Evidence to collect for broken link building

Broken link building needs two pieces of evidence: a source page still contains a hyperlink, and the linked destination fails to serve the expected resource. Verify both before suggesting a replacement. A failed request to one URL is not enough to describe a publisher's page as broken.

Keep this task separate from link reclamation, which concerns a reference to your own resource that changed. Here you are reviewing an existing reference and deciding whether you have a suitable alternative for its readers.

Capture the source reference

Open the exact source page and locate the hyperlink. Record its visible text, destination and surrounding section. Inspect whether the page presents it as a citation, a tool, a download or a general recommendation.

That purpose determines what a replacement must do. A research citation may need the original evidence, while a worksheet link may need a usable file. Matching the old page's keywords does not establish that your destination serves the same role.

If the source page itself cannot be inspected, leave the candidate unresolved. Use the backlink verification procedure to separate complete evidence from access failures.

Inspect the destination and its redirects

Follow the actual linked address. Record redirects, the final status and what content appears. Google's HTTP documentation distinguishes not-found responses from access and server failures.

For this workflow, retain the precise outcome. A timeout describes your failed attempt. A challenge page describes an access restriction. Neither alone establishes that ordinary readers cannot use the destination.

A successful response can still show a parked domain, an unrelated homepage or an error message. Describe the visible mismatch without guessing its cause. The redirect-chain guide helps keep the linked address and final page separate.

Retry a transient failure at a sensible interval or review it in a permitted browser session. Save the observation times. Repeated checks should answer a specific unresolved question, not create a high-volume request loop.

Establish what the old resource promised

Use the anchor text, surrounding sentence and any legitimate historical evidence you already hold. Do not claim to know the full contents of a vanished page from its title alone.

If uncertainty remains, say so. A proposed replacement can be related without being equivalent. Your review should distinguish a correction to the same resource from a suggestion of a different resource.

Inspect your own page against the promised task. Does it provide the requested checklist, data or explanation? Is it available without an unexpected account requirement? If it lacks the substance, improve the resource before proposing it.

Worked example: a retired calculator

This synthetic case starts with a community finance page linking to a budgeting calculator. The source hyperlink remains visible, but its destination redirects to an unrelated product homepage. A second check reaches the same result.

Your proposed replacement is a public spreadsheet that calculates a budget using the same inputs described by the source page. The evidence packet should say that the old destination now lands on the product homepage. It should describe the spreadsheet as an alternative, not claim that it reproduces an unavailable calculator exactly.

Now suppose your replacement is only a 300-word explanation of budgeting. It may be useful content, but it does not replace the calculator's task. Reject the substitution or build the missing functionality before asking an editor to review it.

Use the resource-page review to assess that fit when the source is a curated list.

Prepare evidence that an editor can check

Keep the source URL, section, observed destination result, check date and proposed alternative together. A short description of the reader problem is more useful than a long report of every request header.

Avoid alarmist claims about ranking damage. Your evidence establishes a reference problem at the inspected time. It does not measure the publication's traffic or search losses.

Use the outreach handoff only after the record has a verified contact route and approval state. Do not turn a list of failing URLs into automatic messages. A publisher can decide to remove the obsolete reference, restore it elsewhere or choose another replacement. Record that outcome and avoid repeating the same suggestion without new evidence.

Sources

1. How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers · Google · 2026-02-04