Broken Link Building: Expert strategies for SEO

Broken link building is a link acquisition tactic that has attracted both passionate advocates and harsh critics over the years. As one of the classic “white hat” strategies, it revolves around finding broken outbound links on other sites and offering your own relevant content as a replacement.

This approach promises a win-win: you earn a backlink, and the other site fixes a dead link that hurts their user experience. In theory it’s a straightforward, scalable way to build links by adding value rather than begging for it.In practice, however, broken link building’s effectiveness is a subject of debate – some SEO veterans swear by it, while others bemoan its low conversion rates and time investment.

So is broken link building worth your time in 2025?

This expert guide will dissect the tactic from all angles, with an objective look at how it works, the tools and techniques that make it viable, and the nuanced strategies needed to succeed today. We’ll integrate both proven best practices and advanced tips that are often overlooked, drawing on authoritative sources and real-world experience. By the end, you’ll understand how to execute broken link building in a way that actually delivers SEO value – or determine if your effort would be better spent elsewhere.

Quick context

Broken links are extremely common across the web – a study of 90 publisher websites found over 65,000 broken outbound links among them. That prevalence creates opportunity.

If you can identify high-value dead links in your niche and serve up a great piece of replacement content, you stand to “inherit” those backlinks. As Semrush notes, this tactic can even let you capture links that previously pointed to competitors. But success isn’t guaranteed.

A recent survey of 821 link builders found only 10.9% rated broken link building as one of the most effective tactics for improving rankings and traffic – far behind strategies like digital PR and guest posting. The key difference maker is execution. Let’s start with the fundamentals and then explore how to tip the odds in your favor with expert insights.

What is broken link building?

Broken link building is an SEO link acquisition strategy where you replace broken (dead) external links on other sites with links to your own relevant content. In Moz’s words, it’s a “white-hat, content-focused” approach: you find websites that have outgoing 404-error links and suggest fresh, informative, up-to-date content (that you provide) as a substitute. In plainer terms, you’re doing the site owner a favor by pointing out a problem (a broken link) and simultaneously offering a solution (your working link).

From the site owner’s perspective, too many broken links are bad for user experience – visitors who click get a 404 “Page Not Found,” which is frustrating – and can even have SEO drawbacks for the linking site if it signals neglect. By fixing broken links, they improve their site quality. From your perspective, each fixed link means a new backlink to your content. It’s essentially a form of link reclamation, except you’re reclaiming someone else’s lost links for your benefit.

This tactic first gained popularity in the early 2010s as a scalable and relatively “white hat” method to earn links. Jon Cooper’s famous “Broken Link Building Bible” on Moz (2014) and Brian Dean’s early case studies helped cement it as an SEO staple.

In fact, an industry survey cited by Ahrefs noted that broken link building was the 5th most widely used link building tactic among SEO professionals at one point. The appeal is clear: instead of spamming forums or begging for links, you’re contributing value – helping webmasters clean up their site. As one SEO expert put it, when used appropriately, broken link building “still rocks” as a dependable technique.

However, the landscape has changed. Over the years, webmasters have grown wise to the influx of broken link emails. “They know the game that’s being played,” as Search Engine Journal bluntly notes, and thus tend to be more skeptical of these requests today.

High-authority sites in particular get bombarded with outreach, so simply pointing out a dead link is often not enough to convince them to add yours – some will ignore you, and others might even ask for payment (more on that later). It’s telling that many practitioners report low success rates now:

“1000 emails… maybe get 1 link. Simply not worth the time,”

lamented one Reddit user about their broken link building campaign. Another experienced SEO commented that all the guides touting this technique fail to mention it often yields just a 2–3% success rate in reality.

So, broken link building today occupies a middle ground. Done right, it remains a reliable way to earn quality backlinks – you can find success stories of SEOs who land links from hard-to-get sites using this very method. It can have some advantages over tactics like cold guest post pitching, since you’re offering something immediately useful to the webmaster (a fix for their site) rather than only asking for a favor. Semrush even suggests broken link outreach can achieve a higher success rate than other tactics.

“because you’re helping web admins solve an issue on their site”

On the flip side, execution requires strategy and persistence. A modern link building program shouldn’t rely on broken link building exclusively, but it can be a powerful component of your toolkit when combined with high-quality content and smart outreach. The rest of this guide will show you how to maximize your odds of success.

Tools and techniques for finding broken links

The first step in broken link building is finding relevant broken link opportunities.

In other words, you need to locate pages on other websites that: a) are thematically related to your site’s topic or industry, b) have one or more broken outbound links (ideally to content similar to what you could provide), and c) have decent link equity (the page or site is authoritative enough that getting a link from it would be worthwhile). Identifying these opportunities used to be a painstaking manual process, but today we have an array of SEO tools to make it much easier and scalable.

1. Using SEO backlink tools (Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz) to find broken pages with inbound links

The most popular method – and the one I’ve personally found most fruitful – is to leverage tools like Ahrefs or Semrush to find broken pages on other sites that have backlinks pointing to them.

These are pages that have incoming links from multiple other websites, but the pages themselves are dead (returning 404 errors). Why target these? Because if you can recreate the content of that dead page on your own site, all those sites that were linking to it are potential link prospects – you can reach out and suggest they update their broken link to point to your live resource.

Tools make this process straightforward.

For example, in Ahrefs Site Explorer you can enter a competitor’s domain, go to the “Best by Links” report, and filter for “404 not found” pages. This will list all known dead pages on that site along with the number of referring domains (links) to each. Sorting by referring domains is key – it surfaces the broken pages with the most links pointing to them. A broken page that has, say, 50 websites still linking to it is a goldmine opportunity if the topic is relevant to you. Ahrefs’ own guide shares an example: Content Marketing Institute had 134 dead pages, some with 50+ referring domains. Sifting through that list could reveal a highly link-worthy topic you could cover on your site.

Semrush offers similar capabilities with its Backlink Analytics and Indexed Pages reports. In Semrush, you can filter a competitor’s top pages for those returning 404 errors, then export a list of backlinks to those pages. Moz’s Link Explorer also has a “Top Pages” view where you might spot dead URLs with inbound links (though Ahrefs and Semrush tend to have fresher data). The idea is the same across tools – you’re using the web’s big link indexes to find content that earned links in the past but is now gone.

Pro tip

If you’re unsure who your closest competitors are for content, Ahrefs can help there too – their Competing Domains report shows sites that rank for the same keywords as you. Those competing sites likely have linkable content in your niche, and thus potentially broken pages in your niche too. Plug a few into the method above and you’ll uncover a trove of candidate broken pages.

