Overview
A broken backlink tracker helps SEO managers find public pages that still link to dead owned URLs and turn those findings into a prioritized reclamation list. Juno searches for likely source pages, verifies the linked owned URL, and maintains a reusable tracker plus a short reclamation brief for monthly review.
Use this playbook after a migration, content cleanup, rebrand, campaign retirement, or any stretch where old URLs may have quietly become 404s. It is intentionally narrow: it replaces a broken backlink reclamation sheet, not a full backlink intelligence platform.
Why you should recover broken backlinks
Broken backlinks are easy to miss because the source page lives somewhere else. The visitor sees the dead end, the SEO team loses a useful path, and the fix can be as simple as a better redirect or restored page.
Links still matter for discovery and context. Google's SEO Starter Guide explains that links can help Google find pages and understand relationships across the web in its guidance on links. A backlink pointing at a dead owned URL is a small leak in that system.
The hard part is not spotting one 404. It is keeping a sane review list: which source pages still contain the link, which target URLs are truly dead, which links deserve a fix, and which rows are just noise. Juno keeps the evidence, priority, recommended action, and status in one place so the monthly review does not become archaeology.
Step-by-step
- 1Confirm the target domain, any known dead URLs or old paths, the search locale, and the scope rules for subdomains, PDFs, docs, support, or retired campaign sections.
- 2Start from the installed Broken backlink tracker so findings are captured as durable rows before the research gets broad.
- 3Search public web results and supplied seed URLs for external pages that appear to link to the owned domain or specific old URLs.
- 4Verify each source page contains an owned URL, then check whether the linked target is dead, a soft 404, blocked, live, or redirected to the wrong place.
- 5Recommend the best reclaim action for confirmed opportunities: redirect, restore, update the page, request a source change, monitor, or ignore.
- 6Prioritize the list by source quality, repeated dead URLs, topical relevance, replacement fit, fix effort, and confidence, then update the Reclamation brief with the next actions.
Frequently asked questions
Does this require a backlink platform?
No. The minimum workflow uses public web discovery and supplied old URLs. A paid backlink export can help later, but it is not required for the default playbook.
What counts as a broken backlink?
A source page must contain a link to an owned URL, and that target must be dead, a soft 404, a server error, or an irrelevant redirect. Unlinked mentions are not counted unless you ask Juno to track mentions too.
How many findings should the first pass include?
The first pass should stay focused on the most credible public source pages and seed URLs. The goal is a useful reclamation list, not a giant table padded with weak sources.
How often should I run it?
Monthly is a practical cadence for most SEO teams. Run it sooner after migrations, redesigns, campaign retirements, content pruning, or major URL changes.
