Broken link building is the practice of finding hyperlinks on other websites that point to pages that no longer exist — returning a 404 error — and then reaching out to the website owner to suggest your own content as a replacement. In exchange for helping the website owner fix a broken link on their site, you earn a backlink to your content.

The strategy works because it is genuinely helpful to both parties. Website owners benefit from having broken links on their pages fixed — broken links create a poor user experience, waste crawl budget, and reflect badly on the quality of their content. You benefit from earning a contextual, editorially placed backlink from a relevant website. Unlike most link building outreach — where you are asking for something with nothing immediately tangible to offer — broken link building leads with a concrete benefit to the recipient.

This mutual value exchange is precisely why broken link building consistently achieves higher outreach conversion rates than most cold link request tactics. For a broader overview of all available link building approaches, see our guide on 12 proven strategies to get backlinks.

The web accumulates broken links at a steady, predictable rate. Pages get deleted, domains expire, URLs get restructured, and content gets moved — all without the websites linking to those pages being updated. Studies consistently estimate that a significant percentage of all links on the web point to pages that no longer exist.

This creates a perpetual supply of broken link opportunities across every niche. The older and more content-rich a website, the more likely it is to have accumulated broken outbound links — which is why resource pages, reading lists, and reference articles on established websites are particularly productive targets for broken link building prospecting.

Additionally, the links produced through broken link building are among the most natural available. They are contextual, placed within relevant editorial content, and earned through a genuine value exchange — exactly the characteristics Google's algorithms are designed to reward. For evidence of why link quality matters so much, see our analysis of whether backlinks still matter in 2026.

Finding broken link opportunities requires identifying pages in your niche that contain outbound links — and then checking those links for 404 errors. There are several approaches, ranging from free to paid tools.

Check My Links is a free Chrome extension that scans any webpage for broken links and highlights them in red. It is the fastest way to manually check individual pages for broken outbound links.

To use it effectively, identify resource pages, reading lists, and reference articles in your niche — these are the most link-dense pages and therefore the most productive targets. Navigate to each page and run the extension to instantly identify any broken links present.

To find resource pages, search Google for:

  • "your niche" + "useful resources"
  • "your niche" + "recommended links"
  • "your niche" + "further reading"
  • "your niche" + "resources" inurl:links
  • "your niche" + "best blogs" OR "best websites"

Ahrefs' Site Explorer allows you to find broken outbound links on any website at scale. Enter a competitor's domain or a high-authority website in your niche, navigate to the Broken Links report under Outgoing Links, and export the full list of broken outbound links with the pages they appear on.

This approach is significantly faster than manual checking — you can identify dozens of broken link opportunities on a single website in minutes rather than hours. For a full comparison of the best tools available for this type of research, see our guide to the best free backlink checker tools in 2026.

Another Ahrefs approach is to find pages on your own website — or on competitor websites — that used to receive backlinks but now return 404 errors. Navigate to Site Explorer → Pages → Best by Links → filter for 404 pages.

This reveals pages that previously earned backlinks and have since been deleted or moved — without the linking websites being updated. If you can create content to fill the gap left by a deleted page that previously earned many links, you have a strong foundation for broken link outreach. Our guide on how to check your competitors' backlinks shows you exactly how to find these opportunities at scale.

Method 4: Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Screaming Frog can crawl any website and identify broken outbound links at scale. The free version crawls up to 500 URLs — sufficient for most broken link prospecting on individual websites. Configure it to crawl a target website and filter the results for external links returning 404 errors.

Step 2: Qualify Your Opportunities

Not every broken link opportunity is worth pursuing. Before investing time in outreach, assess each opportunity against the following criteria:

Does the broken link point to a topic your content covers? The most effective broken link replacements are pages where your existing content — or content you can create — genuinely matches the topic of the broken page. A replacement that is clearly relevant is far more likely to be accepted than one that only loosely relates.

What is the DR and organic traffic of the linking page? Check the DR of the domain and the URL Rating of the specific page containing the broken link. Higher is better — prioritize opportunities on pages with strong authority and genuine organic traffic over low-DR pages with no real visitors.

