Welcome to the frustrating world of lost backlinks. The good news? Many of those links are recoverable through link reclamation, and it’s often easier than building new ones from scratch.
Link reclamation is the process of uncovering and recovering links you have lost, be it by internal website changes, broken pages, or simply other external factors outside of your control. Think of link reclamation as SEO archaeology, where you’re digging up, instead of creating, valuable assets.
Here’s the thing: most websites lose about 1% of their backlinks every year. That may not seem like a lot, but if you have 500 backlinks, that is 5 lost links per year. If those are high-authority links from relevant publishers, that is some real ranking power disappearing.
The beauty of link reclamation is simple: these sites already trusted you enough to link once. It’s infinitely easier to get them to restore or update that link than it is performing cold outreach to new prospects. You’re not asking for a favor; you’re helping them fix a broken user experience.
Now, let’s dig into how you actually do this without wasting your time on links that don’t matter.
What Is Link Reclamation?
Link reclamation is the procedural process of searching for backlinks that you have lost and taking action in order to recover them. It differs from link building since, with link reclamation, you already have existing relationships and links earned previously.
There are two main types of link reclamation:
Internal link reclamation occurs when you break your own links. This usually occurs during:
- Website redesigns and migrations where URL structure changes
- Updates to content where you remove or merge pages
- CMS changes that change your site architecture
External link reclamation: links you’ve lost on other websites due to:
- Publishers updating or removing content
- Broken pages on their end pointing to you
- Site migrations on the linking domain
- Changed editorial policies
The most frustrating part? You usually don’t control external link losses. A publisher decides to refresh their article from 2019, removes your link, and you’re just supposed to deal with it. Spoiler: you don’t have to.
There’s also a related but rather different practice: claiming unlinked brand mentions. That’s when someone mentions your brand or content but doesn’t actually link to you. We’ll touch on that, but it’s technically link building since you never had the link to begin with.
Why Link Reclamation Actually Matters
Let me be direct: not every lost link deserves your attention. If you’re losing links from spammy directories or low-quality blog networks, let them go. Good riddance.
But when you lose links from high-authority, relevant publishers, you’re leaving rankings on the table. Here’s why link reclamation should be part of your SEO strategy:
You regain link equity that you have already earned. These backlinks once contributed to your domain authority and rankings; when they disappear, that value is lost. Reclaiming them restores that SEO power without effort on entirely new links.
It’s more cost-effective than new link building. At Search Royals, we know the reality of link building costs. Building a single high-quality backlink through outreach, content creation, or our marketplace can take up considerable time and budget. Reclaiming a lost link? You’ve already done the hard part. You just need to reconnect.
Response rates are higher. Cold outreach usually converts at 1-5%, if you’re lucky. Link reclamation outreach? You’re reminding someone about a connection that’s pre-existing. The friction is lower. The success rate is better.
You fix user experience issues: When links break, it creates dead ends for users. Whether it’s your internal navigation or external sites linking to 404 pages, broken links frustrate visitors and signal poor site maintenance to search engines.
The math is simple: you invest 10 hours and recover even 2-3 high-DR backlinks, which will likely be a better return than would be attained with cold outreach campaigns over the same period.
Understanding What You’re Up Against
Before diving deep into link reclamation, let’s discuss what really causes link loss. In addition, understanding the root of the problems will help you avoid future losses and focus on prioritizing your reclamation efforts.
Internal Link Issues: You’re Breaking Your Own Links
Most link losses are self-inflicted. The harsh truth: internal URL changes without proper redirects kill backlink value more than any other thing.
URL structure changes during redesigns are the classic culprit. You migrated from yoursite.com/blog/post-title to yoursite.com/content/post-title, but you never set up 301 redirects. Every backlink pointing to those old URLs is sending traffic to a 404 error page. The links exist, but they’re worthless.
Content consolidation creates similar issues. You want to take three old blog posts and combine them into one comprehensive guide. Great for users, bad for your backlinks if you don’t handle the old URLs correctly.
Platform migrations, moving from WordPress to Shopify, for example, change URL structures completely. If you don’t map old URLs to new ones meticulously, you’re torching your backlink profile.
The solution? Audit your existing backlinks and create redirect rules before making any structural changes. It’s boring work, but that’s the difference between keeping your SEO momentum going and having to start over.
External Link Issues: The Stuff You Can’t Control
Then there are the link losses that occur on other people’s websites. You did everything right, but external factors killed the link anyway.
Publishers update old content and decide your link isn’t relevant anymore. Their site goes through a redesign and forgets to migrate old articles properly. They implement a new editorial policy that removes commercial links retroactively.
