Broken link building is a link building method. You find links on other sites that lead to missing pages and suggest to the owner that they point to a suitable page of yours instead.
How it works
According to reports, the process usually has three steps. First you find relevant pages with dead outbound links, for example with a crawler or a backlink tool that lists links to pages that no longer exist. Next you check what the missing page covered, using the Wayback Machine if needed, and make sure you have a page that covers the topic at least as well. You then send a short message that names the broken link and offers your page as a replacement.
The owner gains something concrete, since broken links hurt the visitor experience on their site. That sets the method apart from general link requests.
Example
A resource list on accessibility links to a guide that no longer exists. Someone with a current guide on the topic reports the dead link and proposes the guide as replacement.
Common mistakes
A replacement that does not fit the original topic. Offering money for the placement: Google’s spam policies treat paid links as link spam unless they are qualified with sponsored or nofollow.
Sources
- Spam policies for Google web search – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
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