How I Build Links That Work

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I see many people on here constantly asking questions about what kinds of links are good to build. Unfortunately I see answers like "article directories" and "blog comments" and "forum links". I personally don't believe that these links are really all that effective especially when we compare them to the other links that you could be building.

I wrote up a guide for Rank Jane on how I build powerful links by building broken links, but I've decided to write up a summary with the important points for you guys, if you want to read the whole thing just head over to Rank Jane.

1. Search For Old Articles

Older articles tend to have more broken links, by using the google "daterange" operator you can easily look up old articles. Google uses the julian date method for this operator so I just use Julian Date Converter in order to grab the date that I'm looking for.

Then you just type in "Daterange:Julian date" "Keyword" and it will look up articles from that date for that keyword.

2. Finding Broken Links

This is the part that everyone hates, combing the website for broken links. Fortunately Google Chrome has a plugin called "check my links" that will look for broken links for you. This really cuts down on a lot of time and makes looking for broken links a relatively easy task.

I remember when I first found this extension, saved me more time than I'd like to admit!

3. Mine the links

Simple, take the broken links that you do find and plug them into AHREFs or MajesticSEO or whatever you like to use, this will show you all of the websites that now have broken links pointing to your site.

Sometimes you'll hit the jackpot and get a few hundred.

4. Back Again


Use Waybackmachine or archive.org to see how the now dead site used to look. This will give you an idea of what kind of content these other sites were looking to link to.

Now you just need to write similar content and improve on it, it'll give you a really good chance.

5. Reach Out
The most obvious part, send emails and call those websites that have the broken links, let them know that their link is broken and show them your website.

6. Do it again
Simple just keep doing this over and over again, you'll get some super strong high pr links, sometimes you'll get tons of traffic from those other sites, and life will start to go really well.

This isn't the only thing that I do to build links, but I think it's a much better alternative to all of those other tactics I keep seeing here. I'm always surprised at how well broken links can work.

What do you guys think? I've found that if i'm willing to put in the extra work, I tend to outrank the competition.
#search engine optimization #build #links #work
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  • Hmmm, this really is a unique method. So if I understand this correctly, you are finding websites that have broken links on them, writing up similar content, and then telling the sites that have the broken link on it that the link is broken, but you have very similar content on your site? Very, very interesting.
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  • Not worth the effort, period.

    This advice keeps coming back again and again (backlinko calls it moving man method and thats where i first read about it) and i don't think its that much of a feasible one. Consider this, you do find an authority site with a broken link, that broken link is a completely different niche than the site i am trying to build links for and its just not going to look right if i put a page up with contents of the broken links e.g which dealt with health niche while my site is all about tech gadgets. Another thing is the owners of those sites don't even bother checking their emails much less bothering to fix a broken link on a rotten page.

    Its just my opinion though but if its working out for you, thats great alright!. And forum back links work fine, shit i would be all outta luck if they didn't since i only do forum link-building and also you wouldn't be posting the link to your site here if you thought it wasn't all that effective and valuable.

    Just my 2 cents
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    • Exactly! Most sites don't realize that they have broken links but it happens over time. This is a good way to snag some good links on authority sites.

      Yeah I see what you mean about effectiveness, I had a discussion about this the other day with another SEO guy that I sometimes work with about time vs effectiveness and we talked about these links.

      I find that it is effective for me, obviously you've found otherwise.

      The method has been around for years, I definitely don't take credit for it, yeah backlinko has a good article on it as well.

      Personally I've found some super powerful links this way, and you can modify it to find good wikipedia links as well

      I have found that this method is more effective than forum links for me, but then again you may have a different twist than I do for your method.
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    • If the niche is that different, you wouldn't be trying to get the link. You would only use this on old sites in the same niche as yours.
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    • That's why you have to target your searches...

      For example, if your niche is health, try a search like one of these:



      Get creative with it. Use advanced search operators. Combine with the date method that Slin so kindly shared.

      Think it takes too long? Want to scale it? Try this: Collect a list of links pages using search term samples like above. Save the URLs and import them into Screaming Frog Spider (or another tool like it). Set the spider to crawl all outbound links, 1 page deep, and let it run for a few hours. Export 404 links to Excel for sorting.

      Boom, tons of dead links. Still too much work? Download the Mozscape add-on for Excel. Now, your whole list of dead links has metrics like Page Authority.

      Hint: Those dead links with high Page Authority have that because a lot of people linked to it!

      I can get enough leads to keep me busy doing outreach for a month with this method. Real quality finds, too.

