How To Start Reclaiming Lost Backlinks

Taking your sites organic footprint to the next level will eventually see you take your efforts off-site and reaching out to other sites for various link building opportunities. Link building is still one of the most powerful strategies in an SEO's arsenal, but it takes time and considerable effort to attract the links you need to move the needle. For even, the most seasoned outreach specialists link building can be a frustrating task.

Yet nothing gets under a link builders skin more than seeing links lost or removed from a site.

Keeping track of your backlink profile

While many link builders focus on identifying the correct links and spend most of their time on outreach, building relationships and ensuring links are used correctly and sent to the correct pages you still need to keep an eye on links you've already secured. The internet is a dynamic place and websites are moved, changed, updated, removed or combined for many reasons.

These actions and wreak havoc on a site owners link profile and result in lost link equity over time. Which is why it's important to keep track of your backlink profile and review the growth and decline regularly. Your backlinking evaluation can be done in an excel spreadsheet in combination with link tracking tools like Ahrefs or Moz.

Salvaging lost links

While some SEOs and outreach marketers will take this on the chin and move on as its the nature of the business, you will not be one of them. While others see a lost link, you see a possible link to be gained. In SEO it's all about the finest margins that and being willing to do what your competitors won't that help set you apart and improve your rankings over time. 

A diligent SEO will review their sites link profile each month to check for links they have lost and then categorise those lost links into four buckets, namely:

• Sites that have removed your link
• Sites that have turned your link from a "do-follow" to a "no-follow"
• Sites that have died
• Sites or pages that have been redirected

Why is it important to categorise your lost links? Because A, its good housekeeping and B it helps you refine your approach for each situation and hopefully get the best results from your outreach. 

The site has removed your link

If a site has removed a link do not panic and start accusing them of anything, the key here is to establish or rekindle a relationship with the site owner. Sites remove links for many reasons, it could have been a mistake, or they did not find your information relevant any longer. The best approach is to inquire as to why and offer a solution that gets you a link back to your site.

Example of a "removed link" outreach email

Hi Editor

I am *Insert name* from *insert domain* and I thought I'd reach out to you to see if we could rekindle our old flame

We've always valued the fact that you took the time to reference us as a source of information/where to find goods and services and appreciate your vote of confidence in our efforts.

We recently noticed that you remove a link to our site on the following article/landing page - *Insert link* and was wondering if there was any specific reason as to why it was taken down.

We would love to have you recommend our site once again, and if there is anything we can do to win back your vote of confidence in us, please let us know

Regards

Name

The site has turned your link into a "nofollow"

Site owners are making changes to their site all the time, some SEO's may prefer not to provide link equity externally, or sites may have sweeping dev changes that turn all external links into "no follow links". If you've come across "no-follow links" that aren't automated link placements like directories then its time to reach out and see if you can convince a site owner to give you an additional vote of confidence. 

Example of a "do-follow link" outreach email

Hi Editor

I am *Insert name* from *insert domain* and I thought I'd reach out to you to see if we could rekindle our old flame

We've always valued the fact that you took the time to reference us as a source of information/where to find goods and services and appreciate your vote of confidence in our efforts.

We recently noticed that you linked to our site on the following article/landing page - *Insert link* but it was set as a "no-follow" and was wondering if there was any specific reason as to why. If its site policy we completely understand, but we would love it if it could be updated to a "do-follow" link instead.

We appreciate that you have taken the time to recommend our site and if there is anything we can assist with, please let us know

Regards

Name

The site has been redirected

In certain cases, sites may change their URL structure, or instead of updating pages they'll create new pages without redirecting accordingly and simply sending those old links to the homepage, an action that doesn't help your link building efforts.

In such a case it's important to offer the site owner an alternative to get them to see the value you bring and make it easy for them to add your link.

Example of a "redirected link" outreach email

Hi Editor

I am *Insert name* from *insert domain* and I thought I'd reach out to you to see if we could rekindle our old flame

We've always valued the fact that you took the time to reference us as a source of information/where to find goods and services and appreciate your vote of confidence in our efforts.

We recently noticed that you redirected an old article/landing page to your homepage *Insert link* and was wondering if there was any specific reason as to why it was taken down. I reviewed your site and found a similar article or landing page and would like to know if you wouldn't mind adding us as a reference on this page *Insert link*

We would love to have you recommend our site once again, and if there is anything we can do to win back your vote of confidence in us, please let us know

Regards

Name

The site has died

If the site has died or you have found a dead site that could be a potential link building opportunity then check out our guide on how to salvage dead sites for links.

Rekindle old links

Link building can be a tough enough task without adding lost links into your daily routine. However, these situations do happen and should not be dismissed as something that cannot be fixed by an email or two. 

Building links is hard enough when done from a completely cold calling approach, so having an excuse to reach out and perhaps encourage future collaborations makes salvaging links a worthwhile task to add to your strategy. 

Tell us your link building story

Have you been frustrated with link building for your site? How did you or the company overcome it? Are there any tips you would like to share on improving your reports? Share it with us in the comments.

Contact us

If you would like us to link building for you or want to know more about digital marketing for your business, then don’t be shy we’re happy to assist. Simply contact us

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If you require a more detailed guide on how to create your profile or your listing, then we highly recommend you check out the following articles. 

• How to create a nichemarketer profile 
• How to create a nichemarket business listing 

Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts on link building.

• How To Build Local Links To Your Website
• Improve Interlinking With 12 Types of Anchor Text

Tags: seo, link building