2. Searching by topic in content databases

One limitation of the competitor-based approach is that it confines you to a set list of sites. What if there are excellent broken link opportunities on sites you’re not watching? Advanced SEOs use tools like Ahrefs Content Explorer to search the entire web for broken pages on a given topic.

For instance, you could search Content Explorer for a keyword (e.g. “CRM software”) and apply a filter for “Only broken pages” plus a filter for a minimum number of referring domains. This would yield any content about CRM software that has, say, 10+ websites linking to it and currently returns 404. This tactic can surface big opportunities beyond your known competitors – essentially, you’re hunting theme-relevant dead content across the web. Ahrefs is unique in offering this kind of broken page search at scale, and it’s incredibly powerful. I have done this in practice and discovered high-DR sites in my industry with old resource pages or articles that went offline, each with dozens of links just waiting to be reclaimed.

If you don’t have a tool like Content Explorer, a clever alternative is using Google with advanced queries.

For example, searching Google for something like: 

This isn’t as reliable, but occasionally you might find a known resource page that Google still has indexed with “404” in the snippet, indicating it’s dead.

Generally, though, leveraging a link index is much more efficient than combing search results.

3. Mining “resource page” links with a crawler or extension

Another classic technique is targeting resource list pages in your niche. These are pages like “Top 50 [Topic] Resources” or “Useful [Topic] Links” which tend to have a lot of outbound links (some of which may be broken). The process here is: use Google to find relevant resource pages (e.g. search for

“[topic] resources”

“intitle:resources [topic]”

“[topic] intitle:links”

Then check those pages for broken links. Tools like the free Chrome extension Check My Links make this a breeze – you load the page and the extension highlights all broken outbound links in red instantly. I’ve used Check My Links extensively for quick audits. You might discover, for example, a university’s library page on “Recommended Biology Learning Resources” that has a few dead links.

If your site happens to have (or could have) content on those topics, voila – you have a relevant broken link to target.

For larger scale scraping, some SEOs turn to crawling software like Screaming Frog. You could feed a list of resource page URLs into Screaming Frog and let it check all the outgoing links for 404s. This can save time if you’ve gathered a big list of pages from Google. (Some veterans even mention old-school tools like Xenu or advanced uses of ScrapeBox to find broken links en masse, but those require a bit of hackery and aren’t necessary for most use cases.)

4. Monitoring your own site and brand for broken backlinks

A commonly overlooked angle is to first check your own site’s broken backlinks. These are cases where someone tried to link to you but used a bad URL (typo, outdated URL, etc.), resulting in a broken link.

This isn’t “broken link building” in the traditional sense (since the link was intended for you already), but it’s low-hanging fruit. Semrush’s guide recommends starting with this, because if a link was supposed to point to you, the webmaster is highly likely to fix it in your favor when notified.

In Google Search Console, you can sometimes spot these under Coverage > Not Found, or by using a backlink tool’s “broken backlinks” report for your domain. Fix these by setting up 301 redirects on your side or asking the linker to update the URL – either way, you “reclaim” those links.

Once you’ve exhausted your site’s own broken backlinks, you can apply the same idea to competitors’ broken backlinks – which loops back to tactic #1 above.

Essentially, find where others intended to link to a competitor but the link is broken now (maybe the competitor moved or deleted that page). Outreach to suggest your resource instead can be very effective if your content is truly a close match, because the linker already showed intent to reference that type of content.

5. Evaluating and filtering opportunities

Whichever discovery methods you use, you’ll likely end up with a list of broken pages or broken links to pursue. Now it’s time to vet them. Not every dead page with backlinks is worth your effort. Here’s how to prioritize:

Relevance

The broken page’s topic should align with your content expertise. If it’s only tangentially related or off-niche, skip it. Focus where you can genuinely provide a replacement that makes sense. Relevance is consistently cited as the #1 factor for link quality by SEO professionals, and it applies here too.

Link quality

Examine the sites that are linking to that dead page. Are they authoritative and relevant sites you’d want a link from?

For example, if a dead page has 20 referring domains but half of them look like spam or very low-quality sites, that opportunity is less attractive.

On the other hand, a dead page with just 5 referring domains could be golden if those links are from high-DR, trusted websites in your industry. Quality over quantity is the mantra. In my own campaigns, I filter out prospects where the majority of linking sites have low authority or appear to be link farms.

It’s better to chase one link from Example.com (DR 80) than 50 links from a network of unknown blogs.

Context of the link

Try to understand how the link was used on the linking page. Was it cited as a source, recommended as further reading, or part of a list? This matters because your content will need to fulfill a similar role. If the broken link was, say, an image or infographic that’s gone, then just writing a text article might not convince the webmaster to swap in your link – they were specifically linking to an image.

Similarly, if the anchor text or surrounding text indicates a very specific promise (“Download the PDF guide on X”), your replacement needs to deliver that specifically. We’ll talk more about matching content to context in the next section.

By leveraging the right tools and carefully curating your list, you set yourself up for an efficient campaign. You might start with dozens or hundreds of broken link targets, but through vetting, narrow it to the most relevant, high-value prospects. Those are the ones to invest your energy in.

As a bonus, the research phase itself can spark content ideas: Semrush notes that searching for broken links can help generate “link bait” content ideas – essentially topics that have proven to attract links before. I’ve definitely found this to be true. Scanning through broken pages, you’ll quickly see patterns in what types of resources people linked to in your niche.

For example, you might notice many links to “Ultimate Guide to [Topic]” type content, suggesting that format is in demand. Use those insights to inform your content creation strategy moving forward.

Creating effective replacement content

Once you’ve identified a juicy broken link opportunity, the next step is crafting (or positioning) your content to be the perfect replacement.

Remember, broken link building is fundamentally a content-driven strategy – the pitch to the webmaster hinges on the quality and relevance of what you’re offering as a substitute. In my experience, this is where campaigns succeed or fail. You can find all the broken links in the world, but if your replacement content is subpar or off-target, webmasters won’t bother updating their pages to link to you.

Here’s how to create highly effective replacement content:

1. Match the original content’s intent and scope

Start by investigating what the dead page was about. Often you can find clues from the URL slug, the anchor text used by linking sites, or using the Internet Archive (Wayback Machine) to see an old snapshot of the page. The Wayback Machine is an invaluable tool here – it might show you the exact content that used to exist. Pay attention to why people linked to it. Was it a comprehensive guide? A research study? A list of resources? A how-to article? Your goal is to meet or exceed that original content’s value on the same topic.

For example, I once targeted a broken link that was an infographic about data center energy usage. The page had earned many links for its useful stats. Knowing this, I didn’t just write a generic article about data centers; I created a fresh infographic (and accompanying blog post) with updated energy statistics and even more detail than the original. That way, when I reached out, I could confidently say my content is an up-to-date replacement for the old one – not a random loosely-related piece.

