Broken Link Building: A Step-by-Step Guide
Broken link building means finding dead pages others still link to, creating a replacement, and asking those sites to link to yours. Here's how to do it.
Broken link building is finding links on other websites that point to pages that no longer exist, then offering your own page as a replacement. The site owner fixes a broken link on their site, and you get a backlink.
It's one of the most genuinely white hat tactics there is, because you're doing the other site a favour. It takes time and good prospecting, but the links you get are editorial ones on pages that are already published and often already have authority.
How broken link building works
The best opportunities are pages that used to be useful (a study, a guide, a tool, a list of resources) and picked up lots of links before the site moved, shut down or deleted them. Every site still linking to them has a broken link and a reason to fix it.
Step by step
- Find dead pages in your niche. In Ahrefs Site Explorer, run a competitor or industry site and check the Best by links report filtered to 404 pages, or use a broken backlinks report. Other backlink tools offer similar reports.
- Check the links are worth having. Look at how many referring domains point to the dead page and whether those sites are relevant and real.
- See what the page used to say. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine usually has a copy, so you know what the linking sites were citing.
- Create a better replacement, or find an existing page on your site that already covers it. It must genuinely do the job the old page did.
- Export the list of linking pages and find a contact for each one.
- Pitch the fix. Tell them which link is broken, where it sits on their page, and offer your page as a replacement.
- Follow up once and log every link you win.
Step 3 is where many campaigns fall down. If your replacement isn't actually a match for what the old page offered, editors won't swap the link.
Where to find broken link opportunities
| Source | How to use it | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Competitors' dead pages | Run their domain through a backlink tool and filter for 404s | Pages directly in your niche |
| Defunct sites and brands | Look for businesses or projects in your space that have closed | Larger opportunities with lots of links |
| Resource pages | Check link lists in your niche for dead links | Quick, single-link wins, see resource page link building |
| Wikipedia | Citations marked "dead link" in your topic | Finding dead sources others also cited |
| Your own site | Check for links pointing to your own deleted pages | Easy wins, see link reclamation |
Your own broken pages are the easiest of all. If other sites link to a page you deleted, redirect it to the most relevant live page and the links start counting again with no outreach at all.
How to write the outreach email
Keep it short and lead with the help, not the ask.
- Name the page on their site and the specific broken link
- Say what the old page was, so they know you understand why they linked to it
- Offer your replacement in one sentence with the URL
- Don't make the link a condition of the tip
Many editors fix the link without using your suggestion, and that's fine. For worked examples, see outreach email templates.
Broken link building pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| You're helping the site owner, so pitches are welcome | Slow, the prospecting takes real time |
| Editorial links on established pages | Needs a replacement page that's genuinely good |
| Low risk under Google's policies | Reply rates depend on how active the sites are |
| Scales well when one dead page has many links | Popular opportunities get pitched by others too |
| Works in almost any niche | Little control over anchor text |
Tools for broken link building
| Job | Tools that can do it |
|---|---|
| Finding dead pages with backlinks | Ahrefs, Semrush, Majestic |
| Checking dead links on one page | Browser extensions such as Check My Links |
| Seeing what a dead page said | Internet Archive's Wayback Machine |
| Finding contacts and sending emails | Outreach and email-finding tools |
The full workflow is covered in link building tools.
The short version
- Broken link building replaces dead links on other sites with links to your page
- The best targets are dead pages that still have lots of referring domains
- Check what the old page said and make your replacement genuinely better
- Lead your pitch with the broken link, not with your request
- Start with your own deleted pages, which you can fix with a redirect
It's one of the lowest-risk tactics in the link building strategies hub, and a good counterweight to paid tactics like guest posting.