The negligent work of some operators, webmasters or the site is in disrepair, which may lead to some invalid links (dead links). By replacing these invalid links to re-form a normal link bridge, we call it invalid link reconstruction.
What is broken link reconstruction?
Invalid link rebuilding (also known as dead link rebuilding) is a practice of building backlinks by replacing a link to a 404 page with a valid link to the target site.
Why is it important to rebuild broken links?
This is simple:
Most outreach emails ask for something (links, shares, etc.) without providing anything in return.
But by rebuilding with a broken link, you can flip the script.
You offer help first, rather than just asking for something.
(especially a list of damaged links on someone’s website)
I will explain in more detail later the details of sending an outreach email for a broken link reconstruction.
But to show you how this is different from asking for a link directly, here is an example of an email that I recently sent to build a broken link:
See how I can help. First of all… And ask for a link?
That’s why that person is happy to add my link to their page.
With this, here’s how to use broken Link Reconstruction (BLB) to build a large number of high-quality backlinks for your site.
Best practic
Use Check My Links
This is my preferred tool for finding broken links.
(and it’s free)
To use Use Check My Links, simply install the Chrome extension.
You will see a small icon in the upper-right corner of Chrome.
When you click the icon, checking my links automatically checks all links on the page.
It reports which links are corrupted (404 pages) or have other errors:
When you browse the website in your niche, you can use Use Check My Links. You can find some dead chains in this way.
However, if you want to extend this process, you need to proactively look for pages that may contain a large number of dead links.
This leads us to.
Find pages that contain a large number of links
When it comes to BLB, you want to focus on pages with a large number of external links.
Why?
This is a simple mathematical operation: the more links there are to a page, the more likely it is that one of them will be destroyed.
For example, this page on my site has five external links:
The page may have one or two dead chains. But that’s unlikely.
On the other hand, this article has 187 external links.
This means that the page is 38 times more likely to have at least one dead link.
The question is:
How do I find a page that contains a large number of links?
It’s simple: use Google to discover the resource page.
As the name implies, a resource page is a page that manages useful resources for a topic.
This is an example:
These pages tend to have a lot of links.
You can use these search strings in Google to find the resource page:
- “Keyword” + inurl:resources
- “Keyword” + intitle:links
- “Keyword” + “helpful resources”
- “Keyword” + “useful resources”
The following is an example of the type of page you can find using these search strings:
When you find a resource page like this that looks reliable, run to check my link.
It doesn’t work 100%. But if you stick to it, you’ll find that a neglected page is shaking some dead links:
Find everyone linked to the dead chain
Now that you have found a dead link, what’s the next step?
Well, you can contact that person and provide your link instead.
However, if you seriously consider expanding this process, you don’t want to stay on that site.
Instead, find everyone else who is linked to the broken link.
To do this, pop up a dead link to Semrush or any other link analysis tool you use:
You will get a list of people linked to the damn link.
Now that you have this list, you don’t even need to run links that check me on these pages. You already know that they have at least one dead link.
Using Wikipedia’s “dead link” technology
Wikipedia is another place where you can find a large number of 404 pages.
It’s not just any 404 page. A lot of people are linked to dead links.
(after all, if something goes into Wikipedia, a lot of people will link to it.)
How this is done:
First, search in Google using the following search string:
Site:wikipedia.org “keyword” intext: “dead link”
Professional tip: use a wide range of keywords in this search string (for example, search for “marketing” instead of “SEO”). In this way, Google will display any Wikipedia entries related to your keywords remotely.
This will show you a page on Wikipedia with at least one broken external link.
Finally, access the Wikipedia entry and scroll down to the References section.
Any links you see with the “dead link” label are (obviously) corrupted.
What’s next?
I do not recommend trying to replace a link on Wikipedia with a link to your site.
Why?
First of all, the Wikipedia link is nofollow.
Second, Wikipedia editors don’t mess around. Unless your link is really worth being there, it will be deleted within a few hours.
Instead, pop the damn link into the backlink analysis tool to find other sites that are also linked to the page:
Rebuild Semrush functionality with broken links
There is no problem with using Google to search for strings and check my links to find dead links.
In fact, I still started my chain-breaking reconstruction activity in this way.
However, if you want to find more broken links, I recommend using two useful Semrush features: Site Audit’s “Broken external links” report and the “Broken Pages” report in backlink Analysis.
Let me show you how these features can be used with real-life examples.
