Jason Puckett says, “It’s inevitable. Despite your best efforts to prevent them, there will likely be some 404 errors showing up on your website for old pages that have been discontinued on your site. Or perhaps someone just inadvertently mistyped the URL they were linking to on your website.

Certainly, 404 errors aren’t great for search engine indexing, but they also represent potential inbound links that are now broken and lost. Or can those links be reclaimed? I have two techniques you might want to try.

Reclaiming broken links with Google Search Console

Google Search Console is free, making it a popular choice for attaining link information about a website. However, as Russ Jones, principal search scientist at Moz, wrote in a thought-provoking post about the true reliability of Google Search Console data, much of the data in Google Search Console, especially around linking, isn’t always terribly accurate. This is due in part to the speed at which Google indexes various pages that may contain links”.

Missed link-building opportunities: Reclaiming broken links

Search Engine Land

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