A broken backlink is an external link to your site that has stopped working: it points to a 404 page, gets lost in a redirect chain or disappeared along with the donor page. You can find such links in 20–30 minutes: export your link profile in Ahrefs, Semrush or the free Google Search Console and filter for backlinks with the “Lost” status and target URLs that return 404. Restoring them is almost always cheaper than buying new ones, and in many cases a 301 redirect on your side or a short email to the site owner is enough.
Key points in 30 seconds
- A broken backlink is an external link that no longer passes link equity: the target returns 404, sits behind a redirect chain or the donor deleted the page.
- The main causes of loss: a URL change on your side, the donor page being deleted or rewritten, a typo in the URL at placement, the donor domain expiring and the donor dropping out of the index.
- Lost links are found with Ahrefs and Semrush (Lost/Broken reports) and Google Search Console (404 pages that have links pointing to them).
- There are two ways to get them back: a 301 redirect on your side or an email asking the owner to fix the link.
- Restoring a link keeps its age and trust and costs less than buying new backlinks of the same quality.
What a broken backlink is and why you can’t ignore it
A backlink works as long as two conditions hold: the donor page is indexed and the target URL on your site returns a 200 status code. As soon as one of them breaks, the link becomes broken, Google stops counting it as a signal and the equity it passed is gone. For you this is a direct loss: if the link was bought or earned through outreach, the money and time have already been spent, and the effect is no longer there. So a regular link profile audit for broken backlinks is not about tidying up. It is about protecting a result you have already paid for. For more on what a profile is made of and how to evaluate it, see the article on the link profile.
Why backlinks get lost: 6 reasons
| Reason | What happens | How to check |
| The target page URL changed | After a migration or redesign the old address returns 404, and the link still points to it | Check the status code of the target URLs |
| The donor deleted or rewrote the page | The link was removed during editing or the page was deleted entirely | Open the donor page and search for the anchor |
| A mistake in the URL or anchor at placement | The link was broken from the start: a typo, an extra parameter | Compare the placed URL with the target URL |
| The donor domain expired or changed owners | The site went offline and the link disappeared along with it | Check whether the donor domain is reachable |
| The donor page dropped out of the index | The link technically exists, but no equity is passed | Check the donor URL in Search Console and with the site: operator |
| A 302 redirect or a long chain | Equity is lost on the way from the donor to the target page | Check the redirect chain with a checker |
Why links drop out of the index and how to speed up the reverse process is covered in a separate article on link indexing.
How to find broken backlinks: step by step
- Export your profile. In Ahrefs: Site Explorer → Backlinks; in Semrush: Backlink Audit; for free: Google Search Console → Links → External links, plus the report on pages returning 404.
- Filter the candidates. Keep backlinks with Lost and Broken status, target URLs returning 404 and donors that dropped out of the index.
- Check status codes. Run the target URLs through a bulk checker or Screaming Frog to separate genuinely broken pages from temporary glitches.
- Put it in a spreadsheet. Columns: donor, target URL, status, donor metric (DR/traffic), priority.
- Set priorities. Restore links from strong donors first: they pass the most equity and are the most expensive to lose.
How to restore broken links: redirect and email to the owner
Method 1. A 301 redirect on your side. Use it when your target URL is what broke (you changed the address or deleted the page). Set up a permanent 301 redirect from the old address to the current one, and the link starts passing equity again with no need to negotiate with anyone. Avoid 302s and long chains: they lose part of the equity.
Method 2. An email to the site owner. Use it when the donor page is live but the link points to the wrong place (a typo in the URL, an old address). Write to the editor or webmaster, briefly and to the point:
“Hi! Your page [URL] links to our article, but the link points to an address that no longer exists. The current link is [new URL]. Could you please update it? It takes a minute and won’t break the layout.”
Method 3. If the donor deleted the page. Check the copy in the Wayback Machine, offer to place the link again (sometimes in an updated article) or replace the loss with a new link of comparable quality.
Why this pays off better than buying new links
A restored link keeps its age, accumulated trust and completed indexing, while a new link takes months to build all of that up. The math is simple: a 301 redirect costs only your time, and so does an email to the owner, whereas a quality crowd or outreach link of the same level costs a noticeable amount plus a few more weeks until it gets indexed. So the smart order is: first recover what you lost, then buy new links if needed.
Price guidelines for a quality replacement link are in the price list; the specifics depend on the niche and the donors. If the profile hasn’t been checked in a long time and there are many losses, start with a link profile audit: it will show all broken and toxic links at once. And when a link can’t be restored, it is cheaper and safer to fill the gap with real crowd links than to chase volume on link marketplaces.
If you are just building your link strategy, start with the basic article on what link building is.
Prices are approximate and depend on the niche, volume and competition; we’ll calculate the exact cost for your project. Want to clean up your link profile once and get back the equity you already paid for? Order a link profile audit: we’ll find all broken and lost links, put together a recovery plan and tell you where it makes more sense to restore and where to buy new links.
