Lost backlinks
What are lost backlinks?
Lost backlinks are links that SEO tools previously found pointing to your site but no longer find. A link can be lost because the publisher removed it, deleted or moved the page, added nofollow, or because your own target page now returns an error. Some losses are temporary, for example when a tool cannot reach a page for a while.
Losing links is normal, and every link profile loses some each month. Old articles get pruned, sites close and blogs redesign. The ones worth worrying about are links from strong, relevant pages, especially to your important pages.
Why lost backlinks matter for SEO
Losing a few strong links can cause a ranking drop, especially for competitive keywords where the margin between positions is small. Spotting lost links quickly gives you the best chance of getting them back.
Patterns in lost links also reveal problems on your own site, such as a migration that broke URLs or a deleted page that had many links.
How to recover lost backlinks
- Review lost links monthly and filter to the strongest referring domains.
- Check the reason: is the linking page gone, the link removed, or your URL broken?
- If your URL broke, restore it or add a 301 redirect to the right page.
- If the linking page moved, find its new URL and check whether the link survived.
- If the link was removed, contact the editor with a reason it still helps, such as an updated version of your page.
Lost backlinks FAQ
Why am I losing backlinks?
Usually because linking pages were deleted or updated, sites closed, or your own URLs changed without redirects. Some tool-reported losses are temporary crawl issues.
Do lost backlinks affect rankings?
They can, if the lost links were strong and relevant. Losing weak or spammy links rarely makes a difference.
Related SEO terms
Link reclamationWhite hat
Link reclamation is recovering backlinks you have lost or that point to broken URLs, by fixing pages, adding redirects or asking sites to update links.
Link velocity is how fast a site gains or loses backlinks over time. It is a useful monitoring metric, not a confirmed Google ranking factor.
A backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat backlinks as votes of trust and use them to rank and discover pages.
A 301 redirect permanently sends visitors and search engines from one URL to another and tells Google the new URL should be indexed.
A link profile is the full set of backlinks pointing to a site: who links, how many, with what anchors and attributes, and how it changes over time.