The broken link building trap I see people fall into every day

I keep noticing folks in this sub chasing broken links on sites that haven't been updated since 2019. That's a huge waste of time if you ask me because those old dead pages usually have no traffic or authority left. I checked 20 random broken links from a popular tool last month, and 15 of them pointed to sites that Google basically forgot about. Why are we still treating broken link building like a magic bullet when the real juice comes from finding live, active pages that just need a better resource? Anyone else seeing this trend of outdated tactics in their outreach results?

2 comments

2 Comments

claire_wells8716d ago

Preach. I wasted three months on broken link building back in 2021. Same exact story. Hundreds of outreach emails sent, maybe five replies total, zero links. It felt like shouting into a void. Then I switched to finding pages that were still getting traffic but had broken or old resources. Night and day difference. Those active pages actually need your fresh content right now. The 2019 dead pages are just digital dust. My reply rates went from 2% to like 15% after I stopped chasing ghosts. People forget Google doesn't rank dead pages anymore, so why would you want a link from one?

margaretm2317d ago

I checked 47 broken links from a well known tool last week and 39 of them had zero traffic from Google in the last 6 months. Its insane how much time people burn on these old dead pages when they could just check the Wayback Machine to see if the site even exists anymore. I fell for this same trap about 2 years ago and wasted weeks on outreach that got maybe 2 replies. The real gold is finding pages that are still ranking for keywords but have outdated info, then offering your fresh content. Those active pages with real traffic are where you get actual link juice, not the graveyard of 2018 blog posts.