This approach paid off with multiple link additions.

If the Wayback Machine shows the old content, identify its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps it was a “Top 10 Tools for X” list from 2015 that went out of date. Your version can be “Top 15 Tools for X (2025 Edition)” with current info. Perhaps the old page was a detailed tutorial – your replacement should cover the same steps, but maybe with clearer instructions or video embeds, etc.

Essentially, reverse-engineer the defunct content and then one-up it. This is akin to the Skyscraper Technique applied specifically to broken link building.

2. Create something genuinely valuable (don’t skimp on quality)

It should go without saying, but your content needs to be good. “Good” meaning accurate, well-written, and providing unique value. If the webmasters you approach click your link and see a thin 500-word article riddled with ads, they’re not going to link it.

On the other hand, a polished, authoritative piece has a much higher chance. One survey of SEO experts emphasizes that link-worthy content tends to be informative, credible, and comprehensive. Treat your replacement content as link bait in its own right. Use visuals if they add value (charts, infographics), include recent data or examples, and ensure it’s on par with the best content in that topic area.

A pro tip here: consider formatting and usability. If the broken link was cited by many .edu or .gov sites (for instance), those tend to link to resources that are straightforward and professional. Make sure your page is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and not overly promotional. Sometimes I even create a simplified PDF version or an executive summary section if I know academics or government folks are the linkers – catering to the audience can make a difference.

3. Leverage your existing content when possible

Creating a brand new article or guide for every broken link prospect can become labor-intensive. Check if you already have a piece of content that covers the topic well. It’s possible you can repurpose or slightly tweak an existing blog post on your site to serve as the target.

For example, if the dead page was about “best project management tips” and you have an article “5 Project Management Tips for Tech Teams,” you might expand and update your article to effectively replace the dead one (maybe turning it into “10 Tips” with more general appeal). Using existing content can save time and also give you an outreach advantage if that content already has some credibility (e.g., it ranks in Google or has social proof you can mention).

However, be honest with yourself – if your current content isn’t a close replacement, don’t try to force-fit it. In broken link outreach, you essentially claim “I have something that would make a good substitute for what you intended to link.” If that claim rings false, the webmaster will see right through it. I’ve tried shoehorning a semi-related blog post as a replacement in the early days (“ehh, it’s kind of similar...”), and the response rate was dismal. Now I only pitch when I’m confident the fit is strong.

4. Add extra value or a unique angle: To really seal the deal, try to one-up the original content in a way that’s meaningful. Anyone can rewrite the text of a dead page, but can you make yours stand out? For instance:

• Include recent statistics or findings that weren’t in the old content (e.g., “2024 survey data shows XYZ” – webmasters love up-to-date data).

• Provide a more thorough list or deeper analysis (e.g., if the old one listed 10 items, list 20 with better explanations).

• Improve the readability and design – use clear subheadings, summaries, perhaps a table of contents for long guides.

• If appropriate, incorporate different media: a short video explainer, an infographic, interactive elements, etc.

The goal is for the person you’re reaching out to, upon reviewing your content, to think

“This is actually better than what I had linked before.”

When that happens, adding your link becomes a no-brainer for them.

As an example, Brian Dean famously used this approach in a case study: he created content to replace an outdated resource, personalized his outreach, and “most folks were more than happy to add my link” once they saw the value in his updated guide.

5. Mind the technical details

Make sure the page on your site is fully functional (no broken images, fast loading, etc.) and optimized. A small but important detail: if the old page had a certain title that many linkers used as anchor text, consider mentioning that topic prominently in your own title or headings. It reassures people that your page covers the exact subject they intended.

Also, consider URL structure – a short, clean URL that clearly reflects the topic can look more legit.

For instance, yourdomain.com/guide-to-CRM-software is immediately understandable, versus something cryptic.

One more technical tip: implement a robust 404 page on your own site. This might not seem related to outreach, but it’s about practicing what you preach. If a potential linker checks out your site and encounters broken links or a lousy error page, it undermines your credibility.

Conversely, if your site appears well-maintained, they’ll feel more comfortable linking to you. After all, you’re asking them to link to your page to avoid a broken link scenario; you should demonstrate attentiveness to such issues on your end too.

In summary, content is the heart of broken link building. By aligning closely with the original content’s intent, delivering superior quality, and highlighting what makes your resource valuable, you set the stage for a successful outreach.

In fact, great content can sometimes carry the outreach with minimal selling needed – I’ve had instances where a webmaster replied with “Thanks for this, I’ve updated the link” almost immediately after I alerted them to a broken link, simply because the replacement resource spoke for itself. Aim for that level of quality. And if creating such content doesn’t seem feasible for a given opportunity, it may be better to skip that and focus on the ones where you can create a knockout piece.

Outreach strategies

With your replacement content in hand (or in progress), it’s time for the most critical phase: outreach.

This is where you contact the webmasters or content editors of the sites with broken links and persuade them to swap in your link. Effective outreach is equal parts art and science. As someone who has run many outreach campaigns, I can’t overstate the importance of a thoughtful approach here – even a fantastic piece of content can be ignored if the outreach email is poorly executed. Below are strategies to maximize your success when reaching out.

1. Find the right contact and personalize your approach

The first step is identifying who to reach out to for each target site.

Ideally, you want to communicate with either the content author, the webmaster, or someone responsible for site maintenance. Generic contact forms or info@ emails are last resorts – they often go unanswered. Use tools like Hunter.io, Voila Norbert, or the Whois database to find a real email address for a real person. As Brian Dean notes,

“reach out to the person that can actually add your link to their page”

That might be the blog’s author (if it’s a personal blog), the editor (for editorial sites), or the webmaster/IT (for resource-type pages on organizational sites). I’ve found LinkedIn and Twitter useful for tracking down editors of sites when emails are elusive – sometimes a quick DM can start the conversation, though email is usually preferred for formal link edit requests.

When you do reach out, personalize the email as much as possible. This cannot be stressed enough. Web admins get lots of boilerplate link requests, and they can smell a template a mile away. Use the person’s name (spell it correctly!), mention the site or page specifically, and if possible, mention something you genuinely appreciate about their content. For example:

“Hi Jane, I was reading your excellent roundup of AI marketing tools on example.com and noticed a couple of broken links…”

– this shows it’s not a mass spam email and that you have a legitimate reason for contacting them. As Backlinko’s outreach script demonstrates, referencing something specific from their article (a point you enjoyed or found useful) can help disarm the “ugh, another email” reaction.

