What is Link Reclamation – Reclaiming What You Have Already Done
When we discuss link building, we often discuss fresh links. However, let’s speak about the inks you now own and how to make sure you are receiving value out of them today. In essence, reclamation is the SEO equivalent of taking back the links you already own.
The process of recovering links that formerly contributed value to your website is what we mean. It would be a waste if you didn’t receive equity from your links since you already have them, right? There are several possible reasons why the value derived from these linkages may have diminished or vanished completely, including the following:
- Perhaps the redirects are wrong.
- Perhaps they never got added.
- Perhaps you updated your site and moved the resources.
Link Reclamation is Not Building New Links
Although technically reclamation isn’t the same as creating new connections, it is a fast profit and completely legal as long as the links aren’t of poor quality. Since the links are already in place, fixing broken links can also provide far more value for the work involved than other link-building strategies.
How to Identify Internal Broken Links
Finding internal broken links is crucial to keeping your website up to date and enhancing SEO. Start by utilizing resources such as Google Search Console, which offers a list of broken links on your website along with reporting crawl issues. Using specialized SEO tools like Screaming Frog or Ahrefs, which let you crawl your website and highlight any links that lead to 404 pages or defunct URLs, is an additional strategy. Broken link detection can also be aided by personally reviewing important pages or by utilizing browser addons. Maintaining your website’s search engine rankings and user-friendliness requires regular monitoring of these tools.
How to Regain Lost Backlinks
If the broken link is on another website, it could be more difficult to fix, but it can be a very short procedure for internal links that you control through effective link building strategies. In an ideal world, you could merely ask the website that is linked to change the new URL. However, in the event that this isn’t feasible, you could just add 301 redirects to move users and equity from the old URL to the new one.”
and Majestic both assist you in identifying a broken or removed link and explain why it is harmful. Investigating the reason behind the missing links in order to have them mended or replaced can be greatly aided by this feature. When permanently redirecting, it’s crucial to use 301 redirects.
How to Develop A Strategy to Reclaim Links
It is crucial to have a well-thought-out strategy before taking any action. Putting a plan in place can help you make sure your efforts are focused and successful. Consider the following queries as you develop your plan of action:
- What are my goals?
- What are the specific links or sites of interest?
- What type of content would be most interesting
Things to Consider for Link Reclamation
When pursuing reclamation, there are several key factors to consider for success. First, identify broken or outdated links by using tools like Google Search Console or specialized link monitoring software. Once found, ensure the page being linked to is live and provides valuable, updated content. It’s also essential to reach out to the site owners in a professional and courteous manner, explaining the broken link and offering a relevant replacement. Pay attention to the domain authority of the site providing the link, as higher-quality sites can have a greater impact on SEO. Finally, track progress over time to measure the effectiveness of your efforts and refine your strategy as needed.
Timeframe
The general rule is that you will start to notice results as soon as you begin the process of regaining any lost links. The duration varies based on the circumstances. We are aware that it will take some time for links to start pointing to your newly launched website. In this case, patience is essential.
Identify the Missing Links
Finding the missing links is necessary for efficient reclamation. These resources will assist you in taking the necessary action:
Google Data
This is a free tool that you may use to monitor website traffic. Additionally, you can use Google Analytics to determine the source of your visitors’ traffic as well as the links they clicked to reach your website.
Crying Frog
You can use this additional free tool to crawl your website and identify broken links. This utility is compatible with both Windows and MacOS.
Tools for SEO Reviews
This SEO tool will show you all possible links that could point to your website, making it perfect for reclamation SEO.
Magnificent
You may view all of the links heading to your website with this tool, which has a premium edition.
How to Find Lost Links with Google?
To find lost links using Google, you can use Google Search Console, a valuable tool for monitoring your website’s performance. First, log into your Search Console account and navigate to the “Links” report, which shows both internal and external backlinks. From there, compare the current list of backlinks to past records to identify any missing or lost links. You can also cross-reference your backlink profile with third-party tools like Ahrefs or Moz to see if there are discrepancies. Once you’ve identified lost links, reach out to the linking website to recover them or create replacement strategies.
