Pink PostBroken link building in four steps
- Find pages that link out a lot: resource pages, "useful links" lists and older guides in your niche. The footprint finder has searches for these.
- Scan them here and note every dead external link and its anchor.
- Match the dead link to your content: you need a page that really replaces what the dead one offered. Check the Wayback Machine to see what it was.
- Pitch the fix: tell the owner which link is broken and offer yours as a replacement. Use the broken link template in the template generator.
Why it works
You are doing the site owner a favour first. Fixing dead links improves their page for readers, so these pitches tend to get a friendlier hearing than a cold guest post request. The trade-off is scale: you need many pages scanned to find a handful of good matches.
Reading the results
- 404 / 410: the page is gone. The best opportunities.
- 5xx: a server error. It may be temporary; recheck later.
- No answer: DNS failed or the server did not respond. If the whole domain is gone, every link to it is an opportunity.
- 403 / 429: often bot protection rather than a broken link. Open it in your browser to confirm.
- 3xx: redirects. Not broken, but a redirect to a homepage often means the original content is gone.
Check your own pages too
Broken links on your site frustrate readers and waste crawl time. Run your most-linked pages through the checker every few months. For links you have won on other sites, Pink Post's link checks watch each one and tell you when it breaks.