Link Reclamation: Turning Unlinked Brand Mentions Into Links
Link reclamation means recovering links you've earned but aren't getting: unlinked brand mentions, broken links and lost links. How to find and fix them.
Link reclamation is the process of recovering links you've already earned but aren't getting the benefit of. That usually means asking sites that mention your brand without linking to add a link, and fixing links that point to broken or moved pages on your site.
It's the easiest link building there is, because the hard part is already done. The site has chosen to talk about you; you're just asking it to finish the job.
What counts as link reclamation?
There are a few distinct situations, and they need different fixes.
| Situation | Example | The fix |
|---|---|---|
| Unlinked brand mention | A blog names your company but doesn't link | Polite email asking for a link |
| Link to a broken page | Sites link to a URL on your site that now returns a 404 | 301 redirect to the closest live page |
| Lost link | A page that linked to you was edited and the link removed | Find out why, then ask if it can go back |
| Wrong URL | The link has a typo or points to an old domain | Ask for a correction, or redirect the bad URL |
| Uncredited content | Someone uses your image, chart or data without credit | Ask for a source credit with a link |
The broken page fix is entirely in your control and needs no outreach at all, which makes it the first thing to check.
Why unlinked brand mentions are worth chasing
The conversion rate on these requests tends to be far higher than cold outreach, as a rule of thumb, because there's no persuasion involved. The writer already thinks you're relevant enough to mention, and adding a link makes their article more useful to readers.
Unlinked mentions still have value on their own. Search engines and AI assistants both use mentions to understand which brands are associated with which topics, which is why brand mentions matter for AI visibility. But a linked mention does that job and also passes authority, so it's worth asking.
The link reclamation process
- Find the mentions. Set up alerts for your brand name, product names, founder names and common misspellings
- Filter them. Drop mentions that already link, sites you wouldn't want a link from, and pages that mention you negatively
- Find the right person. The author of the article, not a generic contact form, is usually the one who can edit it
- Ask briefly. Thank them for the mention and suggest a link to the most relevant page
- Log the result. Track who you asked, when, and whether the link went live
Tools for finding unlinked mentions
| Tool | What it does | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Google Alerts | Emails you when new pages mention a phrase | Free, but misses a lot |
| Ahrefs Alerts and Content Explorer | Tracks new mentions of a keyword across its index | Paid; filter for pages that don't link to your domain |
| Semrush Brand Monitoring | Tracks brand mentions across the web | Paid add-on |
| Mention, Brand24 and similar | Social and web mention monitoring | Paid; stronger on social than on links |
| A plain Google search | "your brand" -site:yourdomain.com |
Free and surprisingly useful for a one-off sweep |
The link building tools guide covers how these fit alongside prospecting and outreach tools.
What to say in the email
Keep it short. The person is doing you a favour, and they already like you enough to mention you.
Hi Sam, thanks for including us in your piece on budgeting apps, really appreciated. If it's useful for your readers, our pricing page is at example.com/pricing. Would you be open to linking our name there?
No templates with five paragraphs, no follow-up sequence of four emails. One polite ask, and perhaps one gentle nudge a week or two later. The outreach email templates page has more variations.
Reclaiming links to broken and moved pages
This is the quickest win in the whole page, because you don't need anyone's permission.
- Pull a list of your backlinks from Ahrefs, Semrush or Google Search Console
- Filter for links pointing to URLs on your site that return a 404 error
- Add a 301 redirect from each broken URL to the closest matching live page
- Prioritise the URLs with the most linking domains
Site migrations, URL changes and deleted blog posts are the usual causes. A redirect sends the authority from those old links on to a live page instead of letting it hit a dead end. It's a standard step in any backlink audit, and it pairs well with good internal linking to spread that authority onwards.
Don't confuse this with broken link building, which is about other people's dead pages rather than yours.
Common mistakes
| Mistake | Why it hurts | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Demanding the link | Turns goodwill into irritation | Thank them first, ask second |
| Chasing every mention | Wastes time on low-value sites | Filter by site quality first |
| Asking for keyword anchor text | Looks manipulative and rarely gets agreed | Ask for a link on your brand name |
| Ignoring your own 404s | Leaves the easiest wins on the table | Audit and redirect quarterly |
| Asking news sites that never link out | Their policy won't change for you | Accept the mention and move on |
The short version
- Link reclamation recovers links you've already earned: unlinked mentions, broken pages and lost links
- Fix your own 404s with 301 redirects first, because it needs no outreach
- Set up alerts for your brand, products and people, then filter hard for sites worth a link
- Ask the author briefly and politely, on your brand name, not a keyword
- Even unlinked mentions help your brand, especially in AI search, so they're never wasted
It won't build a link profile on its own, but it's the cheapest link you'll ever get, and it belongs in every plan on the strategies hub.