Broken link building is an SEO link acquisition technique where you identify broken external links on authoritative websites (links that go to pages that no longer exist — returning a 404 error), create or identify content on your site that would serve as an appropriate replacement, and contact the website owner to suggest your content as a substitute. It is a mutually beneficial outreach approach — you help the website owner fix a broken link (improving their site quality) while earning a backlink in return. Broken link building works best on high-quality, resource-heavy pages with many outbound links in your industry.
The appeal of broken link building is the genuine mutual benefit it offers: the website owner benefits from a fixed link (which would otherwise provide a poor user experience and signal content decay to Google), and you gain a relevant, editorial backlink. This makes outreach more successful than cold link requests without this value exchange — response rates to broken link building outreach are typically 5–15%, compared to 1–3% for cold 'please link to me' emails.
How to execute broken link building
- Find resource pages in your niche — pages that link to many external resources (tools, guides, statistics, research) are the best hunting ground; search '[your topic] + resources' or '[your topic] + useful links'
- Check for broken links — use tools like Ahrefs' Broken Outbound Links report, Semrush's Backlink Audit, or the Check My Links Chrome extension to identify broken links on resource pages
- Create or identify replacement content — either you already have relevant content, or you create a piece specifically to serve as the replacement; the content must genuinely match what the broken link was pointing to
- Outreach to the page owner — a personalised email pointing out the specific broken link and offering your content as a replacement; be specific (exact URL and anchor text of the broken link) and concise
- Follow up — one polite follow-up email after one week if no response; do not spam
Primary tools: Ahrefs (Broken Outbound Links report on any URL or domain) — the most efficient way to find broken links at scale; alternatively, Semrush and Moz offer similar functionality. For individual page checking, the Check My Links Chrome extension instantly highlights broken links on any webpage you visit. For large-scale outreach management, Pitchbox or Mailshake provides outreach sequencing and response tracking. For most UK businesses doing broken link building as part of their link programme, Ahrefs + a simple outreach spreadsheet is sufficient to manage the process.
Broken link building is moderately scalable — more so than digital PR (which depends on newsworthy assets) but less so than content-driven link acquisition (which compounds indefinitely once content is live). A dedicated broken link building effort can yield 5–20 high-quality links per month for a business with a full-time SEO resource. For most UK SMEs without dedicated SEO resource, broken link building is a valuable component of a diversified link building programme — supplementing guest posting, digital PR, and citation building rather than being the sole link acquisition method.