I bundle them together because the mindset is identical. You\u2019re going after links that are basically yours already.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve watched the trackers through late October<\/a>, you\u2019ll know it\u2019s been rough. Weeks of volatility, a nasty Monday around the 20th and again near the 24th, and no confirmed broad core update since spring. Most people think one\u2019s coming.<\/p>\n When the ground\u2019s moving like that, the last thing I want is a stack of fresh, risky links I can\u2019t vouch for. Reclaimed links sit at the opposite end of the risk scale. They\u2019re editorial, they\u2019re relevant, they lived on pages that already linked to you once. You\u2019re repairing what you earned. That\u2019s a smart place to put your hours while Google sorts itself out.<\/p>\n Open Ahrefs Site Explorer (Semrush and Majestic do this too), drop in your domain, and go to Backlinks, then Lost. You\u2019ll probably get a scary number. For their own site, Ahrefs showed 6,285 links lost in 30 days. Don\u2019t panic at the total as most of it is just noise.<\/p>\n Turn on the best-links filter so you\u2019re only looking at links worth the effort. A lost link from a DR 30 blog that never sent a visitor isn\u2019t worth an email. One from a DR 90 industry title is.<\/p>\n Every lost link comes with a reason, and the reason tells you whether to bother.<\/p>\n Link removed is worth a look. If the page got refreshed and your mention got cut, you can often ask for it back, especially if your resource is still the best one going. A deleted page (404) is sometimes worth it, mainly if the deletion looks accidental. Redirect or canonical changes you can usually skip, because the link often still counts somewhere. Crawl errors you can ignore, they tend to come back on the next crawl.<\/p>\n This is where a bit of technical know-how pays off.<\/p>\n Set up a listening tool. Google Alerts is free and fine to start with. Ahrefs Alerts, Brand24, Mention and BrandMentions all do it better. Watch for your brand name<\/a>, your founder\u2019s name, your product, and any data you\u2019ve ever published.<\/p>\n When a mention lands without a link, that\u2019s the warmest lead in link building. They already wrote about you. They already thought you were worth naming. All you\u2019re asking for is a hyperlink on words they\u2019ve already typed.<\/p>\n The numbers make the case. A Hotjar reclamation campaign run by uSERP converted unclaimed mentions into links at a 30% rate and landed 210+ links<\/a>. And when Antonio Gabric ran a reclamation push, he pulled 31 links from 166 emails. Ahrefs\u2019 Joshua Hardwick called that \u201can 18.67% conversion rate, which is pretty much unheard of in link outreach these days.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n![\"two](\"https:\/\/3way.social\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/link-reclamation.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWhy I\u2019d do this before anything else right now<\/h3>\n
Finding your lost links<\/h3>\n
Pull the report<\/h4>\n
Check why it went<\/h4>\n
\n
\"Half the lost links I see weren't lost on purpose. A migration drops a redirect, a page starts 404ing, and the link's still pointing at nothing. Fix the plumbing first. Then go ask for the ones that are actually gone.\" Peter Fox, Head of Dev at 3way.Social<\/code><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\nTurning unlinked mentions into links<\/h3>\n