Broken Link Building.

Broken link building is a white-hat link building strategy that identifies broken outbound links on other websites (links pointing to content that no longer exists, returning 404 errors) and offers a relevant piece of your own content as a replacement. Webmasters are incentivised to accept because fixing broken links improves their users' experience, and you're providing the solution rather than asking for a favour.

The Broken Link Building Process

Step 1: Find broken links on relevant websites using tools like Ahrefs (Site Explorer > Broken links), Screaming Frog (crawl a competitor's site and filter for 404s), or Check My Links (Chrome extension). Step 2: Verify the broken link's original destination using the Wayback Machine to understand what the page contained. Step 3: Create or identify existing content on your site that serves as an equivalent replacement. Step 4: Reach out to the webmaster with a brief, personalised email noting the broken link, where it appears, and offering your content as a replacement.

Outreach Effectiveness

Broken link building outreach performs better than cold link requests because it leads with value (helping the webmaster fix a problem they may not know exists) rather than asking for something. Response rates of 5–15% are typical: meaning 10–30 successful link placements per 100 outreach emails sent with a good list and personalised message. The content you offer must be genuinely equivalent or better than the original resource.