Worked sort
Broken link replacement: turn an Ahrefs export into a to-do list
Two different problems hide under one phrase. Links pointing at your dead pages, and links on other sites pointing at dead pages you could replace. Treat them separately.
Two kinds of broken, two different jobs
Start by naming the problem. If other sites link to a page of yours that now returns a 404, the fix is yours alone. No email needed.
The second kind needs outreach. A blogger links to a resource that disappeared in 2023. Offering your page as a substitute helps their readers and earns you a link. Be sure it is as good as the one that vanished.
Easy to find. Ahrefs Site Explorer shows the first kind under its broken backlinks view and its best-by-links report filtered to 404 responses. The second kind comes from Content Explorer searches or from a crawl of pages in your niche. Both exports are plain CSV files you can open in a spreadsheet.
Search Console's links report can confirm what Google has seen. Compare it with Majestic or Semrush if you have access, because no single index is complete, and a row missing in one tool may exist in another.
Sorting the export, row by row
- 1
Group by target URL
One dead page with forty referring domains outranks forty dead pages with one each. Sort descending by referring domains and work from the top.
- 2
Ask whether the content still exists
If the page moved, redirect it with a 301. If it was deleted and a close cousin exists, redirect there. A redirect to the homepage is the weakest answer.
- 3
Restore when the page earned its links
An old guide with strong inbound links is often cheaper to revive than to replace. Update the facts, keep the URL, and publish again.
- 4
Mark the rest for outreach or ignore
Links from spammy or scraped pages can be left alone. Keep a note of why, so the row does not return next month as a question.
Which fix suits which row
| Row type | Fix | Effort | Link at the end? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dead URL, links from 10+ domains | Restore or 301 to the closest page | Low | Yes, existing links return |
| Dead URL, links from 1-3 domains | 301 and move on | Very low | Yes, if the targets match |
| Their page links to a dead resource | Outreach with your replacement | Medium | Only if they agree |
| Dead URL, only spam links | Ignore | None | Not wanted |
| Page you cannot restore, strong topic | Write a new page, then email linkers | High | Sometimes |
Imagine an export of 120 dead URLs. Nine of them hold 70 percent of the referring domains. Redirecting those nine takes one afternoon, while writing to the remaining 111 would take weeks and may return almost nothing. Check your own numbers before copying this ratio.
Writing to the owner of the other site
Be quick. Name the dead link, say what you checked, and point to your page.
A good note has three parts: where the broken link sits, what happens when a reader clicks it, and a single line saying your guide covers the same ground. Do not paste a template of five paragraphs; the owner is doing you a favour by reading at all.
If silence follows, your mention email wording works for this too, and the lost links timeline shows how long to wait before closing the row. When a deadline is tight, compare the effort with a placement bought from the store using the scorecard.