How to Reclaim Lost Backlinks

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A link you used to have isn’t the same problem as a link you never had. If a site used to point to you and no longer does, something changed, and in most cases that something is fixable.

Losing backlinks is normal. Sites redesign, pages get deleted, content gets edited, domains expire. What matters is noticing when it happens and knowing which losses are worth chasing.

How to find out what you’ve actually lost #

You can’t fix a lost link you don’t know about. Two free ways to check:

Google Search Console’s Links report. Under “Links,” the “Top linking sites” list changes slowly over time. If you have historical screenshots or exports, comparing an old one to the current list surfaces sites that dropped off.

A free backlink checker, run periodically. Tools like Ahrefs’ free backlink checker won’t show full history on a free tier, but running the same domain through one every few months and keeping your own record gives you a rough timeline to compare against.

If you’re on a paid SEO tool already, most have a dedicated “lost backlinks” report that does this automatically and tells you roughly when the link disappeared, which is the fastest route to a real answer.

Why links actually disappear #

Practical tool

What happened to your link?

Asking for a link back, without sounding like you’re chasing it #

Keep the email short, specific, and genuinely helpful to them, not just a request for you. Name the exact page, the exact spot where the link used to be, and why it mattered, rather than a generic “please link to us again.”

A short example:

“Hi [name], I noticed [page title] used to link to [your page] but doesn’t any more, looks like it might have dropped during a site update. Just flagging in case it was accidental, the page is still live and up to date if it’s still useful to your readers.”

That’s it. No guilt, no pressure, just information they might not have noticed themselves.

When to stop chasing and just redirect instead #

Not every lost link is worth the email. If the content that earned the link in the first place is genuinely outdated, fix that before asking anyone to reinstate a link to it. If the domain is gone entirely, there’s nothing to reclaim. And if it’s one or two links out of a healthy, varied profile, the time is usually better spent on new link building than re-litigating old ones.

The one case that’s always worth fixing, regardless of outreach: if you moved or renamed the page that was earning links, make sure a proper redirect is in place. That preserves the value of every link pointing at the old URL without needing to contact anyone at all.

Make losing links routine, not a crisis #

A healthy site loses a small percentage of its backlinks every month, that’s completely normal. The goal isn’t zero losses, it’s noticing the losses worth acting on and letting the rest go. Building a quick monthly check into your routine catches the reinstateable ones while they’re still fresh and the other site still remembers making the change.