority competitors.

Is this approach repeatable for other SaaS brands?

Yes. The same combination of digital PR, technical SEO and generative engine optimization applies to any B2B SaaS brand that needs to be named in AI answers and buyer guides.

Key takeaways

For a SaaS brand in a crowded category, the fastest route into the AI answer is honest, earned third-party authority plus machine-readable pages, not more promotional content. That is what took Nosto from invisible to #3. Book a call to see what the same playbook could do for your brand's visibility in AI search and Google.

Figures from Ahrefs Brand Radar and Site Explorer (nosto.com, project 9438650), Ahrefs Site Audit and Google Search Console, pulled August 2026; window December 2025 to July 2026. Delivery detail from the MADX ClickUp workspace. AI share of voice is directional and varies by prompt set and engine.