Sometimes sites just disappear. That niche blog that linked to you back in 2021? Sold to new owners who deleted half the archives. It happens more than you’d think.
The key difference: with internal issues, you’re fixing your own mistakes. With external issues, you’re basically doing customer service, helping other sites fix their broken experiences and recovering your SEO value in the process.
How to Find Lost Backlinks
You cannot reclaim links if you do not know they are gone. Most websites have no systematic way of tracking link losses; thus, valuable backlinks disappear without one noticing until rankings drop.
Let’s fix that.
Using Backlink Monitoring Tools
The most effective method is to have continuous monitoring through tools such as Search Royals’ backlink monitor. This monitors link losses in real time, rather than manual checks, enabling you to respond promptly.
How it works: the system periodically crawls the web pages linking to you, checking if the link is live or not. The moment a link vanishes or becomes broken, you immediately get notified. This trumps manual checking of Ahrefs on a monthly basis and finding out you lost that valuable link three weeks ago.
For manual monitoring, tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush have “lost backlinks” reports. In Ahrefs:
- Go to the Site Explorer and enter your domain
- Click on “Backlinks” and choose “Lost” from the filter menu
- Sort by Domain Rating to prioritize high authority losses
- Export the list for outreach
The problem with manual checks? They are reactive. By the time you notice the loss, the linking page may have been updated several times, making restoration difficult.
Google Search Console provides a free option, albeit limited. Check out the “Links” section in GSC to view your backlink profile, but GSC updates very slowly and catches many fewer links compared to paid tools.
Internal Broken Links Identification
Screaming Frog is your best friend for internal link issues. Here’s how you do it:
Run a full crawl over your website’s domain using Screaming Frog. It will highlight all internal links, including broken links, 404 errors, redirect chains, and other link equity-wasting issues.
Export the “Response Codes” report and then filter for 4XX errors. These are your broken internal links. Cross-reference these against your backlink profile to see if any broken pages have external backlinks pointing at them.
If a broken page has valuable backlinks, you have two options:
- Restore the content at that URL
- 301 redirect to the most relevant existing page
The latter is usually faster, but restoring works better in most cases where the page had considerable traffic or rankings of its own.
Prioritizing Your Link Reclamation Efforts
Not all links that are lost are created equal. With finite time resources you’ve really got perhaps 10 hours to spend on this, you have to be ruthless with your prioritization.
Focus on links where:
- Domain Rating or Domain Authority is above 40
- The linking site is topically relevant to your niche
- The link previously drove referral traffic (refer to Google Analytics historical data)
- The linking page itself ranks for valuable keywords
Skip links from:
- Low-quality directories or link farms (good riddance)
- Sites with spammy anchor text profiles
- Pages containing hundreds of outgoing links, add little value, in any case
- For example, forums or user-generated content where links are created and removed dynamically
Develop a simple spreadsheet: rank your lost links by DR, add a relevance score (1-5), and estimate restoration likelihood. Then work from top to bottom.
How to Actually Reclaim Lost Backlinks
Finding lost links is the easy part. Getting them restored requires a mix of technical fixes and persuasive outreach. Let’s break down both approaches.
Fix What You Can Control First
Start with internal issues, as these are within your power to fix.
Create 301 redirects to broken pages that possess external backlinks. This is non-negotiable. A 301 redirect passes on approximately 90-95% of link equity to the destination page, and therefore you’re recovering almost all the SEO value without requiring outreach.
In most cases, redirect the old URL to the most topically relevant page on your current site. So if you deleted a blog post about “Shopify SEO tips,” you’d want to redirect that to your current Shopify SEO guide, not your homepage.
Also, restore the content if the broken page has significant value beyond just the backlinks. If that page ranked for keywords and drove traffic, it might be worth recreating.
Update internal linking to ensure site architecture supports link equity flow. If you’re going to be consolidating multiple old pages into a single new page, make sure that new page is integrated into your internal linking structure.
This should be your first step in technical cleanup. It takes zero outreach, it has a 100% success rate, and it can be done in a few hours depending on your site size.
Crafting Outreach That Actually Works
Now, for the outreach part, things get a bit trickier. Your success rate will be in the region of about 5-10% on average, which sounds rather low until you consider how cold link building outreach typically converts at 1-2%.
The key is to frame your message as helping them, not begging for a link.
Email Template for Broken Links:
Subject: Quick heads up about broken link on [Article Title]
Hello [Name],
I was reading your article on [topic] and found that one of the links leads to a 404. Thought you’d want to know since broken links are bad for user experience, and Google doesn’t especially like them either.
