Trying to Boost Your Website's SEO? Here's One Issue You May Be Overlooking (and How to Solve It). A detailed guide on reclaiming lost links to improve your website's SEO.
By Omar El Bahr Edited by Chelsea Brown
Key Takeaways
- How to reclaim lost links — and why it's important for your website's search engine rankings.
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Reclaiming lost links — such an interesting phrase that tends to be ignored by people who should actually give it a chance. It's possible that broken links are to blame for the drop in search rankings your website has experienced recently. It is possible for lost links to have a detrimental influence on the search engine optimization of your website; however, there is a strategy that can be used to reclaim lost links and boost your search rankings.
This article will help show you a new aspect of link exchange strategies that will broaden your knowledge horizons, especially regarding the lost link crisis that businesses tend to neglect.
In this comprehensive guide, we will take you through a method that has been shown to be effective in reclaiming lost links and increasing the exposure of your website.
Related: What Are Backlinks and Why Do You Need Them for Your SEO?
Understand the importance of lost links
Your website's search engine optimization (SEO) and overall exposure can suffer significantly as a result of broken links. It is possible for you to suffer a loss of valuable backlinks if a website that had previously connected to yours decides to remove or alter the link.
Backlinks are extremely important for a website's search engine rankings since they show other websites and search engines that your website can be trusted and is an authority in its field. Once you have full knowledge of the significance of lost links, you will be able to take the actions required to retrieve them and enhance the search rankings of your website.
Identifying broken internal links: The step before the lost link strategy
The process of fixing broken internal links is the first step in the process of link reclamation and is an essential step toward improving the usability of your website. You have the choice of using commercial tools such as Ahrefs Site Explorer and DeepCrawl in order to detect broken links on your own website, or you can make use of free tools such as Google Analytics and Screaming Frog's SEO Spider. Both of these options are available to you. With the free version of the SEO Spider, you can crawl up to 500 URLs; if you have a more significant website to crawl, you will need to pay to upgrade.
Fixing broken links
The next thing you should do is fix any broken links! Visit every page on your website that contains broken links, and either update or replace the URLs on those pages.
It is important to keep in mind that you may be required to completely remove a link if you discover an outdated link that cannot be restored or if you discover a link that was neglected during the redesign of your website.
Related: Top 8 Backlink Strategies to Boost Your Traffic
Time to identify a lost link
Finding a lost external backlink may sound complicated. However, it is really not that hard to do. But hey! That's why I'm here, so allow me to walk you through it all.
Finding lost or broken backlinks is the next step you should take after you have finished cleaning up the broken links on your own website.
It may be more difficult to regain lost backlinks than it is to mend internal connections since you do not have access to external links; the other site's owner decides whether or not you can reclaim lost backlinks. Fixing internal links is easier.
You can use paid tools like Majestic or the Ahrefs Site Explorer in addition to SEO Review Tools' free Backlink Checker to find broken backlinks pointing to your website.
Regaining lost backlinks from external sources
In summary, here are some of the most necessary steps that you should follow in order to regain a lost link from an external source:
Contact the website that linked to you: If the website that linked to you made a mistake and removed the backlink, get in touch with them and politely request that they reinstate the link. Give them access to any information or resources that they might require in order to help them through the process.
Repair any broken links: If the backlink was lost because of a broken link on your website, repair the link as quickly as you can. You may find and repair any broken links on your website by using a program that checks for and reports on broken links.
Create new content: If the reason you lost backlinks was because the content on your website was out of date or irrelevant, make new content that is both important and interesting. This will encourage other websites to link back to you.
Create new backlinks: As a last step, you should give some thought to creating new backlinks to your website by means of guest articles, outreach and various other link-building tactics. It is possible that doing this will increase the overall authority and exposure of your website, increasing the likelihood that other websites will link back to you in the future.
Related: The Secret to Super Successful SEO
Pro tip: Offer value in exchange for the lost link
When reaching out to website owners to reclaim lost links, it's important to offer something of value in exchange. This could be additional content, a guest blog post or a collaboration opportunity. By providing something valuable, you increase the chances of the website owner reinstating the link.
Make sure to highlight the benefits they will receive by linking back to your website, such as increased traffic or access to your audience. Remember to personalize your offer and tailor it to the specific website and its audience. Offering value in exchange for the lost link can help strengthen your relationship with the website owner and improve your chances of success in reclaiming the link.
Now that you've reached the end of this article, I'll assume that you have a basic (maybe even a detailed) overview of the whole process of lost link reclaiming. Most businesses that aim for better rankings largely ignore broken links. They tend to focus more on SEO strategies that are proven to work effectively. For that reason, and because people are not giving lost links the attention they deserve, we created this quick guide for you.
