Link Building

Link Reclamation: How To Find and Reclaim Lost Links For SEO

Link Reclamation: How To Find and Reclaim Lost Links For SEO
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By Het Balar
21 Aug 2024
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Link reclamation is the process of identifying and recovering lost links pointing to your website. In this process, you can restore high-quality links to improve your website’s SEO health. Aside from this, link reclamation can rebuild your website’s credibility in the digital landscape.

Earning quality backlinks requires effort and patience, so losing your hard-earned links can be frustrating.

Losing links can significantly affect the value of your SEO performance. You might experience a decrease in search traffic and lose value in your website’s credibility.

You want to avoid experiencing this, and just like any SEO problem, there is one solution you can use: Link Reclamation. Fortunately, link reclamation can help restore these lost links and re-establish your website’s credibility.

You can lose a link when the content author manually removes it. There are plenty of reasons why the webmaster removed the link. Perhaps it’s no longer relevant, or your content needs more updated information.

2. Linking Page Deleted

When the entire page linking to your site is removed, the link will be deleted, too. So, tracking the websites where you get your backlinks is essential to know their current status.

3. Linking Page Redirected

A redirection of the page linking to your site can cause the link to be broken or lost. In this case, you might need to work with the webmaster to determine the current location of your links.

4. Linking Page Noindexed

When a page is indexed, it is excluded from search engine indexing, reducing its SEO value and nullifying the link’s impact.

As mentioned above, link reclamation is restoring lost links, and its process is much different compared to claiming unlinked mentions. Claiming unlinked mentions means webmasters or blog authors mentioned your brand but did not link you. Once you inform them, they will interlink your web page and earn high-quality backlinks.

To help you understand, here’s a summary: lost links are links previously linked with your website but are lost while claiming unlinked mentions are potential links that still need to be interlinked to your website.

For this reason, you can focus on link reclamation because you already have them. All you have to do is to restore and rebuild your link profile to improve your SEO performance.

One of the most effective ways to find lost links is to use SEO tools, such as SEMrush, Ahref, and Moz. These SEO tools provide detailed reports on your backlink profile, you can check the link quality and source, and it can help you track your link performance.

For instance, you can read the article by Ahref with a detailed step to help you find lost links: 

  • Go to the lost backlinks report
  • Set the time frame to narrow down your search
  • Proceed with reviewing the links, including the source, anchor text, and the page where they link.

However, not all lost links are worth reclaiming because you have to filter the best links. You can use Domain Authority, traffic, and relevant metrics to know which links can optimize your overall backlink strategy.

2. Picking the Best Opportunities

Picking the best opportunities for link reclamation needs to begin with the reasons why these links were lost. This will allow you to take an appropriate approach to recovering them.

  • Link Removed: If the content author removed the link, assessing whether to reclaim it based on content updates, replacement, or external link policies can help you determine if it’s worth reclaiming. 
  • Not Found (404 Errors): Determine if the page deletion was accidental or intentional. If accidental, you can email the webmaster and let them know so you can reclaim your link. If intentional, look for other opportunities, as the website may no longer be functioning. 
  • Broken Redirects: Evaluate if the redirect issue was a mistake. If it is, you can also contact the webmaster to address the issue. 
  • Noindex and Canonical Changes: Understand the implications and whether they’re worth pursuing. If the noindex and canonical changes were added unintentionally, you might reach out to the web owner. If not, look for other opportunities.

Like with backlink acquisition, you must prioritize links from high-quality domains when reclaiming your lost links. Don’t waste your efforts on lost links that will not positively impact your overall SEO performance. When you filter for high-value links, use SEO tools that can help you find lost links that are worth reclaiming. As mentioned above, you need to check the website’s Domain Authority to see if it has a good score and traffic potential so you can get referral traffic.

4. Personalized Outreach

Remember, link building is also about building professional relationships in your industry. So, personalized outreach can go a long way when doing link reclamation. It’s advisable to create a personalized email that sounds respectful and professional. In the email, you can include the issue you want to address and a possible solution to reclaim lost links. This will allow you to work efficiently with the webmaster.

When doing your link reclamation, it’s also an excellent strategy to utilize broken link building to turn errors into more opportunities! This is an opportunity when you can tell the webmaster to replace your lost links with more relevant and high-quality links. In return, the new links will improve your SEO performance.

Isn’t it best to acquire better backlinks than the old ones? This question may arise when thinking about your backlink strategy. Although you can look for new links, there are still benefits to link reclamation.

  • Restoring Lost SEO Value: Losing quality links is inevitable due to different factors. To solve this, you can do your link reclamation strategy and rest the lost SEO value. In doing so, you will be able to improve your SEO performance.
  • Efficient Use of Resources: Since the links have already been acquired, reclaiming them is less time-consuming than earning new backlinks. This can be cost-effective, especially if you need to be more strategic with your monthly finances.
  • Preserving Referral Traffic: Aside from organic traffic, referral traffic can also help you attract more visitors to your website. These visitors can be potential customers or clients for your business and help your brand grow.
  • Building Relationships: Link building is also about building or maintaining relationships with other industry experts. Since you are doing email outreach for link reclamation, you are also developing professional relationships with other industry experts.
  • Maintaining a Healthy Backlink Profile: A healthy backlink profile consists of diverse link acquisition and well-functioning links. Link reclamation can help you prevent your backlink profile from deteriorating over time due to lost links, no-index pages, or broken redirects.

Indeed, link reclamation is an effective strategy to restore lost links. However, there are instances when these lost links are not worth the effort. To help you determine, here’s how you can identify non-worthwhile cases:

  1. Noindex Tags: Pages marked with noindex tags may not be worth pursuing, as they’re not intended to appear in search results. For this reason, you can look for new opportunities to improve your backlink acquisition.
  1. Canonical Changes: These changes are usually deliberate and may not warrant intervention. As such, you can look for other link opportunities to save your efforts. 
  1. Redirects: Not all redirects are worth chasing, especially if they were intentionally set up to direct traffic elsewhere. Redirects may also mean the lost links are already irrelevant to your website, so it’s better to look for a more relevant website as a source of your backlinks. 
  1. Crawl Errors: Sometimes, links lost due to crawl errors may reappear on their own as the issue is resolved. Instead of fixing the crawl issues, you should look for a website with better technical SEO to help with crawlability. 
  1. Dropped Links: If a link was dropped because the content or site no longer exists, it’s typically not worth chasing it. If it’s deleted intentionally, the website owner may no longer want to reactivate the website. 

Now, after deciding on the links you want to reclaim, you can follow the three steps to make your reclamation more efficient. Here’s how you can do it:

1. Automation and Tools

To streamline the link reclamation process, consider using tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, or Google Search Console to track lost links regularly. Spreadsheets can also be helpful for organizing outreach efforts and tracking progress.

2. Prioritization

Focus your efforts on reclaiming links with the highest SEO value. This typically means prioritizing links from authoritative, relevant sites, which will improve your SEO performance. 

An advanced reclamation tactic is broken link building, where you identify broken links on other sites and offer your content as a replacement. This strategy not only helps reclaim lost links but can also generate new opportunities.

Reclaim Lost Links to Improve SEO

Link building needs patience because you have to acquire links in a systematic process, and when you lose a valuable link, it can be frustrating. But fortunately, there’s a solution: to implement link reclamation in your SEO strategy!

Finally, remember to follow the tips in this article and see how the recovered links can improve your SEO.

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