Link reclamation
Link reclamation is the process of recovering links a site has lost or never fully received. It covers redirecting links that point to deleted or moved pages, asking publishers to restore removed or mistyped links, and turning unlinked brand mentions into links, so the site keeps the value of links it already earned.
Where do lost links come from?
Most lost links are accidents rather than decisions. Pages decay quickly: Pew Research Center found in May 2024 that 38% of webpages that existed in 2013 were no longer accessible a decade later.
- Site migrations or URL changes made without redirects
- Pages deleted while other sites still link to them
- Publishers editing or republishing articles and dropping the link
- Links typed with a misspelled or outdated URL
- Articles that name the brand but don't link to it
How to reclaim links
Start with the links you control. Use a backlink tool to find links pointing to URLs on your site that return a 404 error, then add a 301 redirect from each one to the closest live equivalent. Google says 301 and other permanent redirects don't cause a loss in PageRank.
Then work through the links you don't control. Ask publishers to correct broken or misspelled URLs, to restore links that disappeared in an edit and to add a link where an article mentions the brand by name.
Why start here?
Reclaimed links come from publishers who have already chosen to reference the site, so the request is a correction rather than a pitch. We usually run a reclamation check before any new outreach, because it needs no new content and fixes leaks that would otherwise undo new links.
Example
After a redesign, a bakery's wedding cakes page moves from /wedding-cakes.html to /cakes/wedding without a redirect. Twelve local wedding blogs still link to the old URL, which now returns a 404. One 301 redirect sends readers and the value of those twelve links to the new page.
Related terms
Further reading
Our SaaS Link-Building Agency service puts this into practice for brands in the UK and US.