2. Lead with value (the broken link you found)

The core of your message should be helping them fix a problem, not just promoting yourself. Start by clearly identifying the broken link(s) you discovered on their page. Provide the URL of the page on their site and maybe the anchor text or context of the dead link so they can find it easily. For instance:

“I noticed that on your ‘Resources for HR Managers’ page (example.com/hr-resources) the link to ABC Toolkit is returning a 404 error.”

This immediately gets their attention because you’re highlighting an issue on their site. As one SEO pro rhetorically frames it, always ask yourself “Why is this site better off including the link I’m asking for?” – in broken link building, the answer is because you’re helping them clean up a dead link. Make that benefit front and center.

Often, I list multiple broken links if I find them on the page. This amplifies the value you’re delivering.

“I spotted two broken links on that page: one to ABC Toolkit and another to XYZ Whitepaper. Just wanted to let you know so you can update or remove them.”

By doing this, you come across as genuinely helpful, not just self-serving. Whether or not they use your suggestion, you’ve done them a favor by pointing out something that could hurt their user experience or SEO. This goodwill can increase the likelihood they’ll consider your link.

3. Make a gentle pitch for your content as the solution

After identifying the broken link, segue into mentioning that you have content which could serve as a replacement. The tone here is important – suggest, don’t demand. Something like: “I actually just published a comprehensive guide on [Topic], which covers similar ground. It might make a good replacement for the broken ABC Toolkit link, since it [brief benefit: e.g., has updated stats on XYZ].

If you’re open to it, here’s the URL: [Your URL].” Keep this part concise. You want to pique their interest, not copy-paste your whole article into the email.

Frame it as an offer that’s up to them, and convey that you genuinely think it adds value.

For example,

“I thought you’d find it useful”

or “It could be a helpful resource for your readers” is better than “Please link to my article”. In outreach I’ve done, positioning the content as something in addition to helping them (rather than the sole focus) has yielded more positive responses. Essentially: problem identified -> solution provided (by you) -> easy for them to fix.

One more tip: don’t overhype. SEO-savvy webmasters can be allergic to marketing fluff. Stick to the facts about your content (e.g. “recent guide on X, ~2,000 words, includes a quick infographic at the end”) and why it’s relevant, and let them judge. Over-the-top claims like “best article ever” can undermine credibility. Objective tone, as if you were recommending a third-party resource (even though it’s yours), tends to land better.

4. Use a clear and friendly tone

Your writing style in the email sets the mood. Aim for friendly, brief, and professional. Avoid sounding accusatory about the broken link (“You have a broken link” can be rephrased to “I noticed a broken link”). Also avoid sounding too transactional (“I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”) – broken link building is implicitly a transaction, but your email should read like a helpful heads-up more than a quid pro quo.

A tried-and-true formula is:

• Subject line: Something straightforward like

  “Broken link on [Their Site]”

  or “Quick note about [Their Page]”. This often performs well; it’s not salesy and immediately relevant.

  For example, I’ve used

  “Broken link suggestion”

  or “Fix for broken link on [Site Name]” and gotten decent open rates because curiosity is triggered.

• Greeting & introduction: “Hi [Name], I was browsing your [Page Name] and found a couple broken links.”

• Value delivery: “Just wanted to let you know so you can update them – one was [Broken Link X] which seems to be down.”

• Pitch: “By the way, I recently put together [Your Resource] which [why it’s relevant]. It might be a good replacement for [Broken Link X] if you’re updating the page.”

• Polite close: “Either way, hope this helps. Thank you for the great resource!” (Always thank them – remember, they did provide a useful resource list or article that you presumably found valuable.)

This structure covers your bases. It’s very similar to the outreach script that Backlinko recommends, which even starts with a casual question “Are you still updating your site?” and then goes on to list the broken links and suggest the replacement. The key is it doesn’t jump straight to “here’s my link, add it.” There’s a bit of rapport and genuine helpfulness.

From experience, adding a personal touch in the intro – like a short compliment about their content – further improves response rate. Just ensure it’s sincere; flattery that clearly looks copy-pasted (“Loved your amazing blog!!”) will have the opposite effect.

Instead, mention something specific: “I especially enjoyed your point about onboarding new hires; it’s so true.”

5. Anticipate and handle responses (including the tricky ones)

If your outreach is done well, you’ll start getting responses. Many will simply say, “Thanks, I updated it!” or “Appreciate it, I’ll check out your guide.” Those are the wins – be sure to reply with gratitude. Some will say they fixed the broken link but chose a different source to link (not yours) – it happens, don’t be discouraged. Others might say they’ll consider it or will update next time they refresh content. It’s fine to politely follow up in a couple of weeks if you don’t see the link added, just to nudge them, but keep it light.

Now, a certain percentage of replies might ask:

“Sure, I can add your link – what’s in it for me?”

or even bluntly “Our policy is $50 for adding links.”

Essentially, they’re asking for payment or a favor in return. This is an ethical crossroads. Paying for a link is against Google’s guidelines if the link passes PageRank (not a sponsored or nofollow link), so I generally avoid outright buying these placement updates – it turns a white-hat tactic gray. Plus, in my view, if a site is running a pay-to-link scheme, that link’s long-term value is suspect (they might get penalized or devalue such links). The decision is yours; some SEOs have budgets for “link placement fees” and treat it as a cost of doing business, but do know it’s not strictly within search engine guidelines.

If you prefer not to pay (as I do), a polite response can be: “Thanks for considering it. I totally understand if you can’t add it without compensation, but unfortunately I can’t pay for links.

If you ever update the page in the future and find it useful, I hope you’ll keep my resource in mind!”

Essentially, leave the door open. In a few cases, I’ve had webmasters later add the link for free (perhaps after failing to get others to pay). Many times though, you’ll just drop those and move on.

Another type of tricky response:

“We’ll add your link, can you also link back to us?”

or “Can you do a shout on social media?”. They’re seeking a reciprocal benefit. A reciprocal link (you linking them from your site) has its own risks if done purely for exchange, but if their site is genuinely something you might cite or partner with, it’s not inherently bad.

Just be cautious making quid pro quo deals at scale. Each case is unique – I usually reply that I can’t promise a link back but would be happy to consider any of their content if it fits as a resource in the future. Keep things non-committal unless you truly want to link them.

6. Follow-up (but don’t spam)

A huge part of outreach success is in the follow-up. People are busy; emails get buried. I typically send one follow-up to non-responders after about 5-7 days. It’s a short note like,

“Hi, just circling back on this. Did you see my note about the broken link on your page? Let me know if the replacement I suggested would be useful – happy to help if you need any more info.”

