Did you know there are an estimated one billion websites out there on the Web today? As you can imagine, that’s a hell of a lot of information available to you! Of course, such a high amount of sites means there is plenty of scope for errors.
For example, site owners may redesign their websites and reorganize their content. That means they’ll add new pages and delete irrelevant or outdated ones. Such changes may not be a problem for regular visitors to those sites. But, what happens if those deleted pages get linked to from other Web pages?
You can appreciate that there will no doubt be links to a lot of dead pages on the Web. Search engines like Google do a good job of flagging up missing pages and alerting site owners. Of course, the sites that link to dead pages may not know about those links.
There are many SEO tips and tricks to raise the popularity of your site. One seldom-used method is mining for dead links, believe it or not! Confused? Let me explain:
The theory behind mining for dead Web links
Do you know a thing or two about search engine optimization? If so, you’ll understand the importance of backlinks to pages on your website. One of the ways that search engines rank sites is by popularity. Or, to put it another way, the people that link to your pages.
Let’s say that you run a company selling lawnmowers. You may have bloggers linking to products on your site that they’ve reviewed. You might even get customers linking to your site from online forums, for example. The more relevant links you’ve got, the higher your site’s ranking for certain keywords. And, of course, your site will get more visitors!
So, what has that got to do with mining the Web for dead links, I hear you ask? Well, let’s say that one blogger links to a product on a website that no longer exists. But, you sell that same lawnmower on your site. You could inform the blog owner about the dead link and ask them to link to your site instead.
By reaching out to the blogger, you’ll do two things. First, you’ll help them keep their content up-to-date. And, second, you should get a free backlink for your troubles! If you spend some time mining for dead Web links, you could build up a list of backlinks to relevant pages on your site!
How to get started mining for dead links
The other benefit about such an intriguing SEO tactic is you don’t have to devote much time to the cause.
That means you don’t need to write blog posts for other sites, for example. It’s a method that many an SEO company uses to build good quality backlinks for their clients. Today, I will show you how to do it yourself:
Step 1: Compile a list of relevant sites
The first thing you need to do is draw up a list of sites like blogs that contain relevant content to your website. Stick with sites that are in the same industry as yours.
Step 2: Search for dead links
Next, use a tool to search those sites for dead links. There are plenty of free and premium tools available for such a purpose.
Step 3: Identify suitable links and contact site owners
Last, but not least, draw up a spreadsheet containing relevant dead links. Contact those site owners, explaining that you’ve read their article and identified the link. You can then offer them to update the link to a relevant page on your site. Rinse and repeat, as they say!
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