Link reclamation is the work of finding links to your site that have been lost, broken or never completed, and getting them working again. It recovers value you have already earned, which makes it one of the quickest and cheapest kinds of link work.
How link reclamation works
Links go missing for a handful of predictable reasons, and each has its own fix:
- Your URL changed. A redesign, a new platform or a tidy-up renamed pages, and old links now hit a 404. Fix: a 301 redirect from each old URL to its closest current page.
- The page was deleted. A guide or product page that attracted links has gone. Fix: restore it, or redirect it to a genuinely equivalent page.
- The linking site changed. The other site redesigned and dropped or broke the link, perhaps pointing it at a mistyped address. Fix: a short, friendly email asking them to correct it.
- A mention never had a link. A newspaper, blog or partner named your business without linking. These unlinked mentions are worth a polite request.
- Your images or data were used without credit. Someone republished your photo, chart or research. Fix: ask for a credit link, which most legitimate publishers will add.
Why it matters
Every link pointing at a dead page is link equity going nowhere. For UK small businesses the biggest losses usually come from a website rebuild. The firm moves to a new platform, the old URLs are not carried over, and years of links from local press, suppliers and associations stop counting overnight. Traffic falls and nobody connects it to the move.
Reclamation also compares well with building new links. The site owner has already decided to link to you once, so asking them to fix a broken link is a far easier request than pitching a stranger.
Common mistakes
- Launching a new website without a redirect map from old URLs to new ones.
- Redirecting every broken URL to the homepage instead of the most relevant page.
- Checking for lost links once, years after the damage was done.
- Sending stern or legalistic emails about image use when a friendly request for a credit would work.
- Chasing lost links from tiny or spammy sites that were never worth having.
How to act on it
Start with links pointing at broken pages on your own site, because you can fix those without anyone else’s help. In Search Console, the Links report lists your most-linked pages; check them against a crawl or the Page indexing report for 404s. A backlink tool can also list external links pointing at URLs that return errors. Redirect each one to its best match. If a redesign is coming, my free redirect map builder helps you pair old and new URLs before launch, so the problem never starts.
Next, check lost links. Most commercial backlink tools have a lost links view. Look at the ones from sites you would want links from, visit the page and see what happened. If the link was removed in an edit or broken, email the site owner with the exact page, the exact fix and a thank you.
Finally, set up brand mention monitoring with Google Alerts or a paid tool, so you see new mentions while a request is still timely. Reclamation is usually the first job in my link building service, because it recovers value before any new outreach begins.