Link Reclamation

Link Reclamation

Definition: Finding incoming links to pages on your website which are broken. For example, having a link pointing to a page, which, when it loads, gives a 404 error. It is a little unclear whether these links are totally worthless, there is an argument that they still help the strength of the domain, but I think that it is wasting a least some link equity. Instead of wasting this, you should be trying to funnel all link equity to appropriate pages on your website rather than ones that are broken. There are two main ways you can fix this problem -

1) You can put a 301 redirect on the broken page which points to your working page. This is easier to do because you are in control of the redirect and can point it wherever you want. The slight downside of this is that a small amount of link equity is lost when you implement a 301 redirect.

2) You can ask the person who created the link to change it so that it points directly to the correct page. This is a bit harder to do because you are relying on getting in touch with someone else and them taking the time to fix the link. Some good website owners will do this, particularly if they care about their website because they do not want broken links sticking around. The upside of this is that you do not lose any of the link equity which you may if you use the previous method.

Types of links you get: You are pretty limited here because these are not new links and you do not really control them. You can't really get the anchor text of your choice unless you are really cheeky and ask the website owner to change that as well as fixing the link itself. You can get links to deep pages within your website if you wanted because you can 301 redirect them to wherever you want.

The process: The process for link reclamation is quite straightforward and you can do it using free tools which is handy.

1. Go to Open Site Explorer and enter your URL

2. Click on the Top Pages tab

3. Export the results to a CSV

4. Once in Excel, filter out HTTP statuses of 200 and 301

5. See what is left, you'll probably have a mix of 404, 302 and 500

6. Check that these are actually broken by going to the URL and checking the HTTP header

7. Either 301 redirect the broken URL to another relevant one on your website where you

want link equity, or contact the site linking to you and ask them to change the link so it

isn't broken and points to the correct page

Additional reading:

Here are some additional resources for learning more about link reclamation:

★ Link Reclamation Best Practices on Search Engine Journal

★ Process for Link Reclamation using Majestic SEO by Dixon Jones