Link reclamation is the cheapest link building there is. You are not asking anyone to link to you for the first time. You are recovering links you already earned and lost, or that people meant to give you and never did.
Most sites have more of these than they realize: links pointing at pages that no longer exist, links lost in a redesign, and articles that mention the business by name without linking. This guide covers how to find each kind and how to fix it, starting with the ones you can fix without contacting anyone.
What is link reclamation?
Link reclamation is the process of finding links to your website that are broken, lost or missing, and getting them working again. It differs from broken link building, where you find dead links on other sites that pointed to someone else and offer your page as a replacement. Reclamation only deals with links that should already be yours.
What kinds of links can you reclaim?
| Type | What happened | Who fixes it |
|---|---|---|
| Links to your 404 pages | Someone links to a page you deleted or moved without a redirect | You, with a redirect |
| Migration losses | A redesign, domain change or move to HTTPS broke old URLs | You, with redirects |
| Unlinked brand mentions | A site names your business but does not link | The site owner, after you ask |
| Lost links | A page that used to link to you removed the link or the page | The site owner, sometimes |
| Uncredited images or data | Someone used your photo, chart or research without credit | The site owner, after you ask |
The first two are entirely in your control and usually recover the most value, so do them first.
How do you find links pointing at your 404 pages?
In a backlink tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz, look for a report of your pages that return a 404 error and still have links pointing at them. Ahrefs calls it Best by links, filtered to 404. Sort by the number of linking websites, and you have a priority list.
You can do a free version with Google Search Console. The Pages report lists URLs returning 404, and the Links report shows your most linked pages. Any URL that appears in both is a reclaimable link.
The fix is a 301 redirect from the dead URL to the closest live page on the same topic. Not to the home page by default. A link to an old article about kitchen remodeling should land on your current kitchen remodeling page, because a redirect to an unrelated page is treated much like a dead end.
How do you recover links lost in a redesign?
Redesigns are where most sites lose links without noticing. The new site launches with cleaner URLs, the old ones stop working, and every link pointing at them breaks at once.
- Find your old URLs: an old sitemap, a crawl backup, the Wayback Machine or your analytics landing page report from before the change
- Check each old URL against the live site and list any that now return a 404
- Map each one to its closest equivalent page and add a 301 redirect
- Check that the redirects go straight to the final page, not through a chain of two or three redirects
- Confirm that HTTP and non-www versions of your domain redirect to the version you use
Note - If you are planning a redesign, build the redirect map before launch, not after. Recovering links later works, but traffic and rankings can dip in the meantime.
How do you find unlinked brand mentions?
Unlinked brand mentions are pages that name your business, product or people without linking to you. They are the best outreach targets there are, because the writer already knows who you are and chose to mention you.
- Search Google for your business name in quotes, excluding your own site: "Your Business Name" -site:yourdomain.com
- Add your town or industry to cut out unrelated results with similar names
- Search for your founder's or staff names alongside the business name
- Set up Google Alerts for your brand, so new mentions reach you as they are published
- Use the mentions or content explorer feature in a paid SEO tool, which can filter for pages that mention you but do not link
Open each result and check whether it links. Keep a sheet with the URL, the site, the context of the mention and the contact person.
Which unlinked mentions are worth chasing?
| Worth asking | Skip it |
|---|---|
| Local news, industry blogs and partner sites | Scraper sites and spammy directories |
| Recent articles, from the last year or so | Pages that are years old and clearly unmaintained |
| Positive or neutral mentions | Complaints or negative reviews |
| Pages that link to other businesses they mention | Sites with a stated policy of not linking out |
What should you say when you ask for the link?
Keep it short and make it easy. The writer did you a favor by mentioning you, so thank them first and ask second.
- Thank them for the specific mention and say where it appeared
- Suggest the exact page to link to, which is often not your home page
- Explain in one sentence why the link helps their reader, such as letting them find the service mentioned
- Offer something useful if it fits, such as a photo, a quote or updated information
- Send one follow-up after a week, then let it go
Unlinked brand mentions convert to links far more often than cold outreach, because you are asking for a small edit to something the writer already decided to publish.
What about links you lost completely?
Backlink tools report lost links, but most are not worth chasing. Pages get deleted, sites close, and editors update old articles. Check the lost links report monthly and only act on the ones from strong, relevant sites. If a valuable page removed your link during an update, a polite note offering current information can bring it back. If a site closed, there is nothing to reclaim.
Also check that a lost link is really lost. Sometimes the link still exists and the tool simply failed to recrawl it.
How often should you do link reclamation?
Do a full pass once, which usually takes a day or two for a small business site. After that, check for 404 pages with links monthly, review new brand mentions as alerts arrive, and repeat the full process after any redesign or URL change. It is maintenance, like checking your Search Console reports, rather than a campaign.
Once the reclaimable links are back, new links are the next step. The link building strategies that work in 2026 cover where those come from, and most of them start with the same thing link reclamation relies on: being worth mentioning in the first place.
The short version
Link reclamation recovers authority you already earned: redirect the dead pages that still have links, fix what a redesign broke, and turn unlinked brand mentions into links with a short, friendly request. It comes before any new link building. Once it is done, see how many backlinks you need to rank to set a target for the rest, or let our link building services handle both.
