Ask about broken link building and you'll get two opposite answers. One camp calls it a dead tactic. The other quietly earns links with it. The truth is in the method: done the lazy, carpet-bomb way, it fails. Done with a real match and a genuine offer, it's still a legitimate way to win an editorial link.
Why it isn't dead
The core idea is sound and timeless: you find a broken link on a relevant page, offer a working replacement, and both sides win. The site owner fixes a dead link that costs them credibility; you get a relevant, editorial link in return. That's not a trick — it's a fair exchange.
Burned-out practitioners did the lazy version: hundreds of irrelevant, template-driven pitches that helped nobody. That's why it gets a bad name. The tactic itself was never the problem.
The version that works
The whole game is relevance and honesty. The targeted method:
- Find relevant resource pages. Start with sites you actually want links from, in your niche, that maintain lists of useful links — roundups, resource hubs, "useful tools" pages.
- Find the broken URLs on them. Check those pages for dead links. Tools help, but a manual pass on your shortlist is fine.
- Match what died. The key move: the broken page should point to something that resembles what you can offer. If they lost a link to "best SEO checklists," and you have a genuinely good checklist, that's a match.
- Offer the fix honestly. A short, human note: "The link to X on your resources page is broken. It looks like it was meant to be a checklist — we have one that might be a useful replacement." Value first, link as the natural result.
The traps that sink it
Avoid the failure modes that gave it a bad name:
- Pitching irrelevant replacements. If your content doesn't actually fit what died, you're wasting their time and yours. Relevance is the filter.
- Volume over match. Two hundred sloppy pitches beat nothing useful. Ten well-matched ones are worth more than two hundred fails.
- Ignoring the real dead link. If the page's link isn't actually broken, you've made a false claim and lost credibility instantly.
What it really takes
Broken link building is patience in disguise. You're slogging through resource pages to find real, relevant matches, then crafting pitches that are genuinely helpful. It's slower than the myth promised, and the yields are modest. But every link that lands from it is a relevant, earned link — the kind worth having.
The honest role it plays
Think of broken link building as one tool in the box, not the strategy. It works best alongside linkable content — because your success rate climbs when what you're offering is actually worth replacing the dead link with. It's a way to convert good assets into links, not a way to manufacture links from nothing.
If you've been burned by the lazy version or never tried the careful one, know that the careful version still earns. If you'd like help finding the genuine matches and writing pitches that get yeses, book a free website teardown and we'll walk you through running it the way it earns.