Definition
Broken link building is an SEO technique that involves identifying broken or dead hyperlinks on external websites and replacing them with active links to your own relevant content. The strategy serves two core purposes: helping the host site maintain a quality user experience and improving your own website’s authority and search engine rankings through valuable backlinks. Essentially, it’s a white-hat link-building method that relies on mutual benefit—site owners get functioning links, and SEOs gain referral traffic and credibility.
Is It Still Relevant?
Yes, broken link building remains a highly relevant and effective link-building strategy in today’s SEO landscape. While Google’s algorithms—like the Helpful Content Update and the Link Spam Update—now place more emphasis on quality and intent behind backlinks, broken link building continues to be a white-hat method that aligns with these guidelines.
Because search engines still view backlinks as strong ranking signals, earning links through ethical means like fixing broken content is seen as a smart and sustainable approach. Additionally, with hundreds of thousands of web pages becoming outdated or removed every day, opportunities for broken link building are constantly emerging. This continued lifecycle of web content makes the strategy not just relevant, but also scalable and evergreen.
Real-world Context
Broken link building is widely used in multiple industries and can be especially effective in content-heavy verticals such as education, health, finance, and tech.
Example: A SaaS cybersecurity company discovers that a popular tech blog links to outdated resources about phishing threats. By creating a more up-to-date, detailed guide on the topic and reaching out to the blog’s editor, the company successfully gets their link placed on a high-authority site. This not only drives referral traffic but also improves their domain authority.
Another example: A digital marketing agency finds broken links in a set of curated SEO tool directories. They offer their own brand’s in-house auditing tool as a substitute, gaining multiple high-quality backlinks across niche-relevant pages.
Background
The concept of broken link building gained traction in the early 2010s, during a time when SEO practitioners were looking for ethical alternatives to black-hat link-building techniques like link farms and paid links. As Google’s algorithm updates like Penguin and Panda started to heavily penalize manipulative link-building tactics, SEOs began to prioritize value-driven approaches such as guest posting, content marketing, and broken link building.
Broken link building stood out as a method that not only adhered to best practices but also actively helped improve the internet by replacing outdated, misleading, or non-functional content with valuable, up-to-date information. Over time, the tactic evolved from purely opportunistic to a more strategic operation involving tools, competitive analysis, and long-term content planning.
What to Focus on Today
To succeed with broken link building in the modern SEO environment, marketers should concentrate on strategy, relevance, and scalability.
Here are key focus areas:
– Use advanced tools: Platforms like Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, SEMrush, or Broken Link Checker can help you identify broken links on high-authority pages within your niche. Use the Wayback Machine to view the original content that the broken link used to point to.
– Create link-worthy replacement content: Your content must match—or exceed—the quality of the original. Invest in design, research, and user experience to ensure it offers real value.
– Target the right sites: Focus on websites that are authoritative, relevant to your niche, and industry-respected. A link from a well-established domain has more SEO value than several from low-quality sites.
– Write personalized outreach emails: Avoid mass emails. Tailor your message to each site’s tone and audience. Clearly explain the issue and how your content offers a valuable solution.
– Leverage internal resources: Collaborate with your PR team, SEO specialists, and content creators to build better replacement content and manage outreach more effectively.
– Maintain outreach ethics: Stay courteous and professional in all communication. Following up respectfully demonstrates commitment but avoid spam-like persistence.
Broken link building, when done right, offers a steady path to earning high-quality backlinks while genuinely improving the web. It’s scalable, ethical, and still very much a cornerstone of effective SEO in 2024 and beyond.