Broken backlink

Definition

Broken backlink is an inbound hyperlink whose target now 404s or errors. You already earned the mention. Your CMS ate the URL. Reclamation here is often a 301, not an email.

If the publisher’s page 404s, that is their broken outbound, which you can still flag, but the usual win is fixing your own redirects after a migration.

How it works

Crawl inbound URLs. Map each 404 to a live equivalent. 301 the rest to the closest honest page, not always the homepage. Then email only the high-value publishers whose anchors no longer match.

Worked example

A migration breaks 37 inbound paths. 23 have twins; redirects recover them without a human. 3 publishers update the href after a note. 11 stay dead because the story was about a killed product — those should 301 to a retired-product explainer, not /.

How it differs

Link reclamation includes unlinked mentions and broken links. A backlink is the live href. Unique referring domains drop when all paths from a host die.

Common errors

Homepage redirects for every old URL. Waiting six months to recrawl. Asking publishers to edit before you 301.

Sources

• Google spam policies — Links
• What is Digital PR? — Practice
• Explaining earned media — Hyperlink as search object