Ahrefs Broken Link Building: Turn Dead Links into Ranking Gold!

Last Updated on February 17, 2025 by Becky Halls

If you’re looking to boost your website’s SEO, Ahrefs broken link building is a powerful strategy to consider. Broken link building involves finding dead links on other websites, reaching out to the site owner, and offering your content as a replacement. Using Ahrefs simplifies the process by providing detailed reports on broken backlinks, enabling you to turn lost opportunities into valuable links that improve your SEO.

In this article, we’ll walk through the concept of Ahrefs broken link building, the process, and how you can effectively use Ahrefs to grow your backlink profile.

What is Broken Link Building?

Before diving into Ahrefs broken link building, it’s important to understand the basic concept of broken link building. This strategy involves finding links that point to non-existent pages (also known as 404 errors) and reaching out to the website owners to replace the dead link with a link to your relevant content. It’s a win-win scenario: the website owner fixes a broken link, and you earn a valuable backlink.

Why Focus on Broken Links?

Broken links are harmful for any website, as they negatively affect the user experience and can hurt SEO rankings. When websites link to dead pages, visitors encounter errors, which increases bounce rates and diminishes the website’s credibility. By offering a replacement link, you help both the website owner and yourself by securing a valuable backlink.

Why Use Ahrefs for Broken Link Building?

Ahrefs broken link building is a highly effective method because Ahrefs provides a comprehensive toolkit for finding and managing broken links. Here’s why Ahrefs is a fantastic choice:

Accurate Data: Ahrefs has one of the largest backlink databases in the world, making it easy to find broken links related to your industry or niche.
Efficient Search Filters: With Ahrefs, you can quickly filter through backlinks to find broken ones that are relevant to your content.
Automated Alerts: Ahrefs allows you to set up automated alerts for new broken link opportunities, keeping you updated without manual searches.
Competitor Analysis: Ahrefs lets you spy on competitors’ backlink profiles to find broken link opportunities from sites linking to your competitors’ dead pages.

Explanation of Ahrefs Tools Used in Broken Link Building

Ahrefs provides a suite of powerful tools that streamline the broken link-building process. The Site Explorer is particularly useful, allowing you to enter any URL and uncover detailed backlink information. This tool helps identify broken outbound links on a competitor’s website, opening up opportunities for your content.

Content Explorer is another valuable asset, enabling you to find content that matches specific broken link topics. By using advanced filters, you can pinpoint high-engagement content, refining your approach for maximum relevance.

Alerts keep you updated on newly discovered broken links in your niche. Setting up these notifications means you won’t miss any sudden opportunities, as you’ll be promptly informed about new prospects requiring attention.

How to Use Ahrefs for Broken Link Building

Here’s a step-by-step guide to Ahrefs broken link building that will help you get started with this powerful strategy.

Step 1: Find Broken Links Using Ahrefs

To begin, log in to your Ahrefs account and navigate to the Site Explorer tool. Enter the URL of a competitor’s website or a site in your niche. From the Site Explorer dashboard, select the Broken Links report, which will show you a list of all broken outbound links on the site.

Use filters to narrow your search to relevant content types. This ensures you’re finding broken links that you can replace with your own content.

Step 2: Analyze and Prioritize the Broken Links

Once you’ve identified a list of broken links, it’s important to prioritize which ones are most valuable. Not every broken link will be worth pursuing, so look for the following criteria:

Relevance: The broken link should be related to your industry or niche. This ensures that your content will be a natural fit.
Authority: Check the domain authority (DA) of the website with the broken link. High DA websites provide more SEO value.
Traffic: Use Ahrefs to assess whether the website has high traffic. A backlink from a high-traffic site can drive significant referral traffic to your page.

Step 3: Create or Optimize Content

Once you’ve selected the broken links you want to target, the next step is to ensure you have content that matches the original page’s topic. If you already have relevant content, great! If not, consider creating a high-quality article, guide, or resource that serves as a better replacement for the broken link.

Tip: Try to make your content more detailed and useful than the original page to increase the likelihood of getting the backlink.

Step 4: Reach Out to Website Owners

The final step in the Ahrefs broken link building process is outreach. Once you’ve identified broken links and have relevant content to replace them, it’s time to contact the website owner or webmaster.

Sample Email Template:

Hi [Website owner’s name],

I was browsing your site and noticed that you have a broken link on this [Page URL].The link currently points to [Old Link], but the page no longer exists. I thought you might want to fix it, and I have a resource on [Your Topic] that could be a great replacement: [Your Link].Let me know if you‘d like to use it!

Thanks,
[Your Name]

Best Practices for Outreach Emails

Crafting effective outreach emails is an art. Begin by personalizing each message, addressing the website owner by name and referencing their specific content. Highlight the benefit of replacing the broken link with your resource without appearing overly promotional.

Keeping your email concise is key. Outline in brief why your content is a suitable replacement and offer a quick summary without overwhelming details. Following up politely after a week or two can increase response rates. Track your email open rates and follow-ups using tools like email trackers to refine your outreach strategy continuously.

Step 5: Track and Monitor Results

After reaching out, it’s important to track your progress. Ahrefs provides tools to monitor new backlinks and see if your broken link-building efforts have been successful. You can use the Backlink Checker feature in Ahrefs to track any new backlinks pointing to your site and measure their impact on your SEO.

Analyzing the SEO Impact of Acquired Backlinks

Once you’ve secured backlinks, analyzing their impact on your SEO is crucial. Ahrefs provides metrics such as Referral Traffic and changes in Domain Authority (DA), which can give insights into the effects of your link-building efforts. Check the shift in your site’s rankings for relevant keywords and track any increases in organic traffic.

Keep an eye on the referral traffic driven by these backlinks and analyze engagement metrics like bounce rate and time on page. This data can help fine-tune future strategies, ensuring continued success in your broken link building endeavors.

Benefits of Ahrefs Broken Link Building

The benefits of using Ahrefs broken link building are numerous:

Higher SEO Value: Broken link building using Ahrefs gives you the ability to acquire backlinks from high-authority websites, improving your site’s overall authority.
Time-Efficient: Ahrefs automates the process of finding broken links, saving you hours of manual search.
Competitive Edge: By analyzing competitors’ broken links, you can tap into opportunities they’ve missed.
Content Optimization: The process encourages you to create high-quality, link-worthy content, further boosting your SEO performance.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

When using Ahrefs broken link building, there are a few common mistakes to avoid:

Targeting Low-Quality Sites: Don’t waste time on websites with low domain authority or limited traffic.
Ignoring Relevance: Make sure the broken link you’re targeting is relevant to your content. Irrelevant backlinks won’t provide much SEO value.
Inconsistent Outreach: Consistent outreach is key. Don’t send out a few emails and stop. Regular follow-ups are essential to securing links.

Conclusion

Ahrefs broken link building is a powerful and efficient way to improve your backlink profile, enhance SEO, and drive more organic traffic to your website. By using Ahrefs’ comprehensive suite of tools to identify broken links, analyze their value, and replace them with your own content, you can steadily build a strong foundation of high-quality backlinks.

This method not only helps you secure valuable links but also strengthens relationships with other site owners and enhances your website’s authority in your niche. Start exploring Ahrefs broken link building today to take your SEO to the next level!