Often, the follow-up is what gets their attention. Some SEOs do two or three follow-ups, but I stop at one or two to avoid pestering. If there’s still no response, take it as a no.

For follow-ups, consider sending during a different time or day than the original (if you emailed Monday morning last time, maybe try Thursday afternoon for the bump).

Also, if you have an alternate contact (say you emailed an editor but you also have the author’s address), you might try the other contact on a second attempt, mentioning you had reached out previously.

7. Keep track of your outreach

Use a simple spreadsheet or a CRM tool (there are specialized outreach tools like BuzzStream, Pitchbox, or Semrush’s Link Building Tool) to log who you contacted, when, and the status. This saves you from accidentally double-emailing or forgetting to follow up. It also lets you record results – did they add the link, respond negatively, etc.

Over time, you might notice patterns (e.g., certain types of sites never respond, or certain email subject lines perform better).

In terms of tone and style, you’ll refine your template as you learn what resonates in your niche.

For instance, in a very academic niche, a slightly more formal tone might work best, whereas in a blogging community, a casual tone with a bit of humor might get better engagement. Be adaptive.

One more outreach tip: whenever possible, build a relationship beyond the one link. If a webmaster added your link and was appreciative, that’s a foot in the door. Follow them on Twitter, engage with their posts, or even shoot them a thank-you note saying you loved their site. Relationship-based link building is powerful – down the line, they might link to you in new content, or be open to guest posts, etc. Broken link building can thus act as an ice-breaker for broader networking in your industry.

To sum up, effective outreach for broken link building means being genuinely helpful, respectful, and persistent. It’s part SEO and part human relations. When done right, you’ll not only earn links but also goodwill. I’ve had people thank me profusely for pointing out broken links (even if they didn’t add mine), and others who became regular contacts after a successful swap. That kind of outcome is rewarding in itself – the backlinks are the cherry on top.

Scaling your broken link building efforts

Once you’ve honed the process on a handful of broken link wins, the next challenge is scaling up while maintaining quality. Scaling doesn’t necessarily mean blasting out thousands of emails (remember the cautionary Reddit tales of spending 3 months for little return).

Instead, it means building an efficient workflow and possibly a team or toolset that can handle more volume without sacrificing the personal touch and strategic targeting that make this tactic work.

Here are strategies for scaling broken link building in a sustainable way:

1. Develop a repeatable workflow

Document the steps of your process – from prospecting to content creation to outreach – so that it’s standardized. For example:

• Prospecting: Define how many broken link opportunities you aim to find per week, and which methods/tools you’ll use each time.

• Content: Have a content creation pipeline in place.

  If you need to create new guides or visuals for replacements, plan ahead with your content team or freelance writers/designers.

• Outreach: Create email templates for initial contact and follow-ups that can be semi-customized for each prospect.

By systematizing, you can delegate parts of the process. Perhaps you train an assistant or junior SEO to use Ahrefs to gather broken page lists and export backlinks, while you focus on evaluating and deciding which ones to pursue. Or you have a content writer pre-write “base” versions of replacement articles that you can then tweak for different outreach targets.

In my case, I built a simple workflow in Trello: each broken link opportunity was a card that moved from “To Investigate” -> “Content Ready” -> “Outreach Sent” -> “Response/Outcome”. This kanban style board helped ensure no opportunity fell through cracks and gave visibility if I wanted to ramp up volume in one stage (e.g., if I had many in “To Investigate,” I’d devote a day to clearing that list).

2. Use specialized tools for efficiency

There are tools explicitly designed for link building campaigns which can greatly aid scaling:

SEO CRM/Outreach platforms

Tools like BuzzStream, Pitchbox, or Semrush’s Link Building Tool can automate parts of outreach at scale. They allow you to import prospects (with fields for Name, Email, Page, Broken Link, etc.), send templated emails with placeholders for personalization, and manage replies all in one place. They also help with tracking who’s been contacted and sending automated follow-ups.

For example, Pitchbox can send a second email automatically if no reply after X days, which saves manual work (just be sure your templates are well-crafted – you don’t want automated spam). Semrush’s tool even integrates prospecting: it can suggest link prospects (including broken link opportunities) and you can outreach from within the platform.

Email finding and verification tools

At scale, you might be finding hundreds of contacts. Use bulk email finders like Hunter or Snov.io to upload a list of domains and get possible email addresses. Also use email verification services (e.g., NeverBounce) to clean the list so you’re not sending to a bunch of bounces (which could hurt your email domain reputation).

Project management & scraping

If you’re really going big, you can employ scraping tools or Python scripts to automate parts of the prospecting.

For example, using the Ahrefs or Semrush API to fetch broken pages data for a list of domains, or using a custom crawler to find “404” mentions on resource pages. This is advanced and requires some coding or tools like Scrapy. That said, many SEO pros in forums have shared that even scaled broken link building tends to be a grind – so weigh the ROI of heavy automation. Some tasks benefit from a human eye (like vetting relevance), which is why I lean towards combining light automation with human judgment.

3. Prioritize targets to maximize efficiency

When scaling, you often have to make choices about where to focus. A smart approach is to categorize broken link prospects by tier of importance:

• Tier 1: High-authority, highly relevant sites with significant traffic, where a link would move the needle for your SEO. These are worth extra effort (custom content, multiple follow-ups, maybe even a phone call if appropriate!). You might handle Tier 1 personally.

• Tier 2: Mid-level sites or blogs that are decently relevant. Good to pursue, but perhaps with standard effort – you’ll still personalize outreach but maybe not spend days creating a bespoke infographic for them.

• Tier 3: Low-authority or marginally relevant sites. These are lowest priority.

  If you’re resource-constrained, you can drop these or perhaps use them as training opportunities for a team member to practice outreach, since losing them isn’t a big deal.

By focusing on Tier 1 and 2, you ensure your time is spent where it counts. One link from Tier 1 might be worth 20 from Tier 3 in terms of SEO impact.

4. Batch and templatize while preserving personalization

Scaling often involves batching tasks.

For instance, do all your prospect list building in one batch, content creation in another, and outreach in another, rather than handling one opportunity fully before moving to the next. Batching is efficient but can make personalization tricky – the solution is to templatize intelligently.

You might prepare outreach templates for different scenarios (e.g., one template for broken links on “resource pages”, another for broken links in “blog articles”) with fill-in blanks or spin-off sentences you can customize. Use mail merge fields for Name, Site, Page Title, etc. This way, 80% of each email is pre-written but 20% is tailored.

In practice, I’ve had templates where the intro line and one sentence about the content are unique to each prospect, and the rest is a standard block of text. This saved a ton of time and was scalable to hundreds of emails, yet each recipient saw references relevant only to them.

