case study does broken link building work today with timestamps YoutubeScribe.com

[0:00] Aira's 2020 state of link building report showed
that broken link building is the second most
[0:04] popular link building tactic to generate backlinks.
[0:08] But numerous people have hated on this tactic.
[0:11] In fact, in that same report, Rand Fishkin said:
[0:15] "Broken link building still works?
[0:17] And it's the second most popular link building tactic?!
[0:20] In 2020?! Remarkable!"
[0:23] Then Authority Hacker made a video in
June 2020 with the title "You're wasting
[0:28] your time on broken link building."
[0:30] And Mark goes onto say:
[0:32] "And I've come to the conclusion that it's
just, it's almost a pointless tactic and you
[0:37] shouldn't waste your time with it.
[0:38] I think the reason why it doesn't work is
because in the vast majority of cases
[0:44] when a site which is big enough to have a lot
of links pointing to it takes down a page they
[0:51] probably know a thing or two about SEO, and
they're going to know to redirect the page or
[0:56] they're going to figure that out.
[0:58] So basically this like almost never happens."
[1:01] Now, both Rand and the guys at Authority Hacker
are smart SEOs that I respect and they've been in
[1:06] the industry for a long time.
[1:08] But as I was reading through the YouTube comments
this comment triggered me just a little bit.
[1:14] "I blame Ahrefs. Their blog makes it sound so easy."
[1:19] Now, I wasn't angry or even frustrated.
[1:21] I was curious to see if broken link building
still works today.
[1:25] And if it doesn't, then I felt responsible
to share transparently.
[1:29] After all, Brian K had a point.
[1:32] Although not the blog, I posted a video in 2018
sharing a broken link building campaign I ran
[1:37] that same year.
[1:38] And it resulted in a surprising conversion rate
of 28.8% - albeit - a rather small campaign.
[1:46] But that was over 3 years ago.
[1:48] So just a couple months ago, I ran a new broken
link building campaign to see if broken link
[1:53] building still works today.
[1:55] And the page I tried to build links off of
was from Google.
[1:58] So if you want to see the results, mistakes,
and the processes I used to launch this link
[2:03] building campaign in under 2 hours
then stay tuned.
[2:06] [music]
[2:11] Now, I know that some of you are here just
for the campaign stats.
[2:14] So here they are.
[2:16] In total, we sent 74 emails, 4 bounced, 5
people replied, and just 1 person linked.
[2:23] That gives us a conversion rate of 1.4%
on deliverable emails.
[2:29] Now, you might have already concluded that
broken link building doesn't work.
[2:32] But in order to come to a more reasonable
conclusion we need to go back in time to set
[2:37] some context.
[2:38] So I was looking through our blog's broken
outbound links in Ahrefs and saw that our
[2:42] link to Google's Mobile Friendly tool was broken.
[2:45] I clicked the link and sure enough, it was broken.
[2:49] I went to the Overview report and realized
the page had over 2,700 referring domains.
[2:55] And looking at the Organic Traffic Graph, it looks
like they 404'd this page on the /search-console/
[3:00] subfolder in 2017.
[3:03] But they didn't discontinue the tool.
[3:05] For whatever reason, they didn't redirect it to
the live version that lives on the /test/ subfolder.
[3:12] Now, we don't have a mobile friendly test tool.
[3:14] But Google has an API so you can basically
create your own.
[3:18] So naturally, I thought -- why not create
our own mobile friendly tool, reach out
[3:22] to as many qualified people linking to the
dead page and build some links of our own.
[3:27] After all, a free mobile-friendly tool would be
completely relevant to our site and a good
[3:32] way to encourage people to sign up for Ahrefs
Webmaster Tools, where people can run website
[3:37] audits for free.
[3:39] But there was one more problem.
[3:41] About a year ago, we published a 3-part series
on building links to our SEO stats page.
[3:46] And while I think the methodology we used
and taught were quite sound, people had
[3:50] an issue that we were reaching out from
an Ahrefs email address.
[3:54] And since Ahrefs is a globally recognized brand,
people had a common belief that people would
[3:59] be more willing to help.
[4:00] I don't disagree with their sentiments, but
I do think it was a bit overstated.
[4:05] Which led me to this tweet in pure passive
aggressive style.
