MARK
CRAWLEY'S		 ONLINESOLDIER.COM
Webmaster Basics and Essays Design and Content Webhosting Making Money Web Promotion Links

Home>Web Promotion>Link Building>

Going After Links by informing sites of dead links they Have and offering your Site as a replacement

This is a strategy that really does work. If you know that a given site or page has removed itself from the internet you can be certain that if it had any links at all that most of the links will now be dead. By emailing site owners and telling them of this dead link you are providing them a "service" of sorts and you can offer up your site as a replacement link. Many of the old links are no doubt on pages no longer maintained but some of the old sites will be happy to trade your link in place of the dead one. Without having to personally write emails for each site you have some level of "targeting" that makes the recipients believe you actually were looking at their site very hard when in reality you were just emailing every site you found that linked to a dead site according to your search engine of choice.

This process only works in volume; if you email 10 sites about a given dead link you may get no responses, if you email 200 you will probably get some links. Since you are indirectly trying to improve the sites of those you are emailing this sort of email is not Spammy by any definition so that sort of concern should not be a problem. Just make sure that the dead link is actually on a given page on their site. Search engines may report linking that no longer exists so you need to verify these personally.

If you find what you believe to be a higher profile site when searching through your dead linker list it might be more appropriate especially if they operate a large site to send these sites a personal email stating the page on their site that you found the dead link specifically as well as some personal comments on their site. Other smaller dead linker sites you can just send a generic email stating the dead link url you found and if they operate small sites they should know where it is if they are still updating their sites that is. If they email and ask where on their site the dead link is you can return to your search engine of choice and figure out where from their domain or site the dead link is.
Sample Email for Link Requests No Site Targeting

Hi I noticed on your site that you have a link to DEADLINK.com that site has been removed from the internet and is no longer available. I was wondering if you might consider replacing this dead link with a link to MYSITE.com

If you think MYSITE is perhaps worthy of a link on your site a possible description would be:

My Site.com

My Description

I thank you for your consideration on this matter

*Make sure the dead link is on a given site associated with an email address. When emailing multitudes of sites about a given dead url you don't have to set up reciporical links already. If you get an email back asking where the dead link is, go back to your search engine of choice and find it. If you are asked to add a link in return and the site is acceptable do it. By not having to include a url or several in many emails you save much valuable time.

 Sample Email for Link Requests with Site Targeting

Hi I stumbled upon YOURDOMAIN.com today and really enjoyed reading about THIS TOPIC. You really have collected a lot of interesting facts on THIS SUBTOPIC. I noticed you have a links page at YOURDOMAIN.com/LINKS3.htm which lists links to SUBTOPIC RELATED SITES. I noticed on this page in the fourth group of links under the heading MISCELLANEOUS that the link entitled MYCOMPETITOR.com is a dead link. I was wondering if you might consider replacing this link with my site.

If you think that perhaps my site is worthy of a link in this section a possible description could be:

My SITE.com

My Description

I would be willing to add a link to your site in return.

*It is optional to go ahead and add a link if the dead linker site is very important. If this is done include the url, title, and description you give the site. Note how when being specific about a dead link via personalized email how it is helpful to not only say the page the dead link is on but the section, url, and some easy way for the webmaster to easily pinpoint the dead link. If a link page has 50 links on a page in 4 sections make it easier for the webmaster to find the dead link.