Broken link building is finding a link on someone else’s site that points to a page that no longer exists, then offering your own page as the working replacement. The site owner gets a fix for their readers and you may get a link. It works best when your page genuinely does the job the dead page used to do, and when you start with dead links that were meant to point at your own site. Nobody owes you the swap, and if money changes hands, Google treats it as a paid link.
Last updated 30 October 2026.
How broken link building works
Every website rots a little. Companies rename pages, close blogs, merge products and let domains lapse. The articles that linked to those pages don’t update themselves, so readers click and land on an error. Semrush’s guide to broken link building puts the definition simply: it’s “the process of finding dead links on other websites and convincing web admins to replace them with working links to your website.”
The idea has four moving parts. You find a dead page that other sites still link to. You make sure you have a page that does the same job. You list the sites that link to the dead page. Then you write to each one, point out the broken link, and suggest yours. That’s it. The trick is choosing which dead links are worth the email, because most aren’t.
It sits inside the wider practice of link building, and it’s one of the few tactics where your request starts by helping the other person. That’s why it has a decent reputation. It’s also why it fails when people treat it as a numbers game.
What “broken” actually means to Google
Before you build a list, it helps to know what Google itself thinks a broken page is. Google’s HTTP status code documentation says that for a 404 or other client error, “the indexing pipeline removes the URL from the index if it was previously indexed.” The page drops out of search. The links pointing at it still sit on other people’s sites, though, and they now lead nowhere.
A 404 on its own isn’t a crisis for the site that has it. Google’s Search Console help on page indexing says “404 responses are not necessarily a problem, if the page has been removed without any replacement.” The same page adds: “If your page has moved, use a 301 redirect to the new location.” Keep that sentence in mind, because it’s the core of the next section.
There’s also the soft 404, which trips people up. That’s a page that returns a normal success code but shows an error message or an empty page. Google’s documentation says that when the content “suggests an error for Google Search, an empty page or an error message, Search Console will show a soft 404 error.” In practice, this means a tool can report a page as alive when a human would call it dead, and the reverse. Don’t trust the tool’s label alone. Open the page yourself before you email anyone about it.
Start with your own broken backlinks
Most people miss the easiest version of broken link building: the dead links that were supposed to point at you. When you’ve moved or deleted pages over the years, other sites may still link to the old addresses. Those links are already yours in spirit. You don’t have to convince anyone your page is relevant, because they chose it once.
There are two fixes. The first needs nobody’s permission. Google’s redirects guide recommends “a permanent server-side redirect whenever possible,” explaining that “the 301 and 308 status codes mean that a page has permanently moved to a new location.” Google’s site move guide says to keep redirects “generally at least 1 year,” and warns: “Don’t redirect many old URLs to one irrelevant single URL destination, such as the home page of the new site.” So redirect each old address to the page that now does its job, not to the home page.
The second fix is the email. The same site move guide says to “contact the sites in the saved list of sites linking to your current content” and ask them to update their links. That request is broken link building in its friendliest form. You’re not asking for a favour; you’re telling them their link has a shorter, cleaner path.
Honestly, if you’ve never audited your own old URLs, do this before you look at a single competitor. It’s quicker, the replies are warmer, and the redirect works whether anyone answers or not.
A broken link building strategy that respects the site owner
Here’s the part guides skip. Every broken link you report lands on a real person’s screen with three choices: edit the link to yours, remove the link entirely, or ignore you. A good strategy picks the cases where editing to your page is the easiest of the three.
Semrush’s guide lists when a site owner is more likely to say yes: when “your suggested link is relevant and useful in context,” when “the original link was supposed to point to your site,” and when “linking to your site presents no conflict of interest.” It also lists when they’re less likely to: when “they can easily find a better alternative,” when “the original link was sponsored or pointed to a partner site,” or when the old link sits in user-generated content like a forum comment.
Turns out that list doubles as a filter. In practice, the dead links worth your time share four traits:
- The linking page exists to point elsewhere. Resource pages, reading lists and “useful tools” roundups are built to send readers away, so a replacement fits naturally.
- The dead page did your page’s job. Not a loosely related topic. The same job.
- The dead page is really gone. A redirect, a soft 404 or a temporary outage isn’t a broken link.
- Your email saves them the search. Name the page, the dead link and the replacement, so the fix takes a minute.
To check what the dead page used to say, Semrush suggests looking it up in the Wayback Machine and opening the most recent snapshot. If your page doesn’t cover the same ground, either improve it or skip the opportunity. Sending a weak match costs you the contact’s goodwill for later.
Broken link building with Semrush
Semrush is one way to build the list, and its own pages describe the path. Here’s what we read on semrush.com on 30 October 2026. We describe the tools from Semrush’s documentation; we haven’t run a campaign.
Your own site. The Knowledge Base page on the Backlinks Indexed Pages report describes a “Broken Pages” filter. On your own domain, it says, “you will be able to see which pages you need to fix or redirect.” Semrush’s blog guide also points to its Backlink Audit tool and a “Target URL error” filter, which it says shows backlinks pointing to 4xx or 5xx pages on your site. The Backlink Audit page lists a “Lost & Found” report to track new and lost backlinks over time, though it says that report needs a paid SEO Toolkit plan.
A competitor’s site. The blog guide walks through it: in the Backlinks tool, open the Competitors report, click a competitor, go to the Indexed Pages tab and apply the Broken Pages filter. You then “click the number in the ‘Backlinks’ column to see a breakdown of backlinks to each one,” filter for active backlinks and export. The Indexed Pages manual says that when you find broken pages on a competitor’s profile, “you can contact the site owner who added those links and ask them to change the link.”