Is the linking page relevant to your niche? A broken link on a highly relevant resource page in your niche is worth significantly more than a broken link on an unrelated website. Topical relevance multiplies the value of every link you earn.

How many other outbound links does the page contain? A broken link on a page with five outbound links passes more link equity than one on a page with five hundred. While you cannot always control this, it is a useful tiebreaker when prioritizing between comparable opportunities.

Is the content the broken link pointed to something you can realistically replace? Research what the broken URL previously contained using the Wayback Machine at web.archive.org. Understanding what the original page covered allows you to assess whether your existing content is a genuine replacement — or whether you need to create something new.

Step 3: Create or Identify Your Replacement Content

Once you have identified a qualified broken link opportunity, you need a piece of content on your website that genuinely replaces the broken page. There are two scenarios:

Scenario A: You already have relevant content. If you have an existing page that covers the same topic as the broken link, your outreach is straightforward — you are proposing an immediately available replacement that requires no additional work.

Scenario B: You need to create new content. If no existing page adequately replaces the broken link, you face a choice: create a new piece specifically to fill the gap, or move on to the next opportunity. Creating content specifically for a broken link opportunity makes sense when the opportunity is high value — a high-DR, high-traffic page in a relevant niche — and the topic aligns with your content strategy. A single well-executed piece of content can serve multiple broken link opportunities across different websites.

In either case, your replacement content must genuinely serve the reader's need that the original broken page addressed. A superficial or thin replacement is unlikely to be accepted — and even if it is, it reflects poorly on your brand and provides limited value to the linking website's audience.

Step 4: Find the Right Contact

Effective broken link building outreach depends on reaching the right person — someone with the authority and motivation to update the broken link on their page. For most websites, this is the content owner, editor, or webmaster.

To find contact information:

  • Check the website's Contact page for a general contact form or email address
  • Look for the author byline on the specific page containing the broken link — the author's contact details are often more responsive than a generic contact form
  • Search for the website owner or editor on LinkedIn
  • Use WHOIS lookup tools to find domain registrant contact information if the website has no visible contact details
  • Check the website's About page for team member names and contact details

Addressing your outreach to a named individual rather than a generic "Dear Webmaster" significantly improves your response rate. Personalized outreach that demonstrates you have read and genuinely value the specific page containing the broken link performs dramatically better than templated mass outreach.

Step 5: Write Outreach That Converts

The tone and structure of your broken link building outreach significantly influences your conversion rate. The most effective outreach is helpful, specific, and concise — it leads with the value you are providing rather than the link you are seeking.

Key principles for effective broken link outreach:

  • Lead with the broken link notification — make it immediately clear that you are helping them fix a problem
  • Be specific — provide the exact URL of the page containing the broken link and the exact broken URL
  • Keep it brief — three to four short paragraphs is ideal. Editors and website owners are busy.
  • Introduce your replacement naturally — mention it after notifying them of the broken link, not before
  • Make it easy to say yes — provide the exact URL of your replacement content so they can assess it immediately
  • Do not be transactional — frame the outreach as helpful, not as a link request

Example outreach framework:

Opening: Brief, genuine reference to the specific page or website — one sentence that demonstrates you have actually read their content.

The notification: Let them know you found a broken link on their page. Provide the exact page URL and the broken link URL. Keep this factual and helpful — not accusatory.

The replacement suggestion: Mention that you have a piece of content that covers the same topic and might serve as a useful replacement. Provide the URL and a one-sentence description of what it covers. When suggesting your replacement, use natural anchor text in your email — this helps the webmaster understand what your page covers at a glance.

The close: A brief, low-friction sign-off — "Hope this is helpful" or "Happy to suggest any alternatives if this one isn't quite right." No hard sell, no lengthy explanation of why you want the link.

Step 6: Follow Up Strategically

Most positive responses to broken link outreach come after a follow-up rather than the initial email. Website owners are busy — a well-timed, polite follow-up sent seven to ten days after your initial message significantly improves overall response rates.

