Link Reclamation: How to Recover Lost Links and Boost Your SEO

Link reclamation is finding and fixing lost or broken links to your website. These links are also known as “dead” and could include internal and external links.

Reclaiming links helps you ensure link equity or link juice is retained and regained on your website. Then you can build upon this strategy to improve your site’s SEO rankings and domain authority.

Continue reading to discover why link reclamation is important and how you can perform it to stop losing link equity due to broken links.

Why is link reclamation important for SEO?

Link reclamation is important for SEO because it can help you:

1. Regain link value. Link value, also called link juice, is the SEO value of interlinking, where value and authority are passed from one page to another through links. By reclaiming lost links, you can maintain the SEO value of the links you’ve built and acquired over time.
2. Build your link profile. Your link profile collects all the links pointing to your website. It affects your site’s reputation, trustworthiness, and ranking potential. Reclaiming lost links can improve your link profile and avoid losing link equity to your competitors.
3. Improve your site’s usability and user experience. Broken links can lead to 404 error pages, frustrating your site visitors and increasing your bounce rate. By reclaiming lost links, you can ensure smooth navigation and a positive user experience on your site.

How to find and fix lost or broken links?

There are different reasons why links can be lost or broken, such as:

• When the author removes your link from the linking page.
• The webpage no longer exists (404 error).
• The content for that URL has been moved to another webpage, causing a 301 redirect.
• Google no longer indexes the URL.
• The external site is no longer available, has gone offline, or has been permanently moved.
• An external site links to your site using a wrong, misspelled, or outdated URL.

How you reclaim lost or broken links depends on why the situation is so in the first place, and that is what the following subsections will focus on.

Finding and fixing broken internal links

Broken internal links are links on your site that point to non-existent pages. They can harm your site’s usability and SEO performance. To find broken internal links, use the Eye10 Backlink Monitor to crawl your site and identify pages that return 404 codes.

Broken internal links are the easiest to update or replace since they do not require you to interface with any outside party that might delay or refuse your request. 

You can take any of the following steps:

• Replace the broken links with live links by updating the URLs to point to the correct page or resource on our site.
• If a page has been deleted by mistake, restore it from the backup or create a new page with relevant content.
• If you cannot create a new page, redirect the deleted page to another relevant page on your website.
• Pay attention to ensure that there aren’t too many redirects. If you notice such, shorten the chain by redirecting users to the destination page.
• Remove the link and the URL altogether if it’s no longer relevant.

Finding and fixing broken external links

Broken external links are links from other sites that point to non-existent pages on your site. They can cause you to lose link value and authority. The Eye10 Backlink Checker can be used here to show you all the backlinks pointing to your site and filter them by status (lost or broken).

To fix broken external links, you can follow the steps highlighted above (for internal links) by redirecting users to the correct URL or creating a new page with the same or similar content and URL.

Alternatively, you could also reach out to the webmaster or editor of the site with the broken backlink and politely request them to fix it. Removing the link altogether is an option, but that would make you lose even more. Instead, provide them with the correct URL or suggest an alternative page if the original one is unavailable.

Here is how such an email to the site owner could be expressed:

Hi [Name],

I hope this email finds you well.

I’m [Your name], the [Your position] at [Your company]. I was browsing your site and came across this page: [Page URL with the broken link].

I noticed that you have a link to one of our pages: [Broken link URL]. Unfortunately, this link is broken because we have moved the page to a new URL: [New link URL].

I’m writing to kindly ask you to update the link on your page with the new URL. This will help your readers find the information they’re looking for and avoid any 404 errors.

I appreciate your time and attention to this matter. Please let me know if you have any questions or need any assistance.

Thank you,

[Your name]

Finding and converting unlinked mentions

Unlinked mentions are online references to your brand or company that are not linked to your site. They present an opportunity to claim new links.

One easy way to monitor unlinked mentions is to use Google Alerts. It’s straightforward; set up email alerts to notify you whenever someone mentions your brand name, whether it is linked or not.

To convert unlinked mentions, contact the webmasters of the sites that mention you and ask them to add a link to your site. Here are some steps you might take:

• Thank them for mentioning you and politely requesting a link.
• Offer them something of value in exchange for a link, such as a testimonial, a discount, or a free trial.
• Suggest a relevant page on your site that they can link to for more information.

Conclusion

Link reclamation is not a one-time activity but an ongoing process that requires regular monitoring and maintenance. You should always keep an eye on your links and ensure they work properly and point to relevant pages. You should also always look for new opportunities to claim links from online mentions of your brand or company.

As you try to do this, let the twin tools of the Backlink Monitor and Backlink Checker by Eye10 be your close pals. They will help you identify where you might be missing important link juice, and then you can take steps to reclaim it. Start your trial for just $3 here.