What Is Broken Link Building?
Broken link building is a white-hat SEO technique that takes advantage of the natural decay of the web. Every year, websites go offline, pages get deleted, and URLs change, leaving behind a trail of dead links on other sites. When a visitor or search engine crawler follows one of these links, they encounter a 404 error rather than useful content.
The strategy works in three steps. First, you use a tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or the Check My Links browser extension to find pages in your industry that contain outbound links returning 404 errors. Second, you create content that replicates or improves on whatever the broken link originally pointed to. Third, you reach out to the webmaster, point out the dead link as a courtesy, and suggest your newly created page as a replacement.
Because you are helping the site owner fix a genuine problem, the outreach feels helpful rather than purely self-serving. This makes broken link building one of the higher-acceptance-rate link acquisition methods in SEO. The quality of the backlink depends entirely on the authority of the site you are targeting. A link from a well-established South African news portal or industry association carries far more weight than a link from a low-traffic blog.
Successful campaigns typically focus on resource pages, "best of" lists, and reference articles in a specific niche, as these pages tend to accumulate many outbound links over time and are more likely to have broken ones. For South African businesses, government resource pages, university guides, and established industry directories are productive places to look.
Broken Link Building In Practice
Consider a Pretoria-based law firm specialising in labour law. Their SEO team uses Ahrefs to search for labour law resource pages on South African HR portals and university websites. They identify a popular HR directory that links to a government circular on retrenchment procedures, but the circular has since been moved and the link now returns a 404 error.
The firm writes a comprehensive, up-to-date guide on retrenchment procedures under the Labour Relations Act, hosted on their own domain. They then email the HR portal's content team, noting the broken link and suggesting their guide as an alternative. Because the firm has solved an actual problem for the portal, a meaningful percentage of these outreach emails result in a live backlink.
Over three months of consistent prospecting and outreach, a small campaign like this can yield ten to thirty quality links from relevant South African domains, improving both domain authority and topical relevance for labour law search terms.
What broken link building is
Broken link building is a link-building technique in which you find broken (dead) links on other websites, links that point to pages that no longer exist (returning errors), and offer the site owner a working replacement: your own relevant content, to which they can update the link, so you earn a backlink while helping them fix a broken link. The logic is a mutual benefit: broken outbound links are a small problem for a site (they harm user experience and are untidy), so a site owner is often receptive to being told about a broken link and offered a suitable, working alternative to link to instead. If you have (or create) content that is a relevant, quality replacement for what the dead link pointed to, you can suggest they update the broken link to your content, gaining a backlink from a genuine, helpful interaction. Broken link building is considered a relatively white-hat, legitimate link-building approach, because it provides real value (helping fix a broken link) and results in a relevant, editorially-placed link, rather than a manipulative or paid one. It does require effort, finding relevant broken links, having or creating suitable replacement content, and reaching out, but the links earned tend to be relevant and genuine. Understanding broken link building matters because it is one of the more legitimate, value-based link-building tactics, earning backlinks by genuinely helping site owners fix dead links with relevant content, which aligns with sound, guideline-friendly link building rather than manipulative schemes.
How broken link building works
Broken link building follows a clear process, and doing it well rests on relevance and genuine value rather than volume. The steps are: first, find relevant broken links, identifying dead links on websites in your niche, typically by using SEO tools (which can crawl sites or report broken links) to find broken outbound links on relevant pages, or by checking resource pages, competitor backlinks and relevant sites for links that now return errors; second, ensure you have suitable replacement content, a page of yours that is a genuinely relevant, quality substitute for what the dead link pointed to (or creating such content if it would be valuable), since the replacement must be a fitting, useful alternative for the offer to make sense; and third, reach out to the site owner, politely informing them of the broken link on their page and suggesting your relevant content as a replacement, framed as a helpful heads-up rather than a pushy request, so the interaction genuinely helps them while offering your link. Success depends on relevance (the broken link, your content and the host site should genuinely match), quality (your replacement content must be worth linking to), and good, courteous outreach, since site owners respond to genuine, relevant, helpful approaches far more than to spammy mass requests. It is effort-intensive and not every outreach succeeds, but the links earned are relevant and legitimate. As to whether it still works, broken link building remains a valid, effective tactic where done properly, because broken links still exist everywhere, fixing them still provides real value, and relevant, editorial links remain valuable, so it continues to work for those willing to do the research, content and outreach genuinely. For a South African business, broken link building can earn quality, relevant backlinks by finding dead links on relevant sites (including local and industry sites), offering genuinely suitable replacement content, and reaching out helpfully, making it a legitimate, value-based way to build links, provided it is done with real relevance, quality and courteous outreach rather than as a mass, low-quality campaign.
FAQ
How do I find broken links on other websites?
Tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, and the free Check My Links Chrome extension identify broken outbound links on target pages. Search for resource pages in your niche, run a crawl, and filter for 404 errors to build a prospecting list.
Does broken link building still work for South African websites?
Yes. South African websites, particularly news portals, directories, and government resources, accumulate broken links over time. Offering quality replacement content to local webmasters is a legitimate and effective way to earn relevant, high-authority backlinks.
How do you find broken links on other websites?
Typically using SEO tools that crawl sites or report broken outbound links on relevant pages, and by checking resource pages, competitor backlink profiles and relevant sites in your niche for links that now return errors (dead pages). Browser extensions and link-checking tools can flag broken links on a given page. The aim is to find broken links whose dead target your own relevant, quality content could genuinely replace, on sites where a link would be valuable.