Broken Link Building: How to Turn Dead Links Into Earned Backlinks

Broken link building is a white-hat tactic: you find dead links on relevant pages, offer a page on your site that does the same job, and tell the site owner about both. It works because links die all the time. Ahrefs' link rot study of more than two million websites found that at least 66.5% of the links pointing to them since 2013 had rotted, and Pew Research Center found that 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible when it checked in October 2023. The owner gets a fixed page and you get an editorial link placed for a real reason. Success depends on relevant prospects, a replacement at least as good as what was lost, and outreach that saves the editor time.

Why Broken Link Building Works

Most outreach asks an editor for a favor. Broken link outreach starts by doing one. A dead link is a small quality problem on their page: it sends readers to an error, makes the content look neglected, and wastes the effort that went into citing a source. Point it out with a working alternative attached, and you are solving a problem they already have.

The supply of targets is large. Pew's 2024 report found that 23% of news webpages and 21% of webpages on government sites contained at least one broken link. Resource pages, older blog posts and university guides tend to collect them too, because they are published once and rarely revisited.

The link you earn sits in an existing, indexed page, was placed by the site owner, and is surrounded by text on your topic. That is the same profile that makes niche edits valuable, earned here through a genuine fix rather than a request for space.

Step 1: Find Broken Links Worth Replacing

Two prospecting methods work, and most campaigns use both.

Start from dead pages in your niche. In Ahrefs' Site Explorer, enter a competitor or industry site, open the Best by links report, filter for 404 pages and sort by referring domains. That is the workflow Ahrefs' own broken link building guide describes. Every site linking to one of those dead pages is a prospect, because it links to something that no longer exists on a topic you cover. A dead guide with 40 referring domains gives you 40 prospects from one piece of research. This fits naturally alongside a competitive backlink analysis, since you are already mapping who links to whom.

Start from pages that link out a lot. Resource pages, tool roundups, glossaries and statistics pages cite many external sources, so they collect broken links faster than most. Search your topic plus "useful resources" or "further reading," then check each result's outbound links with a site crawler or a browser extension such as the free Ahrefs SEO Toolbar, which checks the status of every link on the page you are viewing.

For each prospect, record the linking page URL, the dead URL, the anchor text and a note on what the dead page covered. The Wayback Machine is the fastest way to see what a dead page actually said.

Step 2: Qualify Prospects Before You Do Any Work

A broken link on an irrelevant or low-quality site is a distraction, not an opportunity. Filter before you invest in content or outreach.

• Relevance first. The linking page should cover something your audience and your content genuinely share. A relevant page on a modest site usually beats an off-topic page on a big one.
• Real traffic, not just a metric. Check that the site earns organic traffic and ranks for real keywords. A high Domain Rating with no search visibility behind it is a warning sign.
• An active editor. Recent updates, a named author and a working contact page suggest someone will read your email and can still edit the page.
• A clean outbound profile. Pages crowded with casino, payday loan or unrelated sponsored links are not places you want your brand to appear.

These checks take a few minutes per prospect and save hours spent writing replacements nobody will use.

Step 3: Build or Match a Genuine Replacement

The strongest pitch offers a page that covers what the dead one covered, and ideally does it better. You have three options, compared below.

If you build a replacement, use the archived version as a guide to what people found useful, then make yours more current, more accurate and easier to use. Don't copy the old content. Recreate the value, not the words.

Skipping is a real option. Editors can tell a replacement from a pitch, and a weak match makes your next email to that site less likely to be read.

Step 4: Write Outreach That Helps First

Broken link emails work best when they are short and do the editor's homework. A good one covers four things in a few sentences:

1. Which page you were reading and what you found useful in it.
2. The exact broken URL and where it sits on their page (the anchor text or section heading).
3. Your suggested replacement, with one line on why it fits.
4. A note that the broken link is worth fixing even if they choose a different source.

The last point keeps the email honest, because you lead with their problem rather than your URL. Personalize the first line, keep the whole message under about 120 words, and send one polite follow-up. In Backlinko's study of 12 million outreach emails, a single follow-up lifted responses by 65.8%. After that, stop. Sending the same template to hundreds of sites is how broken link building turns into spam.

Stay Inside Google's Link Policies

Broken link building is safe because the link is placed editorially, on its merits, with nothing exchanged for it. Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links "primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings" and list "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as an example, including exchanging money, goods or services for links. Google accepts paid links only when they carry rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". The same policies name excessive link exchanges ("Link to me and I'll link to you").

To keep the tactic clean:

• Don't offer payment or a reciprocal link in return for the replacement.
• Don't ask for exact-match commercial anchor text. Let the editor keep the existing anchor or pick one that fits.
• Don't buy expired domains to capture their old backlinks. Google's expired domain abuse policy covers a domain that is bought and "repurposed primarily to manipulate search rankings."

If a site owner asks for payment, the link has become a sponsored placement and should be labeled as one.

How to Measure Results

Judge broken link building on its own numbers. Track emails sent, replies and links placed for each prospect type, so you know your conversion rate on resource pages, university guides and blog posts separately. The split shows you where to spend the next round.

For impact, watch the pages you pointed links at: referring domains, rankings for their target terms, and organic clicks in Google Search Console over the following months. A link's ranking effect builds gradually, so read our guide to realistic link building timelines before you judge a campaign after a few weeks. For the published research on how links relate to traffic, AnchorApe's Backlink Impact Report draws the main Ahrefs and Backlinko findings into one page.

When Broken Link Building Is the Right Fit

It suits sites that have, or can build, genuinely useful reference content: guides, tools, templates, data or definitions that other sites cite. It works best in niches with lots of educational content, where links rot often and editors care about accuracy.

It suits sites made mostly of product or service pages less well, because there is little for an editor to cite, and it is a poor choice if you need links on a fixed timeline. In those cases, run it as one channel alongside editorial placements, digital PR and content that earns links on its own. If you buy placements alongside it, AnchorApe's placement standards set the proof each one needs: a live URL, traffic proof and DR documentation.