Be cautious: don’t let efficiency completely override thoughtfulness. Some outreach tools let you send hundreds of emails a day – but blasting too many too fast can lead to mistakes and email deliverability issues. I usually set a limit (like 30-50 personalized emails per day) to ensure quality and to avoid my email getting flagged as spam by email providers (which can happen if you suddenly act like a spambot).

5. Outsource or delegate parts of the process

Scaling might require help. You could outsource certain tasks to freelancers or use in-house team members:

• Prospecting: You can hire a virtual assistant (VA) to do the initial Google searches for resource pages or to run Ahrefs reports and compile CSVs of broken link opportunities. Provide clear instructions and perhaps a sample Google query list. Many VAs can do this reliably once trained.

• Content creation:

  If you need numerous content pieces for different broken links, a pool of freelance writers or an internal content team can be invaluable. You can give them the outline (based on the dead page) and have them draft the content, which you then refine. This is how agencies scale broken link building – content creators churn out assets continuously.

Email outreach: You might delegate some outreach to a trained team member who can handle the communications.

However, be careful here – outreach has a personal element. If delegating, make sure the person can mimic the tone and quality you desire, and perhaps have them work under your email account or an alias (consistency matters; webmasters might respond better if the same person follows up). Always supervise initially to ensure they aren’t cutting corners in personalization, which could burn bridges.

6. Maintain quality control

Scaling can introduce inconsistencies or drops in quality if not monitored. Schedule routine checks:

• Verify the content being produced is up to scratch and truly comparable or better than the original broken page content.

• Spot-check some outreach emails being sent (especially if templated) to make sure they don’t have errors like {NAME} placeholders not filled or awkward phrasing.

• Monitor responses for any patterns of complaints or confusion – if multiple webmasters respond negatively or ask “what is this about?”, you might need to tweak your messaging.

• Keep an eye on your email reputation.

  If your outreach volume is high, use tools like Mailtester or GlockApps to ensure your domain isn’t landing in spam. Sometimes using an email address on a separate domain or subdomain is a strategy at large scale, to protect your main domain’s sender reputation.

7. Scale results, not just activity

The ultimate goal is not to scale the number of emails sent or links found, but to scale the number of quality links earned. Always tie back your scaling efforts to outcomes.

For example, if you scaled from 20 outreach emails a week to 100 a week but your link acquisition only went from 4 links to 8 links per month, you might realize the additional 80 emails (and all the work behind them) only yielded 4 extra links – maybe those were lower tiers with poor ROI. Use such insights to refine your approach: maybe next month, target fewer but higher-probability prospects or invest more in improving conversion rate (the content, the pitch) rather than purely increasing volume.

One advantage of a scaled approach is you gather data faster. You can calculate your conversion rate more reliably after 500 emails than after 20. Say you find that on average 5% of outreach emails convert to a link. With that in mind, you can forecast and allocate resources appropriately (e.g., to get ~50 links, you might need to approach 1000 prospects).

Also, track which types of prospects convert better. You might find resource pages have a 8% success rate for you while reaching out to blog post authors has 2%. Then double down on resource page outreach, for instance.

8. Integrate with your overall link building strategy

At scale, broken link building shouldn’t exist in a silo. Incorporate it into your broader SEO and content strategy.

For example, if your content team is planning a big piece of content, do some quick prospecting to see if there are broken link opportunities that content could target – this can justify creating certain pieces.

Conversely, if you’re doing digital PR campaigns or guest posting, some of the relationships you build there could feed into broken link efforts (maybe a journalist you pitch to also runs a blog with some broken links – who knows!).

Many agencies and advanced practitioners treat broken link building as one tactic among many, to be used where appropriate. It’s particularly effective for evergreen content and niche industries where resource pages are common.

If you’re in a rapidly changing niche, broken link opportunities might dry up faster (content gets outdated and removed quicker). Adjust your expectations to your niche’s dynamics.

In summary, scaling broken link building is about working smarter, not just harder. Create processes and use tools to handle the heavy lifting, but continue to apply the thoughtfulness that the tactic demands.

When you strike that balance, you can significantly increase your link output without a proportional increase in effort. I’ve seen this first-hand: by streamlining prospecting and outreach, I was able to triple the number of monthly links acquired from broken link building for a client, while only spending maybe 50% more time than before. It’s all about eliminating inefficiencies and focusing on high-impact actions.

Measuring success and refining your approach

Like any SEO strategy, broken link building should be measured and iterated on. As you execute campaigns, you’ll want to track how well it’s working, prove the value of the links you’re getting, and refine your tactics for continuous improvement. Here’s how to close the loop:

Track key metrics

Start by defining what success looks like for your efforts. Some important metrics to monitor:

• Response rate: The percentage of outreach emails that get a response (even if it’s a “no”). This can indicate how well your outreach messaging is resonating or if your targets are reachable. For example, a 20% response rate is pretty solid in cold outreach; if you’re seeing 5%, perhaps your email is not convincing or not even being seen.

• Conversion rate (link acquisition rate): The percentage of outreach emails that result in a link being added. This is the ultimate KPI for broken link building. If you contacted 100 sites and got 5 links, that’s a 5% conversion. Industry anecdotal data often pegs this in the low single digits (2-5%), but it can vary widely by niche and execution quality. Track this over time and try to improve it.

• Number of links acquired: Obviously, count the raw number of new backlinks you secured through this method. Break it down by domain authority or quality if possible (e.g., 3 links from DA>70 sites, 5 links from DA 50-70, etc., in a given quarter).

• Quality indicators of links: Not all links are equal, so track metrics like Domain Rating (DR) or Domain Authority (DA) of the linking sites, relevancy (maybe tag each link with its niche or context), and do they send traffic. If you notice you’re only getting low-authority sites to link, you might adjust your targeting to aim higher.

• Traffic and ranking impact: This one is trickier to attribute directly, but keep an eye on the organic search traffic to the page that received backlinks (if you created a new content piece as the replacement, is it starting to rank or get impressions?). Also watch if your overall domain authority metrics improve (e.g., Ahrefs DR often reflects new quality links fairly quickly). Rankings for target keywords might improve after a batch of new links index – for instance, if your replacement content was targeting a keyword and got several backlinks, see if its Google rank moves up over the next few weeks.
• Referral traffic: Check your analytics for any referral visitors coming from the newly added links. Broken link building is usually about SEO value rather than direct traffic, but you might be pleasantly surprised. If you got a link on a popular resource page, it could actually bring a steady trickle of relevant visitors. This is a nice bonus and also a sign that the link is on a page people actually use (which is the best-case scenario).
• Time/cost spent: If you want to measure efficiency, track roughly how many hours or dollars (if outsourced) you are spending per link acquired. This is your “cost per link” (even if it’s just internal time cost). For instance, if over a month you and your team spent 30 hours on broken link building and got 10 links, that’s 3 hours per link. If next month you improve to 2 hours per link, that’s a win. If it balloons, maybe you’re chasing harder-to-get links or something in the process needs tweaking.