The broken link: [URL]
Points to: [Your old URL that’s broken]
We recently updated our content structure and that piece now lives here: [New URL]
Would you be open to updating the link? Happy to return the favor if you ever need help with link checks on your site.
Thanks,
Magnus
Email Template for Removed Links:
Subject: Follow up on [Topic] link
Hi [Name],
I noticed your article on [topic] used to reference our guide on [subject], but it looks like the link has been removed in the recent update.
If the removal was intentional, no worries at all. But if it was an oversight during the content refresh, we’d love to have the link restored. Our guide has actually been updated since you last linked to it, so it might be even more relevant now.
Current version: [URL]
Let me know if you need further context or if there’s anything we can do to make it more useful for your readers.
Cheers,
Magnus
Key Principles underlying successful outreach:
- Keep it short. Three paragraphs maximum.
- Make it about them, not you; frame it as fixing their user experience.
- No begging. You’re offering to help them maintain their site quality.
- Personalize the first line to reference something specific from their article.
- No automated templates. Yes, you might use a structure, but adapt each one specifically.
For scale, tools like BuzzStream can certainly help keep outreach campaigns organized, responses tracked, and second and third emails systematically sent. But honestly, if you’re only reclaiming 10-20 links, a simple spreadsheet works just fine.
When to Walk Away
Here’s the thing nobody tells you: some links aren’t worth chasing.
If you’ve contacted twice and haven’t heard back, move on. If the linking site is clearly abandoned or has become spammy, let it go. If the publisher responds to say they have a new editorial policy against commercial links, thank them and focus your energy elsewhere.
Your time is the limiting factor. With a realistic 5% success rate and 10 hours of time to invest, you can likely recover 2-3 valuable links. Make certain you’re chasing the right ones.
Preventing Future Link Losses
Link reclamation shouldn’t be a quarterly crisis. With proper systems in place, you can catch issues before they become problems and reduce link losses significantly.
Run ongoing monitoring. This is where the backlink monitor from Search Royals becomes priceless. Instead of finding these link losses each month in Ahrefs, you will know when links disappear in real time. The sooner you find out, the higher the restoration rate because you are contacting them before they get on to other updates.
Plan redirects before site changes. Seriously, this alone would eliminate 90% of link reclamation work. Export your backlink profile and create a redirect map prior to any redesign, migration, or URL structure change. Tedious, but it’s also the difference between maintaining your SEO momentum and watching months of link building evaporate.
Keep relationships with high-value linkers. If someone from a DR 70+ site links to you, that is worth nurturing. Follow them on social media, comment on content, actually build a relationship. When they update their article, they are much more likely to keep your link or reach out if there is an issue.
Keep your content fresh. Ironically, one of the reasons publishers remove links is because of the outdated nature of your content. If your article is titled “SEO Guide 2022” and it’s now 2025, don’t be surprised when people stop linking to it. Regular updates to your content signal that your resources remain relevant.
Making Link Reclamation Part of Your SEO Workflow
Link reclamation isn’t a one-time project; it’s an ongoing task, similar to checking site speed or reviewing rankings. Here’s a realistic workflow:
Monthly: Go through the lost backlinks report from your monitoring tool, or if doing it manually, go to Ahrefs. Identify the high-priority losses there and add to your outreach list.
Quarterly: Run a deep internal link audit using Screaming Frog. Fix any broken internal links; make sure redirect chains aren’t building up.
Before major site changes: Export your backlink profile, create a redirect plan, and implement it before launch. That is proactive reclamation, keeping links from breaking in the first place.
The time investment is minimal, maybe 2-3 hours per month, but the ROI compounds. You’re preserving the link equity you’ve already earned rather than constantly rebuilding from zero.
The Bottom Line
Link reclamation won’t transform your SEO overnight, but it’s one of the most efficient uses of your time in link building. You’re recovering assets you already earned, working with sites that already trust you, and fixing issues that hurt both your rankings and user experience.
The reality: you’ll probably invest 10 hours and successfully reclaim 2-3 valuable backlinks. That may not sound so impressive until you consider cold outreach, where 10 hours might yield one new link if you’re lucky.
Start simple: run a lost backlinks report, prioritize the top 10 by domain authority and relevance, fix your internal issues first, then do targeted outreach for the external losses. Track what works, iterate, and build it into your monthly SEO routine.
And if you’d rather focus on strategy while someone else handles the monitoring and outreach? That’s why we built Search Royals’ backlink monitor and link building services. We’ve seen too many websites lose valuable links simply because they didn’t have systems to catch the losses in time.
Your backlinks are too valuable to just disappear into the void. Go reclaim them.
