Broken Link Building: link acquisition via broken links

What is Broken Link Building

Broken Link Building (BLB) is a white hat link building method that does not require buying links or spamming. You find pages on other sites that link to non-existent resources (404, 410), locate relevant content on your site (or create it), then contact the webmaster and propose replacing the broken link with yours.

Benefits of BLB:

• Fully white hat — follows Google's guidelines.
• You help webmasters improve their site (remove 404s).
• You earn a link from an authoritative resource, often without competition.
• No payment required (though a small bonus may be offered occasionally).

Finding broken links

Main tools and methods for finding broken links:

• Ahrefs: Site Explorer → enter a competitor's domain or an authoritative site in your niche → go to Outgoing links report → filter by 404 status (broken).
• Semrush: Backlink Audit → find broken outgoing links on your donors.
• Screaming Frog: crawl a donor site and filter pages with 404 status on outbound links.
• Chrome extensions: Check My Links (quickly checks all links on an open page).
• Google Search Console: the Coverage report may sometimes mention external broken links, but it's rare.

Target sites for prospecting:

• Resource pages ('useful links').
• Wikipedia (look for external links that became 404).
• Blogs and news portals (old articles often have outdated links).
• Competitor sites — their broken outgoing links are your opportunity.

Google search queries:
- "useful links" + "your topic"
- intitle:resources inurl:links
- "recommended" + "your topic"
- "helpful resources" site:edu

Creating replacement content

When you find a broken link, use the Wayback Machine (archive.org) to see what content was originally there. If it matches your niche and you already have similar (or better) content — great. If not, you will need to create a new page.

Replacement content should be:

• At least as good as the broken page (and ideally fresher and more comprehensive).
• Relevant in topic and intent (not just a generic article on a related subject).
• Permanent (not planned for deletion next month).

Outreach and email templates

After preparing the content, find the donor site's contact (usually on the 'Contact' page or via WHOIS). Write a short, polite email:

Subject: Broken link on your page [URL of the page]

Hello [Name],

I was reading your article [title] and found it very useful. I noticed that the link to [description of broken resource] leads to a 404 page (it's broken).

You might be interested in my article on the same topic: [URL of your content]. It's up to date and contains fresh information.

If you replace the broken link with mine, your readers will have a better experience.

Thanks,
[Your name, site]

Send 20–30 emails — conversion rates are typically 5–15%. Do not be discouraged by rejections or silence. Personalization matters (name, specific page). Avoid mass‑spamming — Google values natural patterns.