FeaturesPricingBlogAbout
Sign InStart Free

Lost
Backlink Checker

Detect lost backlinks early and recover them before your rankings drop. Linkoxy monitors every link and alerts you instantly.

Start Checking Free

What Are Lost Backlinks?

Lost backlinks are links that used to direct to your site that are no longer functional. This can occur due to many reasons: the page that the link was on might have been deleted, the material might have been edited and your link might have been taken off, the site might have changed to a different platform, or the publisher might have removed the link intentionally.

Each backlink that is lost is a loss of the total link equity of your site. As one of the most significant ranking factors of Google, backlinks loss may affect your positions in search engines directly. The link of high authority that had required weeks of outreach to obtain is gone in a moment, and with it, its SEO value.

This is further complicated by the fact that the losses in links are not always noticed. It is possible that without a dedicated monitoring tool, you will not even notice that a link has been removed until you notice a drop in rankings, and at that point it may be too late to recover. This is why the active lost backlink monitoring is a vital component of any serious SEO strategy.

Why Backlinks Disappear

The knowledge of the most frequent causes of backlink loss will assist you in taking precautionary steps and increase your recovery rate. The most common causes are the following:

Content updates and redesigns: The owners of the websites update their content frequently to make it current and topical. In these updates, external links can be deleted, both deliberately and not. This is the most prevalent cause of loss of backlinks.
Page deletions: In case a publisher deletes a page completely, all the outbound links on that page are lost. This usually occurs when restructuring a site, migrating to CMS or consolidating the content.
URL structure changes: When the URL structure of websites is altered (e.g. when switching to HTTPS, changing domain names, or reorganizing permalinks), existing links can be broken unless appropriate redirects are added.
Sponsored content expiry: There are numerous guest posts and sponsored articles that have a time limit. When the agreed time expires, the publisher has the option of deleting the content or the backlinks in the content.
Editorial choices: Publishers can also look through their external links and choose to delete those that they no longer believe to be relevant or useful to their readers. This is particularly prevalent when there is a site-wide link audit.

The Way to Reclaim Lost Backlinks

The positive thing is that it is possible to restore many of the lost backlinks in case you are fast and treat the situation professionally. The following is a time-tested recovery procedure:

Step 1: Detect the loss early.

The faster you find a lost backlink, the higher the chances of recovery. Monitor link removals within hours, not weeks with the automated monitoring of Linkoxy. Install email notification so that you are alerted as soon as a link status has changed.

Step 2: Investigate the cause.

Read the page before contacting the publisher to know the reason why the link has been taken down. Was the page deleted? Was the content updated? Is there a technical issue? Knowing the reason will enable you to develop a proper response.

Step 3: Contact the publisher.

Send a friendly, business-like email. Give them credit on their editorial judgment, tell them what value your link will have to their readers, and inquire whether the deletion was deliberate. In case the page has been deleted, inquire whether there is a new URL on which your link may be added.

Step 4: Offer value.

In case the publisher deleted your link on the grounds that the information is not up-to-date, volunteer to create new material, new information, or better resources that would make your link more useful to their readers.

Step 5: Follow up.

In case you do not get a reply in a week, send a polite follow up. Also remember to be professional and understanding in your tone, publishers get a lot of requests and sometimes, it is best to be persistent (but not pushy).

The Way Linkoxy Identifies Lost Backlinks

The lost backlink detector system of Linkoxy operates by crawling the pages on which you have placed your backlinks. Our monitoring engine does a deep analysis of the HTML to ensure that your link has not been removed off the page not just to check whether the URL matches but also to check the actual anchor element and its attributes.

Once a link is no longer present on a page, Linkoxy changes its status to removed on your dashboard and sends an immediate email notification. The dashboard gives clear visual indicators: green color on live links, red color on removed links and warning signs on links that are about to expire.

This system will keep you informed of the status of your backlink portfolio. Together with our backlink monitoring capabilities, you can fully see link health, and it is easy to focus on the recovery of your most valuable lost links.

Frequently Asked Questions

Everything you need to know about Linkoxy and backlink tracking.

What are lost backlinks?
Lost backlinks are links that used to refer to your site but have been deleted or are no longer available. The connection may be lost due to the deletion of the page that you were linking to, the material was changed and your link was taken away, the site has changed the URL structure or the publisher has removed your link deliberately. The lost backlinks may harm your SEO ranking as they will decrease your total link equity.
Why do backlinks disappear?
Backlinks are lost due to a variety of reasons: publishers can update their content and remove links, websites may change their CMS or URL structure and create broken links, pages can be deleted, sponsored content can expire, or the owner of the site can choose to remove external links. Knowing the reasons behind the disappearance of links is useful to preventative actions and increase the success of recovering links.
What is the rate of Linkoxy finding lost backlinks?
Linkoxy will check your backlinks on a regular basis and issue an alert when a lost link is found in the course of a monitoring cycle. Speed of detection will be determined by your plan - paid plans will have more frequent monitoring intervals. You may also request a manual status check any time to get real time results.
Can I recover lost backlinks?
In many cases, yes. The trick here is to identify the missing backlinks as soon as possible and contact the publisher in time. The most common recovery techniques are to contact the publisher and ask them to be reinstated, to provide revised content or resources, to indicate that the removal of the link can have been unintentional, or to give a new URL in case the original target page has been relocated. Linkoxy assists you in identifying the losses at an early stage and thus giving you the best chance of successful recovery.

Start Tracking Your Backlinks Free

Join 500+ SEO agencies and professionals who rely on Linkoxy to protect their backlink portfolio. Set up in under 2 minutes — no credit card needed.

Scan Your Backlinks NowView Pricing

No credit card required · Free plan available · Setup in 60 seconds