Resource pages. The guide suggests Google searches like [topic] inurl:resources and a browser extension to spot dead links on the page, then pasting any dead URL into Semrush’s Backlink Checker to see who else links to it.
Outreach. Semrush’s guide says its Link Building Tool lets you connect an email account, send outreach and track whether each email was “sent, delivered, read, or replied to.” It advises a follow-up in the same thread “if there’s no change after three working days.”
Don’t forget what the tool can’t tell you. It can’t tell you whether your page is a fair replacement, whether the site owner cares, or whether the dead page was a sponsored placement. The list is the easy part. The judgment is yours. If you’d rather not pay for a suite, Google Search Console’s Links report shows the pages on your own site that others link to, which covers the “start with your own” step for free.
Worked example: a SaaS invoicing tool
Here’s a realistic run, with round numbers so the arithmetic is easy to follow. A small company sells invoicing software for freelancers. Three years ago it published a free guide called “How to write a late-payment reminder.” During a site rebuild, the guide moved to a new address and the old one started returning 404.
Step one, their own links. They export the pages other sites link to and find the old guide. Say 22 domains still link to the dead address. They add a 301 redirect from the old URL to the new guide that afternoon. All 22 links now reach the right page, without a single email. Then they write to the 8 sites where the link sits in a resource list, asking them to update the address. If 3 reply and edit it, that’s a bonus, not the point.
Step two, a competitor’s dead page. A rival tool shut down its “freelance invoice checklist” page. Semrush’s Broken Pages filter shows, say, 40 backlinks to it from 31 domains. After filtering for active links and opening each one, 12 are forum comments, 6 sit on pages that are years old and unmaintained, and 4 belong to the rival’s own partners. That leaves 9 real prospects.
Step three, the fit check. The Wayback Machine shows the dead page was a printable checklist. The invoicing company’s closest page is a blog post, not a checklist. So before emailing anyone, they turn the relevant section into a one-page checklist. Without that, the honest answer to “is this the same job?” would be no.
Step four, the emails. Nine short, personal emails, each naming the article, the dead link and the new checklist, with one follow-up three working days later. If 2 or 3 say yes, that’s a decent result for an afternoon’s work. If none do, don’t bother chasing them; the redirect from step one still did its job. Skip the urge to email the 22 discarded prospects “just in case.” That’s how a tactic turns into spam.
What Google says about broken link building
Google doesn’t have a policy on broken link building as such, and it doesn’t need one. A site owner who replaces a dead link with a better page because it helps their readers is making an editorial choice. That’s the kind of link Google’s systems are built to count.
The line appears when something is exchanged. Google’s spam policies define link spam as “creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings,” and list “Buying or selling links for ranking purposes,” including “Exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links” and “Exchanging goods or services for links.” The same policy adds that “excessive link exchanges” are link spam too.
So if a site owner asks for a fee to swap in your link, or you offer one, it’s a paid link. Google’s policy says such links are fine “as long as they are qualified with a rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored” attribute value to the <a> tag.” Its guide to qualifying outbound links says to “mark links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links) with the sponsored value.” Our guide to dofollow vs nofollow links explains what those attributes change. Some marketplaces sell link insertions into existing articles; we cover that model separately in what is link insertion, and the same rule applies.
Common broken link building mistakes
Emailing about a page that isn’t dead. A timeout, a redirect or a geo-block looks broken in a crawler and fine in a browser. Open it first.
Offering a page that doesn’t match. If the dead page was a calculator and you offer a blog post, the owner will remove the link instead. You’ve helped them, but not yourself.
Redirecting everything to the home page. Google warns against it, and it may be treated as a soft 404. Match each old address to its closest live page.
Templated mass emails. Frankly, when you send 200 identical messages, you’re no longer helping anyone. Fewer, specific emails get read.
Ignoring your own dead pages. They’re the warmest leads you’ll ever have, and a redirect fixes them without asking.
Paying for the swap without a label. If you pay, the link needs rel="sponsored" or nofollow. No exceptions in Google’s policy.
FAQ: broken link building questions
Is broken link building still worth it?
It can be, when you’re selective. Starting with your own dead pages is nearly always worth it, because a 301 redirect works without anyone’s reply. Chasing competitors’ dead pages pays off only when you have a page that genuinely replaces what was lost.
Is broken link building against Google’s guidelines?
Not in itself. Suggesting a better replacement that the site owner chooses to link is an editorial decision. It becomes link spam under Google’s policy if you pay or trade for the link, unless it’s marked rel="sponsored" or nofollow.
How do I find broken links for link building?
Start with your own site: Search Console’s Links report or a backlink tool shows old URLs others still link to. For other sites, tools like Semrush’s Indexed Pages report with the Broken Pages filter list dead pages and their backlinks. Resource pages found through Google searches are another source.
How many follow-ups should I send?
One is usually enough. Semrush’s guide suggests following up in the same thread if nothing changes after three working days. After that, let it go; a site owner who doesn’t reply has made a choice.
The short version
- Broken link building means offering your working page in place of a dead link on someone else’s site.
- Start with your own old URLs: a 301 redirect to the matching page fixes them without anyone’s reply.
- Pick dead links where your page does the same job, then write short, specific emails.
- Tools like Semrush build the list, but you still have to check each page and judge the fit.
- If you pay or trade for the swap, Google’s policy needs
rel="sponsored"ornofollowon the link.