Link Reclamation.

Link reclamation is the process of identifying backlinks that have been lost (due to the linking page being updated or deleted), links that point to 404 pages on your site (which can be recovered with a redirect), and unlinked brand mentions (citations of your brand name or product without a hyperlink that could be converted into active links).

Recovering Lost Links

Backlink monitoring tools (Ahrefs, Semrush) alert when previously tracked links disappear. Common causes: the linking page was redesigned and the link removed, the linking page was deleted, or the link destination URL was changed without a redirect. Contacting the webmaster to restore the link or updating the redirect on your end are the two recovery paths.

404 Link Recovery

Broken backlinks — links pointing to 404 pages on your site — represent lost link equity. Identify them in Ahrefs (Best by Links report filtered to 404 pages) or Search Console (Coverage errors). Implement 301 redirects from the 404 URL to the most relevant live page, restoring the inbound link equity flow.

Unlinked Mention Outreach

Unlinked mentions are brand or product citations in articles, reviews, or forums that don't include a hyperlink. Tools like Ahrefs Alerts, Mention.com, or Google Alerts discover these. Politely requesting that the author add a link is often the highest-acceptance-rate link building outreach — the author already knows the brand and has demonstrated intent to reference it.