Type Your Brand Name/ Keyword in Double Quotes
Use the search operators provided by Google, enter your brand name, and enclose it in double quotations.
This is a Google search operator that will enable Google to only show results where your brand name appears in that exact order, which is why you should use double quotes.
Place a Minus in Front of Your Website Domain
The next thing that you want to do after mentioning your brand name is also another operator that will stop Google from returning results from your own website or from any website you like. The way you can do that is to put a minus (-) – the same way you do a minus on the calculator in front of a website domain.
What this will do is that Google won’t show results, including your website or any social media profile that you don’t want to include in the results, such as Facebook or YouTube. You get the point – you can do “minus” anything – but the idea is to really narrow it down so it is just publications and actual websites that are non-social networks or your own website in order to find your brand name.
Assess the List of Sites that Mention Your Site/ Brand
By now, you ought to be quite certain that typing enter will produce a list of websites that reference your business name online but aren’t social media or personal websites.
You now have a list of Google-mentioned websites that include your brand. You may click on a link to an article that features a quote from you or your brand. This, then, is the ideal illustration of link reclamation.
Ask Website Owners for Links
The basic premise is that, although you have seen that a website has referenced your brand, there isn’t a connection pointing back to your website. You already know that this is the ideal time for you to request a link if you see this. However, this does not imply that a link will be provided to you.
However, if you repeatedly employ this recover lost backlinks approach, you will ultimately receive some links pointing back to your website.
- Find out who owns this website
- Find out who wrote the article
- Reach out to the blogger directly
What Causes Lost Links?
Frequently, what occurs is that these kinds of inbound links begin leading to pages that are no longer on the website as time passes or even as a result of a website redesign or reorganization. Now, when this occurs, the links’ value drastically decreases since they encounter a 404 or not found problem, which effectively halts PageRank’s flow to the remaining sections of your website.
This feature explains why maintaining a procedure to check these external connections is so important to the organic performance of your website.
Keep Analyzing Your Website with the Right Tools
You have an abundance of options when it comes to tools that you may utilize to gain some visibility within the Google search panel, such Ahrefs.
However, using the Ahrefs.com tool to audit and inspect your link profile filtered by status code is much simpler.
When you use this tool, you’ll see that it displays a list of your website’s most popular pages based on how many external inbound links they receive. You will now filter this result by choosing the 404 page not found option depending on the HTTP status code.
The 404 code will be the most common, but you can also select and analyze a few other alternative status codes.
Map Old URLs to Appropriate Existing Pages
After that, you should configure a 301 redirect to record and apply some site-wide redirects depending on these broken or out-of-date URLs. Mapping the old URL to the most relevant page on the website currently in existence is crucial to this process.
Therefore, ensure that the link is mapped to the most recent version of the service page if it leads to an antiquated one. To effectively capture the authority and relevance of those inks, make sure you reroute traffic based on relevance if it is heading to a product or category page.
Final Thoughts
It goes without saying that you can spend a great deal of time and money obtaining these extremely relevant and high-quality external inbound links for your website when it comes to reclamation. Therefore, avoid letting a website redesign or reorganization be the main cause of your inability to reap the rewards of all your previous laborious efforts.
The ideal course of action is to incorporate this into a routine procedure, whether it be quarterly or monthly; either way, you should evaluate it frequently to ensure that you are aware of any broken external inbound links.
FAQs
What is SEO Link Reclamation?
Link in SEP involves the aspects of identifying and restoring broken or lost backlinks. This way, you can boost your website’s authority and increase its authority in SERPs.
Why Does Reclamation Matter?
The simple rule is that lost links indicate lost value, which is why reclaiming lost links is essential for maintaining your website’s authority and boosting your search visibility.
Is There A Way to Find Broken Links?
You can leverage SEO tools, such as Google Search Console and Ahrefs, to identify lost or broken links. These SEO tools can identify external links that are no longer pointing to your website.