[4:08] Emotions aside, it actually just made more
sense for us to build links to someone else's
[4:13] page instead of putting the time and resources
into building our own tool.
[4:18] So I was introduced to Max Prin, who's a technical
SEO at Merkle and asked him if I could try
[4:23] a broken link building campaign for his
company's mobile friendly test.
[4:27] And their tool in my opinion is much better
than Google's because there's no captchas,
[4:32] you can bulk test URLs, and it's exportable.
[4:36] So I thought it made a whole lot of sense.
[4:38] He agreed and so it began.
[4:40] Now, because the purpose of this experiment
was to gauge how well broken link building
[4:44] works today, I didn't want to spend too much
time on vetting pages, finding emails, and
[4:50] sending emails to potentially thousands of people.
[4:53] So I created something that I call a blitz list.
[4:56] The purpose of a blitz list is to quickly come
up with a list of vetted prospects in as short
[5:01] a time as possible.
[5:03] And if the campaign converts links at
a decent rate, then it's justifiable to go
[5:07] through the more monotonous work of
finding emails, personalizing pitches etc.
[5:13] And to give you an idea of effectiveness, it took
me less than 2 hours to send 74 personalized
[5:18] emails to highly qualified prospects
from start to finish.
[5:23] In my opinion, that's pretty fast and it could
have been shortened if I had left out one
[5:27] key part of the personalization which
I'll get to in a bit.
[5:31] So let's talk about creating a blitz list.
[5:33] To get started, I exported all backlinks in
Site Explorer that were pointing at Google's
[5:38] broken mobile friendly URL.
[5:40] And then I imported them into Google Sheets.
[5:43] Now, with over 2,800 pages, I did a few
things to quickly disqualify some pages.
[5:49] #1. I removed pages that include specific footprints
in the URL like the word forum, viewthread, blogspot,
[5:57] /profile/, /category/, etc.
[6:01] #2. I set a minimum threshold for Domain
Rating, which is an Ahrefs metric that measures
[6:06] the overall strength of a website's backlink profile.
[6:09] And #3. Using Ahrefs' API, I pulled in additional
metrics like domain level traffic, its traffic
[6:16] value, and the number of keyword rankings.
[6:19] And these 3 things took about 10 minutes
and trimmed about 1,000 potential prospects
[6:24] from our list.
[6:25] The next thing I did was use Hunter's API
to find author names and email addresses.
[6:30] Hunter recently released an "Author Finder"
tool, where you can enter a URL and it'll
[6:35] search for the author of the page and show
their email address when available.
[6:39] So I spent a bit of time writing some code
in Script Editor and then ran through all
[6:43] 1,800 or so URLs in Sheets.
[6:46] Then, I used NeverBounce's API to verify
whether these emails were actually valid.
[6:52] Finally, I manually verified the emails
on catchall domains.
[6:56] And this entire process took about 45 minutes.
[6:59] In the end, I had my blitz list ready with
a total of 189 names and email addresses.
[7:05] If you want more details on how I created
this blitz list, then go and watch our video
[7:09] on link building with Google Sheets.
[7:11] I'll link that up for you in the description.
[7:13] For now, let's move on to the vetting stage.
[7:16] Because I was going to be sending emails
under Max's name, I wanted to make sure
[7:20] the list of prospects was properly vetted.
[7:23] So the first thing I did was to disqualify
pages that weren't in English.
[7:27] And that was easy to do because Ahrefs'
Backlinks export has a language code in it.
[7:32] That shrunk our list from 189 URLs to 129.
[7:37] Now it was time to actually visit the pages.
[7:40] And this was the most time-consuming part.
[7:42] So using openallurls.com, I opened all 129 URLs
in new tabs and manually looked for two things.
[7:50] #1. I wanted to make sure they were still
linking to the dead page.
[7:54] And #2. It had to make sense for them
contextually to link to Max's page.
[8:00] To do that, I just searched the source code
for the broken URL to make sure it was still
[8:05] there and read the text surrounding the link.
[8:08] Rinse and repeat, while listening to some good
tunes, and I had my list of fully vetted prospects.
[8:14] Now, the final stage of this vetting process
was to remove people that Max might have
[8:18] a personal relationship with.
[8:20] And this was to ensure we were sending
true cold emails.
[8:24] So we removed a few more people and by
the end, we had a list of 74 people to contact.
