Case Study: Does Broken Link Building Work Today?

Does broken link building still works today? See our results from trying to build links off of one of Google's broken pages.

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Additional SEO Resources

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Aira’s 2020 state of link building report showed that broken link building is the second most popular link building tactic to generate backlinks.

But many people have hated on this tactic. In fact, in that same report, Rand Fishkin said… “Broken link building still works? And it’s the SECOND most popular link building tactic?!

Our experience was different. We did a broken link building campaign in 2018 which resulted in a surprising conversion rate of 28.8% -- albeit -- a rather small campaign.

But that was over 3 years ago.

So a couple months ago, we ran a new broken link building campaign to see if broken link building still works today.

In this video, you’ll see the results, mistakes, and the processes we used to launch this link building campaign in under 2 hours.

Timestamps:

0:00 Intro
2:11 Broken link building campaign stats
5:31 Creating a blitz list
7:13 Vetting your prospects
8:30 Creating your pitch
12:11 Takeaways from Sam’s link building campaign

#brokenlinkbuilding #linkbuildingcasestudy #linkbuilding

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[BetaTesterTesting]

Soooo nice.... He make the effort to re-test it's argument and analyze why it can or can't be working, Thanks. I'm Sam's super-fan!!

[roycohen.]

The weirdest thing was I was thinking today does broken link building still work and then I see this video. Great video, Sam. You touched upon all the points I thought about the previous video as well that you had a bit of a benefit from having the ahrefs brand behind it. I do think that it doesn't work, but I don't have enough experience myself to say so :).

[lisasteiner]

Broken Link Building still works! I use broken link building a lot of time. I get so many great links out of it. Maybe a lot of people dont know, how to do it right. Or they dont know, how to contact people. And you are absolutely right. A strong pitch is very important. I take a lot of time for each mail. But its totally worth it. In some campaings more than 80 % answer me and replace the broken link with a link to my site.
But great video. I really love your videos.
.

[nasimchowdhury]

Hey sam, you are a good link builder. I have learned from you how to start link building campaign and no one describes like you about link-building. stay tuned with sam oh

[kiterway]

Sam, why did you decline to reciprocate backlinks?

[rob-delory]

I'd be very curious to see a month later if any linked, but never emailed you back (happens often). And if some fixed to google new URL or the one you tested. As far as I am concerned, if they fix it, I would count it because you actually gave them two options. I think that would be a good follow up measurement.
I like that you are continuing to run tests like this years later. Good video.

[liangriver]

hi, what is the meaning of "Traffic" under the "Backlinks", it is the total traffic of "referring page" or part of traffic to the target page (i mean the referred page)?please help..

[cdmm]

Hi Sam! Did you decide when you will create a video/ Complete Tutorial on how to build an affiliate website from scratch and document it? It's very important !!!

[Whatthewords]

Now that's an honest video from you!!

[faithlives]

As you told, I am doing keyword research for my new website with kd is 10 and min search value is 500 but I did not proper keywords..can you help me to get out of this problem ?

[armentadevosyan]

Thank you for a great video. But I need help to find broken links because, in my niche which is online teaching, there are a few pages that are broken and have even 50 backlinks and these sites have a low DR or can't find their email. So I trying to do a broken link campaign, but can't. Can you help me or do you have a guide about this?

[abdelben]

does ahrefs give exact data for amazon?

[geekyayaz]

Can you make a video on infographic link building? 2021/22

[hamiddesigner]

Nice Try.
Link building is like nightmare to me,

Thank you, your videos are great.

[coltellifaidate]

Mmm... You've put a lot of links in your email.

1. How did you personalise the email subject?
2. Deliverability rate?

[nngthegreat]

Hey, sam great content. Can you share your thoughts on how Google updates impact websites and how to fix them. Thanks in advance.
Cheers 🍻

[vishalambani]

Hey Sam,
Nice to meet you
I will build links for saas company
Can you please help me to get a new tips & tricks for getting a backlink for saas company.
Thanks 🙏

[nathanbradshaw]

Ahrefs please change the intro music. It is very loud and noisy. Please use any Soft and Calm Music.

[iampiyushsingh]

I don't think it works nowadays. Guest post is win win situation for everyone

[Slumbu]

Would not waste time on this technique in 2021