What is link reclamation?
Link reclamation is the work of getting back the value of backlinks a site already earned but is losing. Some of those links point to pages that no longer exist. Some were removed when the linking page was edited. Some point to an old URL after a site move. Link reclamation finds them and either fixes your side (usually with a redirect) or asks the linking site to restore or update the link.
An example: a software company deletes an old research report during a site redesign. Forty articles still link to the report's URL, which now returns a 404 error. Visitors who click those links land on an error page, and the links help nothing. Redirecting the old URL to the updated report, or asking the most important linking sites to point to the new URL, reclaims those links.
Link reclamation is maintenance, not new link building. It recovers links that were earned once already, which is why it is often the quickest link work a site can do.
Why do backlinks get lost?
Backlinks get lost because pages change and disappear on both ends of the link. The web loses pages at a steady rate: Pew Research Center found that 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer available a decade later, and that 23% of news webpages contained at least one broken link [1].
The common causes of lost backlinks:
- Your page moved or was deleted without a redirect, so the link now points to a 404.
- A site migration changed URLs, such as a new domain, a switch to HTTPS or a new URL structure, and some old URLs were never redirected.
- The linking page was edited and your link was removed or replaced with a competitor's.
- The linking page itself was deleted or moved, taking your link with it.
- The link points to the wrong place, such as a typo in the URL or a link to a staging site.
Only some of these can be reclaimed. A link on a page that no longer exists is gone. A link to your own dead URL is the easiest of all to fix, because you control the fix.
How do you find lost backlinks?
You find lost backlinks by comparing who links to you with what those links point at. There are two main sources: links pointing to your URLs that return errors, and links that used to exist but have been removed.
- Find links to your broken pages. Export the pages on your site that return a 404 or 410 and that have external links pointing at them. Most backlink tools can filter your linked pages by HTTP status to show these.
- Find removed links. Backlink tools that track history flag links as lost or removed. Check whether the linking page still exists and whether your link was taken out of it.
- Check after every migration. Compare the old URL list with the new one and confirm every old URL that had links redirects to its closest match.
Google Search Console's Links report helps with the first step, with one catch. Google says the report "isn't a comprehensive list of every link" and that it "includes links that Google has found over time," which "may have since been removed" [5]. Search Console can show you which of your pages are most linked, but it cannot confirm a link still exists. Check the linking page itself before acting on it.
How do you reclaim a lost link?
You reclaim a lost link by fixing whichever end of the link broke. If your URL changed, fix it on your site with a redirect. If the other site removed or broke the link, contact them.
When your URL is the problem, set up a permanent (301 or 308) redirect from the old URL to the most relevant live page. Google uses a permanent redirect as a signal that the redirect target should be treated as the canonical page [3]. For site moves, Google advises keeping redirects "for as long as possible, generally at least 1 year," so it can transfer signals and reassign links on other sites that point to the old URLs [2].
When the other site is the problem, send a short, specific email:
- Name the page and the exact spot where the link was, or where it is now broken.
- Give the correct URL to link to.
- Make the fix easy: one sentence of context, no pitch.
Google's own migration guide recommends this step too: contact the sites linking to your old content and ask them to update their links to the new site [2]. A redirect keeps the link working, but a direct link to the right URL removes the extra hop.
What is the most common link reclamation mistake?
The most common link reclamation mistake is redirecting every dead URL to the homepage. A redirect only works as intended when the new page is a genuine replacement for the old one.
Google's John Mueller has long said that redirects to the homepage or to non-relevant pages can be treated as soft 404s [4], meaning Google treats the old URL as gone rather than passing its signals to the destination. In a 2016 case study, Glenn Gabe documented site migrations where pages redirected to less relevant pages produced spikes in soft 404 warnings in Search Console and lost rankings, while like-for-like redirects held their positions [4].
Redirect each linked URL to its closest equivalent. If no equivalent exists and the links are valuable, consider recreating the content at the old URL or at a new URL that genuinely covers the same topic.
What is the difference between link reclamation and broken link building?
Link reclamation fixes broken or lost links that point to your own site, while broken link building finds dead links on other sites that point to someone else's missing page and offers your page as a replacement. Link reclamation recovers links you earned. Broken link building tries to win links that were earned by someone else.
| Link reclamation | Broken link building | |
|---|---|---|
| Whose dead page | Yours | Another site's |
| Who earned the link | You did | Someone else |
| Usual fix | Your redirect, or a request to restore your link | A request to swap in your page |
| Starting point | The site already chose to link to you | A cold request to a site with no tie to you |
For the other tactic, see broken link building.
Is link reclamation the same as claiming unlinked mentions?
No. Link reclamation recovers links that once existed, while unlinked mention outreach asks for a link where a site mentioned your brand but never linked. BuzzStream draws the same line: link reclamation is for "previously-linked" mentions, while unlinked mentions "were never linked" [6].
Many guides fold both into "link reclamation." Keeping them separate is useful because the work and the odds are different. Restoring a link someone already chose to give is a correction. Asking for a link on an unlinked mention is a new request. See unlinked brand mention.
When should you do link reclamation?
Do link reclamation after every site migration, redesign or URL change, and on a regular schedule (monthly or quarterly) for any site with a meaningful backlink profile. A migration is the moment when the most links break at once.
A simple order of work:
- Fix your own broken URLs with relevant redirects. This needs no outreach.
- Recover removed links from the strongest and most relevant linking pages first.
- Ask key linking sites to update old URLs to the new ones after a migration.
- Recheck periodically, because link decay never stops.
Link reclamation rarely makes headlines, but it protects links that took real effort to earn. A site that builds new links while losing old ones to 404s is filling a bucket with a hole in it.