What is broken link building?

Broken link building starts from a common fact of the web: over time, pages linked from other sites disappear, change address without a redirect, or simply cease to exist, leaving the link that pointed to them broken. Whoever practices this tactic finds those broken links on pages relevant to their topic, identifies or creates a resource of their own that can replace the one that vanished, and contacts the site's owner or editor to propose swapping the broken link for the new one. The mechanics involve a direct request to a human editor, not a purchase or an automated exchange: in the way contact is made, it resembles guest posting or digital PR more than tactics such as PBNs, where the practitioner controls the linking sites directly. It is a tactic, not a Google policy, and this glossary describes it from the perspective of whoever applies it, without recommending or judging it, the same way it describes other link building tactics found in the industry. Its viability depends entirely on finding genuine broken links on pages with a real audience and on having a resource of your own that offers value equal to or better than what disappeared, not on any technical shortcut.

The process has three common steps. First, finding broken links: whoever applies the tactic reviews reference pages in their industry (resource roundups, articles with link lists, bibliography pages) using tools that check the status code of each outbound link, specifically looking for 404 responses or domains that no longer exist. Second, preparing the replacement: if a page already exists that covers the same topic as the vanished resource, that page is used; if not, new content is created to fill that gap, aiming to serve the same purpose as the original rather than merely sharing the topic on the surface. Third, outreach: the person responsible for the site with the broken link is located, usually by email, and informed that one of their outbound links no longer works, with the practitioner's resource offered as a possible replacement. This is where the tactic intersects with Google's link spam policies: the official documentation defines link spam as the practice of creating links primarily for the purpose of manipulating rankings, and cites concrete examples such as using automated programs to generate links or sending mass, unpersonalized link requests. Broken link building, applied as an individual request to a specific editor about a real, verifiable broken link, does not fit those examples cited by Google; it becomes a problem if outreach is automated at scale, if a specific anchor text is insisted upon instead of leaving it to the editor's judgment, or if the offered resource has no real connection to the broken link it aims to replace.

This tactic matters because, among the ways to earn inbound links, it is one of the few that involves no payment and does not by itself violate Google's link spam policies, provided it is applied as an individual, non-automated request. It sits alongside guest posting and digital PR as a link building path based on direct contact with an editor, rather than on buying, exchanging, or building a network of owned sites like a PBN. The decision that hinges on this is how much effort to dedicate to finding genuine opportunities versus other faster but riskier tactics: broken link building usually requires considerable research effort per link earned, because it depends on finding relevant broken links and on the site owner responding and accepting the change, neither of which is guaranteed in any case. In exchange, when it works, the resulting link comes from an editor who voluntarily chose to include it, with no payment or automation involved, which places the tactic within the margin Google's policies allow for active link building. For teams running it alongside other link building paths, it usually isn't a replacement for guest posting or digital PR, but a complementary source with a different effort and risk profile.

• Verify the link is genuinely broken (404, expired domain, or a redirect to an unrelated page) before reaching out, not just that it points to a different domain than expected.
• Offer a resource of your own that serves the same purpose the vanished page did, not generic content on the same topic that doesn't really fill the gap.
• Personalize each outreach message instead of sending identical templates to dozens of sites, something Google classifies as a mass link request.
• Let the editor decide the anchor text of the new link instead of demanding a specific one, to avoid the pattern Google associates with ranking manipulation.
• Prioritize sites with a real audience and topical relevance to your resource, rather than any page where a broken link happens to appear.
• Log which requests were sent and which got a response, to measure the tactic's actual success rate against the time invested.

• Automating outreach messages at scale, something Google's documentation explicitly cites as an example of link spam.
• Offering a resource that doesn't serve the same purpose as the vanished page, which lowers the odds the editor accepts the change at all.
• Insisting on a specific, optimized anchor text instead of leaving it to the site owner's judgment.
• Confusing this tactic with buying or exchanging links, when the request to replace a broken link involves no economic consideration whatsoever.
• Assuming a high response rate without having measured it: industry practice describes a process with substantial research effort per link earned, but there is no public, verified figure for how many requests typically succeed.