Keep your follow-up to two or three sentences — a brief reminder of your original message and a reaffirmation that you are happy to help. If a second follow-up after a further week also goes unanswered, move on. Persistent outreach beyond two attempts is counterproductive and risks damaging your relationship with the website for future opportunities.

Step 7: Track and Scale Your Outreach

Broken link building produces the best results when executed systematically at scale. A disorganized outreach effort produces sporadic results — a well-tracked, consistently executed campaign produces a steady stream of new backlinks.

Maintain a tracking spreadsheet for every broken link opportunity that includes:

  • The URL of the page containing the broken link
  • The broken URL identified
  • The DR and estimated traffic of the linking page
  • The contact name and email address used
  • The date of initial outreach
  • The date of follow-up
  • The outcome: responded, link added, declined, no response

Review your conversion rates regularly. If your response rate is below five percent, review your outreach copy for tone, specificity, and length. If your response rate is strong but few links are being added, the issue may be with the relevance or quality of your replacement content. Conducting a regular backlink audit helps you track the links you are earning and identify any patterns in which opportunities convert best.

Target Competitor Dead Pages

Use Ahrefs to find pages on competitor websites that previously earned backlinks but now return 404 errors. Create superior content on the same topic, then reach out to everyone linking to the dead competitor page and suggest your content as a replacement. This approach combines broken link building with competitive link acquisition — earning links that previously pointed to competitors. Our guide on how to check your competitors' backlinks shows you exactly how to find these dead pages at scale.

Target Recently Expired Domains

When a domain expires and its content disappears, every website linking to pages on that domain suddenly has broken links. Identifying recently expired domains in your niche and the websites linking to them — using tools like Ahrefs' Lost Backlinks report filtered by domain — reveals a concentrated set of broken link opportunities that can be approached simultaneously.

Create Content Specifically for High-Value Broken Links

When you identify a broken link opportunity on a very high-DR, highly relevant page — a resource page on a major industry publication, for example — it may be worth creating a dedicated piece of content specifically to replace that broken link. The investment in creating targeted content is justified when the potential link is sufficiently valuable.

Combine With the Skyscraper Technique

The broken link you are replacing may have originally pointed to content that was good but not exceptional. Instead of simply matching the original content, create a superior, more comprehensive version. A replacement that is clearly better than what it replaces is more likely to be accepted — and more likely to earn further organic links once it is live.

Realistic Conversion Rates and Expectations

Broken link building outreach typically achieves conversion rates of five to twenty percent — meaning five to twenty link placements per hundred outreach emails sent, depending on the quality of your targeting, the relevance of your replacement content, and the effectiveness of your outreach copy.

This is significantly higher than the conversion rates for most cold link request outreach — which typically achieves one to five percent — precisely because broken link building leads with a genuine benefit to the recipient rather than a pure request.

Realistic output for a consistent broken link building effort: two to four new backlinks per week from a systematic outreach process targeting thirty to fifty opportunities per week. Over a month, this produces eight to sixteen new referring domains — a meaningful contribution to any backlink profile.

Key Takeaways

  • Broken link building earns contextual, editorial backlinks by helping website owners fix broken links — a genuine value exchange that produces higher conversion rates than most cold outreach
  • Resource pages, reading lists, and reference articles on established websites in your niche are the most productive targets for broken link prospecting
  • The most effective tools for finding broken links are the Check My Links Chrome extension for manual checking and Ahrefs for scaled prospecting
  • Effective outreach leads with the broken link notification — not the link request — and keeps the message brief, specific, and genuinely helpful
  • Tracking every opportunity and response in a spreadsheet is essential for scaling the strategy and improving conversion rates over time
  • Advanced tactics — targeting competitor dead pages, recently expired domains, and creating content specifically for high-value broken links — significantly amplify the strategy's output at scale. For more advanced link building approaches to combine with this strategy, see our guide on how to get backlinks without spending money.