Broken link building: how to find dead links, offer a replacement, and ask for the fix in one short email.

What is broken link building?

Broken link building is a link building technique: you find links on other websites that point to pages that no longer work, create or pick a page on your site that can replace the missing content, and ask the site owner to update the dead link to point to your page.

It is also called dead link building. The idea is simple. A broken link is a small problem on someone else's page: their readers click it and land on an error. You find the problem, you offer the fix, and the fix happens to be a link to you.

That is why broken link building is usually described as a white hat method. You are not paying for the link or trading favors. The site owner decides whether your page is a good replacement, and the link stays an editorial choice.

It is not a shortcut, though. As an SEO strategy it rewards quality over volume: every step takes judgment about which dead links are worth replacing, what the replacement page must contain, and who on the other website can actually change the link.

Why broken link building works, and when it does not

Most link requests ask the recipient to do you a favor. A broken link request starts with something useful for them: a problem on their page that they probably did not know about. That changes the tone of the whole email, and it gives the editor a reason to reply.

• It helps the other site. Their readers stop hitting a dead page, and the page they wrote keeps working as intended.
• The link already had a place. The editor once decided that a resource on this topic belonged there. You are not asking them to add a new idea, only to restore an old one.
• The prospects come from data. Pages that lost their target still have backlinks, so one dead page can reveal many linking pages at once.
• It fits normal outreach. The same email, follow-up and tracking habits you use elsewhere apply.

It works less well when the dead page was thin, when the linking sites are abandoned, or when many other link builders have already emailed the same editors about the same dead link. Some editors simply remove the broken link instead of replacing it, and that is their call.

Where broken link building fits in link outreach

Broken link building is one of several reasons to contact a site owner about a link. Our guide to backlink outreach covers the whole practice; this page goes deep on one tactic inside it.

In practice these tactics mix. A resource page with a dead link may also be missing a second resource you could suggest. A site that accepted a replacement link may later be open to a guest post. Keep one record per site so every contact builds on the last.

Four kinds of broken link opportunities

How to do broken link building, step by step

This is the broken link building process from first search to placed link. It assumes you have a site with content worth linking to, or the time to create it.

1. Fix your own broken backlinks first

   Find pages on your site that return a 404 but still have backlinks, and redirect each one to the closest live page. This is link reclamation, and it needs no outreach.

2. Find broken links in your topic

   Look for dead pages with backlinks in your niche, and for resource pages with dead entries, using a backlink tool, a link checker or a site crawler.

3. Check that each link is really broken

   Open every dead URL yourself. Confirm it returns an error or an empty page today, not a temporary outage or a redirect to a working page.

4. Vet the linking pages

   Keep pages that are relevant to your topic, maintained, and read by real people. Drop abandoned sites, link farms and pages you would not want to be listed on.

5. Create or choose replacement content

   See what the dead page covered, using a web archive, and make sure your page covers the same need better. If you have nothing close, decide whether the prospect list justifies writing it.

6. Find the person who can change the link

   The author of the linking page or the editor of that section, not a general inbox when you can avoid it.

7. Send a short outreach email

   Name the page, the dead link and where it sits, then offer your replacement as one option. Make the fix easy even if they choose another source.

8. Follow up once, then track the result

   One follow-up about a week later, then stop. Record the reply, the link and the date, and check later that the link is still live.

How to find broken links worth replacing

There are four common ways to find broken links. Most link builders use two or three of them together, because each finds a different kind of opportunity.

Start from topics, not from tools. A list of dead pages in an unrelated niche is not a list of prospects, however long it is. The best finds are dead pages on subjects you already cover well.

When a dead page has backlinks from many sites, that is the strongest signal. One replacement page can then be pitched to every site that linked to the original, with one email adapted per site.

Resource pages: the easiest place to start

Resource pages are curated lists of links on a topic: guides for a profession, tools for a hobby, reading lists from a library or a university department. They are maintained by people who care about their links working, and the lists age quickly.