[8:30] Now, let's talk about the actual pitch
and thought process behind it.
[8:34] Simply emailing someone to say "Hey,
you have a broken link. I have a page on
[8:38] the same topic. Link to me instead." wasn't
going to be enough.
[8:42] So I wanted to try something that was a bit
different from other broken link building
[8:46] emails that I had received.
[8:48] And that was to point them to Google's live
link rather than pretending they killed the tool.
[8:53] And because of my honesty, maybe they would
check out Max's tool and see why they should
[8:58] recommend it in their posts -- effectively
earning the link.
[9:01] So here's how the email went.
[9:03] "Hi [name],
[9:04] Was digging through Ahrefs and saw that you're
linking to Google's old mobile friendly tool.
[9:08] [Then a link to Google's broken URL.]
[9:10] Somehow, they've forgotten to redirect
that URL to their live one.
[9:15] [Then a link to the correct URL.]
[9:17] Not sure if you're still updating older posts,
but if you are, it might be worth updating?
[9:23] Here's the URL on your site and a screenshot
of where I found it."
[9:26] And then a screenshot, which is that
personalization part that extended the time
[9:31] when creating my blitz list.
[9:32] Now, the reason why I added the screenshot
is because in 2018 when I had run 2 different
[9:37] broken link building campaigns, screenshots in
outreach emails gave me a solid boost in conversions.
[9:43] But as you already know, it didn't quite work
out, which goes to show you that someone
[9:48] else's experiences or even your own, won't
always work out the same way the next time.
[9:53] Alright, so let's continue on with the email.
[9:55] "If you're open to potentially recommending
another mobile friendly tool, I'd love for you
[9:59] to try ours which also uses Google's official
API for reliable data: [and a link to Max's tool.]"
[10:06] Then I went on to tell them why it's better.
[10:08] "A few key differences on why I think our tool
is better (completely biased of course):
[10:13] Bulk testing; No captchas with sidewalks,
fire hydrants, or buses; And an exportable
[10:19] summary of mobile issues.
[10:21] No pressure at all :) Just thought you might
like to try it out.
[10:25] Max."
[10:26] Now, personally speaking, I would have
loved to receive an email like this over a typical
[10:31] broken link building email.
[10:32] Of course, completely biased.
[10:34] Now, you already know that we only
got one link.
[10:37] But we also had four other people respond.
[10:40] One person said they'd check it out.
[10:42] And yes, they did change the link to the correct
one, but didn't add a link to the one we pitched.
[10:48] Another person said: "Thanks, fixed."
[10:50] And sure enough he did fix it.
[10:52] But he didn't link.
[10:54] And the other two people asked for a link
exchange, which we politely declined.
[10:58] Now, for the one person who did link to his
tool, he gave a very positive response.
[11:04] He said:
[11:05] "Now that's how you write an outreach email."
[11:07] All sorted."
[11:08] And he linked.
[11:10] But he added at the end of his email:
[11:13] "By the way, I'm entirely familiar with your site.
[11:16] Fantastic tools that I reference often.
[11:19] I believe I follow you on Twitter too.
[11:21] Happy to make this change."
[11:23] Meaning, familiarity with Max and his tools
were probably what earned the link.
[11:29] So if we exclude that link, I actually got
zero backlinks from this campaign.
[11:34] Now, Max still got a DR 50 link from a very
healthy site, so I'm happy and he's happy.
[11:39] But upon reflection, something I would have
done differently if I were to run this campaign
[11:44] again is to not pitch Max's tool at all.
[11:48] Instead, I would have just told them about
Google's SEO 101 mistake and then added
[11:53] a link to Max's free SEO tools page in the signature.
[11:57] It may not have resulted in any links in the
short term, but for those that had clicked
[12:01] the link and tried the tools, they may have
very well linked to them in future posts.
[12:06] Or at the very least, the email would have
probably been welcomed.
[12:10] Now, as I was reflecting on this experiment,
there were a few things that I think contributed
[12:15] to a pretty much failed link building campaign.
[12:18] #1. These emails were being sent to people
in the SEO and digital marketing space.
[12:23] And if we're being honest, no one likes to receive
an email saying that they have a broken link.
[12:29] Everyone has them and most people just
don't care enough to fix them.
[12:33] None of the successful broken link building
campaigns I've run in the past were remotely
[12:38] related to SEO or digital marketing.