      Think most webmasters won't respond? That's true, most won't. That's fine, you don't need them to. Remember, you have hundreds (thousands, even) of prospects when you scale with tools like this. Even if only 1 in a hundred responds, you're set.

      Ask me how I know! I got a super hard to obtain .EDU link within 2 hours of trying this the first time.
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  • Does this really work, the trick I use is to see who dominate my keywords' SERP and do a background check on what they are doing/have done, eg. what links they've built, what is their social presence etc and try to replicate that and be better.
  • I had similar thoughts as mkgg above after reading Backlinko's blog post.

    You might occasionally strike gold but I have to imagine your time could be better spent elsewhere.

    Although, it could be worthwhile to outsource it somewhere cheap for a few weeks to see whether it is worthwhile.
  • Hi Slin,

    These tips are really awesome to create back links.

    From,
    Reddy Sekhar Reddy.K
    SEO Analyst.
  • I tried this in past for few days invest lots of time in this but couldn't get any results from this so I was demotivated & stopped this technique. People are using this very successfully but may be I am a dumb person couldn't execute in a right manner.
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    • What did you find was the toughest part? Was it just finding the broken links themselves?

      Maybe I should create a video to show how I do this in a bit more detail.
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  • to get high quality back links you have to search a good page rank sites for blogging.
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  • These tips are really awesome. Nowhere i read that kind of article.
    Thanks for sharing it.
  • create a good backlinks do following task to get it .
    1. forum posting
    2. guest blogging
    3.social bookmarking
    4. blog commenting( do it in good not make spam. please be consistent. )
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    • I disagree, these are decent links, but if you want real power you need to start reaching towards bigger sites. Getting these broken links and other powerful ones are going to be the way to success.
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  • Hi Sin,

    Completely new and unique method to build links for me. Thanks
  • Hello Slin,
    You have written really a wonder full article, well to be very frank this is the technique that I use to develop backlinks for my site and I have found that this Technique has given me far better results then my other methods I use. One may feel that it is time consuming but the result you see are very very good.
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  • Hey, i tried to do what you have mentioned but found difficult to do. I think i have to spend some more time to understand the actual working process. Anyway nice post.
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    • Any specific questions? I'm here to answer any concerns or hangups that you have.
  • yes, its good strtegy to do seo.thanks man for sharing.
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  • When you reach out do you tend to use your actual email or clients email? Or do you use an alias, for example use a random picture of a cute girl, make up a name etc.
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    • Good question, it really depends on the client and niche. I used to reach out as myself, and let them know what was going on and that I was working with my client.

      Most of my clients however now have in their contracts that I cannot let anyone know that I'm working for them, you know strict non-disclosure agreements. So what I do now is I make up fake profiles.

      We have done some testing and yes to be honest if we use the image of an attractive female for our profile we get more responses, it's sad but true. I generally get at least 1 response out of every 10 emails I send. It takes some time but is well worth it in the end.
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  • Try to target high PR sites and write content that is related to that post and write in an effective manner.
  • This is a really good method but it seem really time consuming.
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  • I agree, article directories and blog comments are weak links, and I don't waste my time with these links, especially when I want to rank as fast as possible.

    This is an interesting strategy that I must admit I haven't tried it. Everyone, please post if you have great success with this strategy.

    The strategy that has worked the fastest for me, is using google's own properties to rank for keywords, and get first page rankings much faster.

    Thanks for sharing this strategy!



  • thanx for shearing but what if i have more than 500 post published ? its getting hard to maintain all posts..
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    • No problem, this isn't meant to build links back to any specific post. This is mean to make an authoritative extra post on your website and to start spreading out the link juice. It should be part of an overall strategy, but if you get a few posts like this one you will quickly begin to be seen as an authority in the eyes of Google.

      This is a powerful strategy to build up some really strong authority.
  • I agreed with you. But I think if you write some Guest posts this will give you a link back as well as if your content is highly informative or well written so this will add authority to your profile. Hence, helps in branding and increased online reputation.
  • Get high quality back links you have to search a good page rank sites for blogging.
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    How I Build Links That Work

    I see many people on here constantly asking questions about what kinds of links are good to build. Unfortunately I see answers like "article directories" and "blog comments" and "forum links". I personally don't believe that these links are really all that effective especially when we compare them to the other links that you could be building. I wrote up a guide for Rank Jane on how I build powerful links by building broken links, but I've decided to write up a summary with the important points for you guys, if you want to read the whole thing just head over to Rank Jane.