---
description: "Unlinked mentions: places where you wrote a concept's name without the [[ ]] — found by literal matching and backfilled into real links in one click."
---
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# Unlinked Mentions

This is the **hardest evidence** of everything under Discover: no inference at all, just literal matching.

You have written "attention residue" across a dozen notes, but only one or two carry `[[ ]]`. To Jotaid the rest are **not links yet** — absent from backlinks, absent from the [graph](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/graph), and counting for nothing in [co-occurrence](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/matrix).

## Where You See Them

| Place | What it shows |
|-------|---------------|
| A node's detail view | Notes mentioning this node without linking it |
| A note's info panel | Nodes this note **could** link, each with a one-click **Link** button |

The two are the same fact from opposite directions: one looks from concept to notes, the other from note to concepts.

## Backfilling

| Button | Scope |
|--------|-------|
| **Link** | Converts the mentions in this one note |
| **Link All** | Converts this node's mentions across **every** note at once |

Afterwards those notes appear under the node's backlinks immediately, and the graph and matrix update with them.

> **It is literal, not AI**
>
> Backfilling only touches **exact name matches**, which makes it safe, predictable and repeatable — no network, no cost, works offline. It will not "guess" that you meant a near-synonym; that belongs to the [semantic](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/semantic-relations) layer.

## One Consequence: Names Matter

Because matching is literal, a node named "attention residue" will not catch "the residue of attention" in your prose.

That is not a flaw — the **predictability** of literal matching is the whole point. Covering near-synonyms is the job of [semantic relations](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/semantic-relations), not of loosening the match.

## Next Steps

- [Co-occurrence & Matrix](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/matrix) — How strong the existing relationships are
- [Link Predictions](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/predictions) — Pairs that never co-occurred but probably should
- [Managing Nodes](https://docs.jotaid.com/en/guide/manage-nodes) — Renaming and merging