2. Analyze which strategies yield the best results

Break down your successes and failures to learn patterns:

• Do links from resource page outreach convert higher than links from blog post outreach? Maybe you see that contacting .edu resource pages was a goldmine with 15% conversion, whereas individual bloggers were 3%. That insight would encourage you to focus more on the .edu or similar “professional” pages.

• Does a certain content format perform better? You might notice that whenever your replacement content was an infographic or a data study, webmasters were more eager to link (possibly because it’s unique and cite-worthy). That could guide your content creation toward including data or visuals more often.

• Are certain topics yielding more links?

  If you operate in a broad niche, perhaps your broken link wins are clustering around a specific subtopic. It could be that subtopic has more old content out there to replace, or fewer competitors chasing those links. It might be strategic to invest deeper in that subtopic’s content and broken link outreach.

Which outreach email variant worked best?

If you experimented with different subject lines or email copy, compare their response rates.

For example, maybe “Broken link on your site” as a subject got more opens than “Quick question about [SiteName]”. Or adding a line about “I have done this in practice for my own site and it helped” gave you more credibility. Use what you learn to refine a master outreach template.

Regularly reviewing these factors turns broken link building into a data-driven practice rather than a shot in the dark. I like to do a retrospective each quarter: tally up links gained, see which were the “big wins,” and dissect how I got them.

3. Refine your target list and criteria

Based on results, you may tighten or loosen your prospecting criteria.

For instance, if you found that chasing anything below DR 30 sites wasn’t worth it (none of them responded or the link value was negligible), you might stop pursuing those entirely, saving time. Or if certain foreign TLDs always asked for money (just hypothetically), you might skip those countries in your searches.

Conversely, if an unexpected type of site gave you success, adjust your prospecting to find more of those.

It can be useful to maintain a “blacklist and whitelist” of sorts. Blacklist domains that outright rejected or asked for payment (so you don’t accidentally pitch them again). Whitelist (or make note of) domains that were very receptive – perhaps you can leverage that by looking at their peers or other sites maintained by the same owners.

4. Iterate on content quality

If outreach conversion is low, it might not be just the email – it could be the content isn’t convincing enough once they click through. Try to gather implicit feedback: if someone replied “thanks, but we’re okay for now” or didn’t link even after saying they’d check it out, maybe your content wasn’t clearly better than whatever else is out there. You might need to beef it up. On the flip side, if you notice webmasters spontaneously praising your content in replies (“Wow, that guide is really thorough!”), that’s a sign you’re doing it right.

Remember, link building in general is a long game. Google’s John Mueller has often suggested focusing on making your site better rather than obsessing over link counts. If broken link building is taking too much time with not enough payoff, consider dialing it down and reallocating effort to content improvement or other tactics. There’s no shame in pivoting strategy. As one SEO said, a “comprehensive strategy requires a variety of tactics” – broken link building is just one piece of the puzzle.

5. Celebrate and replicate big wins

When you do land an awesome link (say, from a high-authority site), take a moment to analyze how that happened. Did you do anything special for that one? Was it just luck? Sometimes one success can be turned into a template for more:

• If the person who linked you is particularly happy, maybe ask if they know of others who would benefit from your resource. (This doesn’t always apply, but I’ve had a case where a professor who added my link in her resources page actually introduced me to a colleague at another university who ran a similar page – leading to another link.)

• If a certain style of email clearly worked, consider using that as your primary style.

If a piece of content got multiple unsolicited links after you placed a few (network effect), that’s interesting.

For example, perhaps your content started ranking in Google once it got a few links, and then other sites found it organically and linked it. Highlight such pieces – they have high ROI. It might be worth doing more outreach on that content beyond broken link building (like promoting it via digital PR) since it clearly resonates.

6. Report results to stakeholders (if applicable)

If you’re doing this for a client or your company, translate these metrics into business outcomes. For instance:

“Our broken link building campaign in Q2 earned 15 new backlinks (average DA 60), which contributed to a 20% increase in organic traffic to our product page X.”

Use the data to justify the effort and perhaps secure more resources if it’s working well. If it’s not working well, be ready to explain what you learned and how you’ll adjust.

7. Refine or retire the strategy

After some cycles of measurement, you might conclude a few things. One possibility is that broken link building is a consistent winner for you – it yields a steady stream of quality links with a manageable amount of effort. In that case, it deserves continued focus and possibly scaling up further or allocating more team members to it.

Alternatively, you might find it plateaued or underperforming compared to other tactics. Maybe the easy opportunities were scooped up and now you’re scraping the barrel, or competitors in your niche are also doing broken link outreach heavily (webmasters sometimes mention “you’re the 4th person to tell me about that broken link!” – a sign of saturation).

If so, it might be time to pivot tactics or give it a break. Reassess if the tactic aligns with your goals. There’s no one-size-fits-all – some niches (e.g., technology, marketing) are very saturated with broken link builders; others (e.g., academic or niche B2B sectors) might be wide open.

Because you stayed objective and data-driven, you can make that decision with confidence. As one Reddit user bluntly advised regarding broken link building:

“Don’t waste your time chasing it”

if the success rate is abysmal.

On the other hand, if you crack the code – perhaps by focusing on quality content and personalized outreach – you might prove the skeptics wrong and make it a pillar of your SEO strategy.

Ultimately, measure what matters to your SEO success. If broken link building is contributing to higher rankings, stronger authority, and real traffic gains, that’s success. If it’s not, refine your approach or reallocate efforts. SEO is iterative, and even a venerable tactic like broken link building must earn its keep in your playbook.

Advanced tactics and common pitfalls in broken link building

By now, we’ve covered the core steps of broken link building.

In this section, let’s explore a few expert-level tactics and nuanced insights that often get overlooked – as well as some common pitfalls to avoid. These tips come from hard-won experience (“I have done this in practice”) and the less obvious corners of SEO discussions.

1. The “Moving Man Method” – capitalizing on rebrands and changes

Broken links don’t just happen because of neglect or oversight; they also occur when companies rebrand, merge, or move their content. Brian Dean coined the term “Moving Man Method” for a link building strategy where you find sites that have changed names or shut down and then target the links pointing to their old URLs. This is essentially a subset of broken link building focused on brand or organization changes.