[12:40] So if you're in a different niche where SEOs
aren't the ones receiving the email, then it
[12:45] might be worth trying.
[12:46] #2. Unlike a typical broken link where there
is no alternative page from the same site,
[12:52] Google's Mobile Friendly tool wasn't discontinued.
[12:56] They literally made a simple error by not
redirecting the old URL to the new one.
[13:01] Now, had they killed that tool, then the pitch
would have been different and I think we might
[13:05] have had a few more links from this campaign.
[13:08] #3. We started the email off with "was
digging through Ahrefs."
[13:13] Now, Ahrefs is generally regarded as
the #1 backlink checking tool.
[13:17] So anyone who's familiar with our brand would
have immediately known that we were after
[13:22] a link from the first four words of our email.
[13:25] Probably not a good way to start.
[13:27] And #4. No follow up emails were sent.
[13:30] In my last successful broken link building
campaign, I used the psychological principle
[13:34] of the rule of reciprocity in my follow-up.
[13:37] Basically, I told them I wanted to share their
post on one of my Pinterest boards that's
[13:42] a) relevant to their post, and b) has over
30,000 followers -- no strings attached.
[13:48] But if they had other content that they
wanted amplified, just respond and tell me.
[13:53] And not so surprisingly a lot of people responded
with suggestions and also confirmation of newly
[13:59] added links.
[14:00] Again, the purpose of this campaign wasn't
to try and convert as many links as possible.
[14:05] I just wanted to gauge how people generally
respond to emails like this.
[14:09] Now, is the conclusion here that Sam Oh is
not a very good link builder and he's just
[14:14] making excuses?
[14:16] Maybe…
[14:16] Or is it that broken link building doesn't work?
[14:19] Maybe…
[14:20] The thing is, there is no real conclusion to this.
[14:24] Link building tactics are just streamlined
ways of finding link prospects and having
[14:28] some kind of skeleton for your outreach email.
[14:32] But if you think about it, almost no well-known
tactic contains a good reason for contact
[14:38] and a good reason for them to link to
you out of the box.
[14:42] And these are the two key parts of
getting backlinks.
[14:45] For example, with broken link building your
reason for contact is because they have
[14:49] a broken link on their page.
[14:51] And the most common justification for them
to link to you is because you have a live
[14:55] page on a similar topic.
[14:58] Both parts of your outreach are weak.
[15:00] Now, for something like the Skyscraper Technique,
your pitch in a nutshell would be "you linked to
[15:05] this page, I have a better page."
[15:07] This pitch is equally or perhaps even
weaker than broken link building.
[15:11] So to say that broken link building doesn't
work but skyscraper link building or [insert
[15:16] your tactic] link building does, is too
general of a statement.
[15:21] In my opinion, successful link building is
going to come down to a strong pitch, which
[15:26] requires strong content and a strong
value proposition.
[15:30] And the actual documented tactics themselves
are more ways to find prospects and potentially
[15:35] start a conversation.
[15:37] So as this world of link building becomes
more and more about reciprocal value, we
[15:42] as SEOs need to rethink the way we
approach how we build links.
[15:46] You can go route A, which means you have deep
pockets to pay for links or maybe you have
[15:51] a strong website where people will want
to do a link exchange with you.
[15:55] Or maybe you're like us and want to go down
route B -- where we want to actually earn
[15:59] backlinks based on the quality of our
content and tools.
[16:04] That's going to require a great product, content,
and some creativity to amplify your content.
[16:10] In my completely biased opinion,
route B is the way to go.
[16:14] You won't need to be paranoid of getting
caught by the Google police.
[16:17] Plus, it's actually a lot of fun.
[16:21] So I'll leave you with this final thought:
[16:23] Link building is hard and that's a good thing.
[16:26] While people are making excuses like
[16:28] "Everyone wants money," "they're a well known
brand," you can actually be doing something
[16:33] like...building links.
[16:35] Bottomline: stop making excuses.
[16:38] Don't lowball agencies.
[16:40] Link building is hard but worth it.
[16:42] Now, if you enjoyed this video, make sure
to like, share and subscribe for more SEO
[16:46] and marketing tutorials.
[16:48] And let me know in the comments about your
experiences with broken link building.
[16:52] I'll see you in the next tutorial.

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