Broken link building: find a dead page, write the replacement, tell the sites

Somewhere in your category, a useful page died. The tool was shut down, the company was bought, the blog was migrated and the URL changed. The pages that linked to it are still live, and their links now go nowhere.

You write the page that should sit at the end of those links, then tell each site that its link is broken and that you have the replacement. That is the whole method.

1. Find a dead URL that several sites in your category still link to.
2. Confirm the links exist and that the pages still get read.
3. Write the replacement, better than what died.
4. Email the person who wrote each page.
5. Record what you sent and what happened.

Most link emails ask a stranger to do you a favour. This one hands them a defect report for their own page, with the fix attached. The editor gains a working link; you gain a link. Nobody is buying or trading anything, so nothing here touches Google's link spam policy.

It also puts a floor under the quality of your page. If the thing that died was a well-cited tool or reference, your replacement has to be at least as useful, or the editor will simply delete the link instead of repointing it.

You are looking for a URL that returns 404, and that other people still cite. Three places give you candidates without a subscription.

1. 1

   The tools that shut down

   List the products in your category that closed, were acquired or dropped a feature in the last few years. You already know several. Their old documentation, pricing and comparison pages were linked from roundups.

2. 2

   The roundups themselves

   Open the "best X tools" and "X resources" pages that rank for your category. Run a broken link checker over each one. Every dead link on a live roundup is a candidate, and you get the linking page for free.

3. 3

   Your own lost links

   Check the Links report in Search Console and your backlink index for links pointing at URLs of yours that now 404. Those are the easiest of all: the page was worth linking once, and you can restore or redirect it today.

Write each candidate in a sheet with four columns: the dead URL, what it used to be, the pages that link to it, and whether you could write something better.

A dead URL with two links from abandoned blogs is not worth an afternoon. Judge each candidate before you write anything.

A backlink index lists who links to the dead URL. Search Console shows only your own links, so for a rival's dead page you need an index, or you work from the roundups you found by hand.

The replacement lives on your domain, at a URL you will not change, and it answers what the dead page answered. Do not turn it into a product page. The editor is linking to a reference, not to your pricing.

• If a calculator died, build the calculator, on its own page, with no account needed.
• If a reference table died, publish the table, with the source and the date.
• If a guide died, write the guide, and cover the parts people complained were missing.
• If a comparison died, write the comparison, and be honest about the tool you sell.

Worked example. A free HTTP status code reference at oldtool.com/status-codes goes offline. Nine guides and two university course pages still link to it. You publish yourproduct.com/guides/http-status-codes with the full list, what each means for a crawler, and a table of the ones that matter. That page is now the obvious repair for eleven editors.

One paragraph. Name the page, name the broken link, offer the replacement, stop. Send it to the person who wrote the page, found in the byline or on LinkedIn, not to a contact form if you can avoid it.

Subject: broken link on your HTTP status codes guide

Hi Marta,

Your guide at example.com/guides/status-codes links to
oldtool.com/status-codes, which has been down since the tool closed.
I wrote a replacement with the full list and what each code means for
crawlers: yourproduct.com/guides/http-status-codes. Either way, the
current link is dead and worth removing.

Thomas

• No template variables visible, ever. One escaped placeholder ends the conversation.
• No flattery opening. "I really enjoyed your article" reads as a form letter because it usually is.
• One follow-up at most, a week later, two sentences. Then stop.
• If they remove the link instead of replacing it, that is a fair outcome. Do not argue.

A sheet with five columns is enough: the page, the person, the date sent, the reply, the outcome. You need it because the same roundups will come up again next year, and because you should never email the same person twice about the same thing.

Expectations, in plain words: most people will not reply. Of those who do, most will fix the link, and some will remove it rather than add yours. A campaign against a well-linked dead page can end with a handful of links from sites that matter, which is a good week for a small product. Anyone promising more than that is selling something.

Judge the result in referring domains a person would recognise, not in a count. Ten links from one directory network are worth less than one from a page your buyers read.

If you have four hours and no tools beyond a browser, run this.

1. 1

   Thirty minutes: pick the roundups

   Search the three queries your buyers use to find tools like yours. Open the top ten results that are lists rather than products. Save the URLs.

2. 2

   One hour: find the dead links

   Run each list through a broken link checker. Collect every 404 with the page it sits on. Group by dead URL: the ones appearing on several lists are your targets.

3. 3

   Ninety minutes: write one replacement

   Pick the single best target and write the page properly. One good replacement beats four thin ones, because the editors will open it.

4. 4

   One hour: send the emails

   One paragraph each, written by hand, to the author of each list. Log them in the sheet. Then leave it alone for a week.