For example, if a popular website in your industry was acquired and their old domain now redirects or is offline, many links to the old domain might be broken or going to a generic redirect page. You can create content about that subject (or if it’s a company, perhaps a biography or case study about them) and reach out to those linking sites suggesting your content as a more up-to-date reference. The appeal here is emotional as well – people might be linking an obsolete resource and would be glad to replace it with something current.

I once noticed that a well-known SaaS tool changed its name and URL, and a year later, hundreds of resource pages still linked to the old URL (which was dead). I quickly wrote a “History and Alternatives of [OldToolName]” blog post on my site. In outreach, I mentioned that the old link no longer worked due to the rebrand and offered my post as a replacement that not only acknowledges the change but also provides current info. This yielded a surprisingly high conversion rate, because webmasters knew the old page was defunct and my content neatly filled the void.

Keep an ear out for industry news – when a site or product shuts down, that’s a broken link opportunity. Even Google searches like

“site:oldsite.com 404”

after a big move can reveal pages that went offline. Reddit’s /r/SEO or Twitter can also surface these opportunities when people mention “Such-and-such site is gone”.

2. Leverage unlinked mentions concurrently

Sometimes, when looking for broken links, you’ll come across unlinked brand mentions of your company or website as well. While not the same thing, it’s another low-hanging fruit tactic: if someone mentioned your brand or content but didn’t link it, you can reach out to request a link.

This is akin to broken link building in that you’re not cold-requesting a new link out of the blue – there’s already a context. It might make sense to check for unlinked mentions (using tools like Mention or Google Alerts or the Ahrefs Content Explorer) in parallel with broken link checks, as part of a broader link reclamation effort.

For example, The Backlink Company’s survey data shows unlinked brand mentions are considered an effective tactic by about 23% of link builders, which is more than broken link building’s 10.9%.

So, tying that into your workflow can boost overall results.

If you find someone wrote about a now-broken resource and also happens to mention your brand (or could benefit from mentioning your brand), that’s a double win you can address in one outreach.

3. Avoid these common pitfalls

Mass-blasting template emails: It can be tempting to take a list of 500 prospects and shoot out a generic email to all, especially with tools at your disposal. But as discussed, this often leads to an abysmal <1% success and can burn domains. One Redditor’s horror story involved spending 8 hours a week for months sending generic broken link emails to high-DR sites and getting zero links – except responses asking for money. The pitfall was not customizing the approach for those “50+ DR” sites or considering if they even entertain such requests. The takeaway: quality trumps quantity.

It’s better to send 50 well-crafted, targeted emails than 500 spammy ones. Not only will you likely get more links from the 50, but you’ll preserve your reputation.

Suggesting irrelevant replacements: Another pitfall is stretching the relevance. Some SEOs, desperate for links, try to hijack any broken link they find, even if their content is only loosely related. This can lead to awkward situations or annoyed webmasters. Always ask,

“If I were the site owner, would I honestly find this replacement useful and relevant to my audience?”

If not, don’t send it. Preserving your credibility is more important than chasing every possible link.

Neglecting nofollow or user-generated links: When scanning who links to the broken page, check if those links are dofollow editorial links or perhaps nofollow/user-generated (like forum posts, blog comments). A bunch of broken links coming from forums or Wiki articles might not be worth outreach since those often can’t be changed by a single webmaster (or the links are nofollow and less valuable SEO-wise). Focus on editorial links – links within actual content put there by the content creator. Those have the highest ROI and likelihood of being updated.

Legal or sensitive content issues: If the broken page involves something sensitive (e.g., medical advice, legal info) and you’re not qualified in that area, be careful inserting yourself.

E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) considerations matter; a health site might not link to your health article if you lack medical credentials, even if it’s well-written. Sometimes it’s best to skip opportunities where you can’t match the credibility of the original source (for instance, replacing a broken link to a government study with your personal blog post may not fly).

Ignoring your own site’s broken outbound links: This is more of an SEO best practice: as you fix others’ broken links, also make sure your site isn’t harboring broken outbound links. Tools like Screaming Frog or BrokenLinkCheck.com can identify if you’re linking out to dead pages. Clean those up (either remove or update them). It’s tangential, but a tidy site makes outreach easier (some savvy webmasters will quickly vet your site’s quality before linking, and a site full of broken links doesn’t inspire confidence).

4. Use broken link building as a content strategy compass

We touched on this, but it’s worth emphasizing as an advanced insight – the broken link opportunities you uncover can guide your content roadmap.

If you consistently find that certain topics had a lot of link love (even if the content is now gone), consider investing more in those topics on your site. You essentially have empirical evidence of “linkable content”.

For instance, if you notice multiple broken links around “Beginner’s guide to cloud security”, and you’re in the cybersecurity niche, making the best beginner’s guide to cloud security on your site is likely a smart move for both broken link building and organic rankings. You can proactively create content that you expect to use for broken link outreach, almost like creating demand for your own supply.

5. Community and relationship angles

One rarely discussed benefit of broken link outreach – even when it doesn’t yield a link – is that it puts you on the radar of other content creators in your niche. If done respectfully, you might spark connections. I’ve had bloggers reply to a broken link pitch with “We already updated it, but I like your site – maybe we can collaborate on something?” That’s a huge win beyond the original ask. Some might invite you to guest post or include you in future resource lists if they know you produce quality content.

In essence, broken link building can be a gateway to networking. SEO communities (even places like the BigSEO subreddit) often highlight how relationship-building is the future of link building versus one-off emails. Keep that in mind as you scale – treat people like people, not just link targets, and you could gain more than just a backlink.

6. Monitor the competitive environment

Finally, recognize that broken link building is not an isolated activity; your competitors might be doing it too.

If you start noticing that certain webmasters are jaded (“Oh, you’re the 5th person to email me about that link!”), that means multiple folks are chasing the same opportunity.

In such cases, how do you stand out? One way is speed – be the first to catch new broken links when they appear (setting up alerts or periodic checks). Another is offering something extra: perhaps you noticed more broken links on their site or you have a resource that covers more than what the old one did, etc.

Also, don’t burn bridges – even if someone else beat you to a particular link update, maintain a good rapport; they might remember you when another opportunity arises.

On the flip side, if you notice nobody else is pursuing broken links in your vertical (you’re hearing “Oh, I didn’t know that link was dead, thanks!” fresh every time), you might have a greenfield advantage – capitalize on it quickly and scale up before others catch on.

Scale your link building with expert help

Our team at The Backlink Company specializes in smart, efficient, and sustainable link acquisition strategies – including broken link building that actually works. Get in touch to learn how we can help you earn high-authority backlinks and grow your organic presence.