They are a good first project because the request is obvious. The page exists to send readers elsewhere, a dead entry is a visible flaw, and a replacement fits the format the editor already chose.

Check the whole list, not just one link. If two or three entries are dead, mention all of them. The more useful your email is to the editor, the less it reads like a link request.

How to check a link is really broken

Tools report errors that are not always real. Before you email anyone, open the dead URL yourself and look at what comes back.

• A real error: the server answers with a 404 or 410. Google's documentation says it does not index URLs returning a 4xx status code and removes already indexed ones from the index.
• A soft 404: the page loads with a normal status but shows an error message or nothing. Search Console reports these as soft 404 errors. For readers, the link is still broken.
• A redirect: the old URL now redirects to a working page. The link works, so there is nothing to fix.
• A temporary outage: a server error or a timeout today may be gone tomorrow. Check again a day later before you pitch.

Check the date too. A link that broke last week may be fixed by its owner before your email arrives. A link that has been dead for a long time is the one an editor is most likely to thank you for.

How to vet a broken link prospect

A dead link is only an opportunity if the page it sits on is worth a link from. Vet the linking page, not only the domain.

Creating replacement content that earns the link

The replacement page decides the outcome. Editors check whether your page does what the dead page did, and whether their readers will be better off. A page that only matches the title will not pass.

• See what the dead page covered. A web archive usually holds a copy. Note its format, its depth and why people linked to it.
• Read the anchor text on the linking pages. It tells you what the editors expected to find behind the link.
• Cover the same need, better. Update what is outdated, add what is missing, keep the format if the format was the point.
• Never copy the archived page. Rewriting someone else's work is not a replacement, and editors notice.
• Make the page stand alone. No gated download, no pop-up wall before the content an editor needs to see.

Google's own guidance on anchor text describes good anchors as descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to both pages. If the editor asks how to phrase the new link, suggest the words the old link used, not a keyword you want to rank for.

Sometimes the best replacement is a page you already have. Check before you write anything new, and only build a new page when several prospects are waiting for it.

Dead link outreach: finding the right person

The email has to reach someone who can edit the page. On a blog that is usually the author; on a larger site it may be the editor of that section; on a university or library page it is often the person named at the bottom of the page.

Look for the name on the page itself first: bylines, "maintained by" lines, author bios. Then check the site's contact or about page. A general contact address works, but add the page URL in the subject so it reaches the right person.

Treat this like any other prospecting step: one person, one reason, one record in your sheet. If the page has no owner you can find, it probably has no one who will fix the link either.

A broken link outreach email template

This outreach email template was written for this page. It is short on purpose: the editor should understand the problem, find the dead link and see the fix without scrolling.

Subject: Dead link on your {{pageTopic}} page

Hi {{firstName}},

I was reading {{pageTitle}} ({{pageUrl}}) and the link to {{deadResourceName}} in the {{sectionName}} section now leads to an error page.

If you want a replacement, we published {{yourPageTitle}}, which covers {{whatItCovers}}: {{yourPageUrl}}

Any working source on the topic would fix it, of course. Either way, your readers will not hit the dead page anymore.

{{senderName}}
{{senderRole}}, {{company}}

Plain text, no attachments, no tracking-heavy formatting. If you need help with the opening line, see how to introduce yourself in an email, and for the last line, how to end an email.

The follow-up, and when to stop

Editors are busy, and a first email is easy to miss. One follow-up is reasonable; a sequence of five about one dead link is not. This follow-up was also written for this page.

Subject: Re: Dead link on your {{pageTopic}} page

Hi {{firstName}},

Just in case this got buried: the {{deadResourceName}} link on {{pageUrl}} still leads to an error page today.

Happy to leave it with you. {{yourPageUrl}} is there if it helps.

{{senderName}}

After the follow-up, stop. If the editor replaces the link with another source, thank them anyway. The contact is worth more than one link. Our follow-up email templates cover timing in more detail.