First of all, you need a competitor’s website. If you don’t have anything on hand, just search for the keywords you want to rank.
… And add websites from your industry to the list.
Next, pop up one of the sites into the Semrush “Site Audit” function.
And go to “Warnings” → “# external links are broken”.
This will show you all the broken links on the entire site.
(so there’s no need to check my links on thousands of different pages. This is a huge time saving. )
Second, you can use Semrush to find invalid pages on competitors’ websites. And see who is linking to these 404 pages.
To do this, please put the competitive website into Semrush.
And go to the “Backlink Analytics” → “Indexed Pages” tab
This report shows you the pages with the most backlinks to them.
By default, Semrush displays you a real-time work page.
However, when you check the “Broken Pages” option, you can see a list of broken link pages. And there are links to them.
Then, just click “Backlinks” and you can see everyone who is still linked to the invalid page.
This is a double whammy for SEO. Not only did you get a link to your website… It also “steals” links from competitors.
Provide alternatives to similar content
There are two ways to build using dead chains:
The first method is to use broken links as a way to enter the door.
So don’t say, “will you link to me?” Instead, he said, “this is a bunch of broken links I found.” Will you link to me? ” .
There is nothing wrong with this method.
In fact, this is an outreach email I recently sent:
As you can see, this is basically the method I just described.
However, if you want to double, triple, or even fivefold the conversion rate, you want to provide people with an alternative to dead links.
In this way, the decision to add links is effortless.
After all, they have an invalid link on their page. They obviously have links there for a reason. But now the link doesn’t work.
When you pounce on you with a close substitute, it’s a simple job: replace dead links with similar content.
This is a practical example:
As you can see, it converts very well.
Resurrection of dead content
If you want something to go up another story, you can actually create a piece of content that replaces the dead link at 1:1.
For example, when I ran Check My Links on this page, I found this dead link:
Well, there’s a blog post on my website that looks a bit like this:
But this is not a substitute for dunks.
So I copied the invalid URL to Archive.org.
See what that page used to be:
Some people copy exactly the same content on their websites. But it’s dark. So I don’t recommend it.
Instead, use old content as a template. And create better and newer similar resources based on the template.
Outreaching activities are very helpful
Point out that someone’s broken link is very good in an outreach email. (after all, you still provide some value.)
However, if you want to take your promotion to a new level, please point out all the broken links on the page. And the details of the dead link.
This is a real-life example:
I can tell you from experience that this will surprise people and make them more likely to add your links.
Whether this requires more work, just say, “I found a dead link.” Is this a substitute on my website? ” .
That’s for sure.
But a huge increase in conversion rates can make this type of outreach valuable.
Abandon the dead-chain reconstruction of junk sites
From time to time, you will encounter broken links on completely abandoned websites.
This is an example:
I used to send outreaching emails to these websites. But I hardly got a reply.
If they don’t care about maintaining their website, why should they care about broken links? )
So if you do come across a site that looks like you haven’t touched in years, I suggest you save time and move on to the next goal on your list.
Be modest and courteous rather than aggressive
Aggressiveness is not helpful to any type of outreach. This is especially true for chain-breaking reconstruction.
So I suggest nudging this man gently… Instead of asking for a link directly.
This is a practical example from an outreach email I sent not long ago:
As you can see, it’s not out of reach.
Find the right person.
One of the important lessons I have learned from sending more than 10,000 outreach emails is:
Your email needs to be sent to the right person. Otherwise, your email will end up in a junk folder (or worse, a spam folder).
When it comes to this strategy, the “right” person is the one responsible for maintaining the page.
In this way, you can get in touch with people who have the right to replace dead links with links to your site.
For example, for sites like this, you can contact any of us by contacting a work order.
There’s nothing to it.
But what about a blog with more than 100 authors? Or a university website with more than 50 departments?
That’s where you need to do some digging to find the right person.
I recommend browsing the employee page of the website:
You will usually find people listed as “editors”, “bloggers”, “webmasters” or “web administrators” who are responsible for fixing broken links and so on.
Yes, this requires extra work compared to sending your email to a generic “contact@” e-mail address or contact form. But in my experience, it’s well worth it.
Learn more
Advanced search engine optimization strategy to get results: a video that gradually guides you through the “mobile approach”, similar to chain-breaking reconstruction.
How to implement failed link rebuilding (strategies, outreach emails, and statistics): useful tutorials that show you how to find a large number of broken link building opportunities.
