Reclaiming Lost Rankings: A Broken Link & Recovery Strategy
Client: A mid-sized e-commerce store in the “Home Decor” niche.
Challenges We Faced
The client was losing ground to a new, aggressive competitor who was building links fast:
Dropping Rankings
Key category pages had dropped from #3 to #8.
Competitor’s Aggressive Growth
A new rival had gained 500 new links in 3 months.
Broken Link Opportunity Hunting
We noticed the client’s old competitor (who went out of business) had thousands of dead backlinks pointing to 404 pages.
No Strategy
The client didn’t know how to capitalize on the dead competitor’s links.
Slow Link Recovery
Replacing thousands of broken links took time, delaying ranking recovery while the new competitor kept gaining links.
Turn Dead Links Into Sales
“Did a competitor shut down? Our Broken Link Opportunity Hunting service will help you capture their lost backlinks and traffic.”
Our Approach – How We Solved These Challenges
Competitor 404 Analysis
We analyzed the backlink profile of the defunct competitor. We found 2,000+ high-quality domains linking to their dead product pages.
High-Quality Content Creation
We created “Alternative” landing pages on our client’s site specifically to capture this traffic (e.g., “Looking for [Dead Brand]? Here are the best alternatives”).
Broken Link Opportunity Hunting
We reached out to the 2,000 webmasters: “I see you’re linking to [Dead Brand]. They are closed, but we have a great alternative here…”
Lost Backlink Recovery
We also analyzed our own client’s lost backlinks and launched a reclamation campaign to fix broken internal links and reclaim lost authority.
Results
| Metric | Before | After | Growth |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Links from Dead Competitor | 0 | 180+ | +180 links |
| Recovered “Lost” Links | 0 | 45 | +45 links |
| Ranking (Regained from Rival) | Position #8 | Position #2 | +6 spots |
Free Broken Link Audit
“Not sure if you’re missing broken link opportunities? Book a Free Backlink Audit and let our competitor backlink analysis services team find them!”
Advice for Marketers & Brand Owners
- Dead competitors are a goldmine. Monitor your industry for shutdowns. Broken Link Opportunity Hunting on a dead competitor is the highest-ROI link strategy available.
- Monitor your own Lost Backlinks. Links disappear all the time (site updates, 404s). Reclaiming them is easier than building new ones.
- Offer a relevant replacement. Don’t just ask for a link; offer a page that solves the user’s problem (e.g., an “Alternatives” page).
Extra Factors That Made It Work
- The sheer volume of the dead competitor’s profile gave us a massive pool of prospects.
- The “helpful” nature of the outreach (fixing a 404) led to a high response rate.
- SEMrush alerts notified us immediately when our current rival gained a new link, allowing us to counter-pitch.
