Broken Link Building & Link Reclamation
Broken Link Building
The Internet is filled with broken links. Often, these broken links exist on valuable, high-quality pages. Broken link building is a very popular practice that works on the premise of helping webmasters fix their broken links by providing a superior alternative for them to link to.
Although the specifics can vary, the basic process looks like this:
1.) Research broken links and find good targets2.) Content creation3.) Outreach
This process can be repeated over and over again. Sometimes you use your existing content as a suggestion to replace broken links, other times you create new content specifically for this purpose.Here are a few additional resources on how to perform broken link building:
Link Reclamation
Slightly different than broken link building is the practice of link reclamation, where you fix or “reclaim” links that once pointed at your site, or point to your site but fail to provide any SEO value.•The Broken Link Building Bible•Broken Link Building Guide: From Noob to Novice
There are many different types of link reclamation strategies.404sThese are links that point to pages on your website that no longer exist. Open Site Explorer is a good tool for finding these. (Preform a “Top Pages” search and sort for 404s). You can either redirect or fix these links on your end, or ask the webmaster to change the link.This chapter only describes a few of the hundreds of different link building tactics you can use (or even invent!). The specific tactics you choose will depend on your resources, creativity, niche, audience, and available time.For more inspiration, we recommend checking out Jon Cooper’s Link Building Tacticsor the Moz Blog’s Link Building category.A World of Link Building TacticsNon-linking Brand MentionsIt’s sometimes common and easy to find others writing about your site without linking to it. Often a simple email to the author is enough to secure a link. Tools like mention.net, Google Alerts, and Fresh Web Explorer are great at digging up mentions.Non-linking ImagesIt’s common to find websites that have posted your own images without attribution. Instead of filing a copyright or DMCA takedown notice, this presents a terrific opportunity to earn a link instead.