Link reclamation: fix your own broken backlinks first

Before you look for dead links on other sites, look at your own. Pages that were deleted, renamed or moved during a redesign often still have backlinks, and those links now land on a 404 error.

Google's Search Console Help says a 404 is not necessarily a problem if a page was removed without any replacement, and that a page that moved should get a 301 redirect to its new location. Its redirect documentation recommends a permanent server-side redirect, with status 301 or 308, when a page has moved for good.

So the fix is usually on your side: redirect each dead URL with backlinks to the closest live page. Outreach is only needed when the new page is a better target than the redirect, or when the linking site sends readers to a URL you cannot redirect, such as a mistyped link.

The Page indexing report in Search Console lists URLs Google found returning 404. A backlink tool shows which of your dead pages still have referring domains. Together they tell you where to start.

What Google's spam policies on links mean for broken link building

Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate search rankings. The examples include buying or selling links, excessive link exchanges, automated link creation and low-value content made mainly to manipulate linking signals.

A replacement link that an editor chooses because your page helps their readers is not on that list. The same request becomes a problem when you add a payment, a free product, or a promise to link back in exchange.

• Paying for the replacement: exchanging money, goods or services for links is on Google's list of link spam examples.
• "I'll link to you if you link to me": excessive link exchanges are named in the same list.
• Automated mass emails: automated programs or services that create links are named too.
• Paid placements that are marked: Google says paid and sponsored links are fine when qualified with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow".

If a site asks for a fee to swap the link, the honest answer is to decline, or to accept that the link must carry a sponsored attribute. Treat a fee request as a sign of how that site handles links in general.

Tools for broken link building

This page does not rank vendors. These are the tool categories a broken link building campaign runs on:

• Backlink index tools: list pages returning errors on any site, with the number of referring domains each still has.
• Site crawlers: crawl one website and export every outbound link that returns an error.
• Browser link checkers: extensions that highlight dead links on the page you are viewing.
• Web archives: show what a dead page contained, so your replacement covers the same need.
• Contact finders: suggest the email address of an author or editor. Verify it before you send.
• Outreach and tracking tools: send one-to-one emails, schedule the follow-up and keep a record per site. A spreadsheet works for small campaigns.

How to measure broken link building

Keep the numbers per campaign, not as one total. A campaign built around one strong dead page and a campaign built on scattered resource pages behave differently, and mixing them hides what works.

Is broken link building scalable?

Partly. Finding dead pages and checking links can be done in bulk. Vetting, writing the replacement and writing each email cannot, without losing what makes the method work: a specific, true message to a person about their page.

A practical way to scale is by dead page, not by email volume. One strong dead page with many linking sites gives you one replacement and many personal emails that differ only in the details. Combine this with a steady cadence, a few emails per day, rather than bursts.

Broken link building also works best as part of a wider mix. The same editors who accept a replacement may be open to other link outreach later, and the general rules of cold email apply to every first contact.

Common broken link building mistakes

• Pitching a link you did not check today, which turns out to be working.
• Offering a page that does not cover what the dead page covered.
• Copying an archived page and calling it a replacement.
• Sending one template to hundreds of pages with no page-specific detail.
• Emailing a general inbox when the author's name is on the page.
• Making the fix conditional on linking to you, or offering payment.
• Following up three or more times about one dead link.
• Skipping your own dead pages, where link reclamation needs no outreach at all.

The email for a site linking to your old page

When a redirect is not enough, for example when a site links to a mistyped URL or to a page you split into two, write to the site owner. The template below was written for this page and asks them to update a link to your own content.

Subject: Updated link for {{oldPageTopic}} on {{theirPageTitle}}

Hi {{firstName}},

Thanks for linking to our {{oldPageTopic}} page from {{theirPageUrl}}. We moved that content, and the link now {{whatHappens}}.

The current version is here: {{newPageUrl}}

If you can update the link, your readers will land on the right page. No other changes needed.

{{senderName}}
{{senderRole}}, {{company}}

Frequently asked questions