Broken link building is when you find a broken link on someone’s page, tell them about it and then suggest your link as a replacement.

DEEP broken link building is when you go one level deeper and find EVERY site linking to the same broken link and reach out to them too.

So let’s go deeper…

Deep Broken Link Building VIDEO Tutorial

In the video below I’m going to take you on a journey through the entire deep broken link building process, from extraction to outreach using the best tools for broken link building: Ahrefs, Screaming Frog SEO Spider and BuzzStream.

You’re about to go two levels deep, where you’ll find HUNDREDS of broken links in MINUTES and open Pandora’s Box to LIMITLESS link building opportunities.

Want more tutorials like this? Click here to subscribe to my NEW YouTube Channel: Clambr Up.

Tools used in order of appearance:

• Simple Google Results bookmarklet – get Google’s results in plain list format
• Remove Duplicate Hostnames tool – remove duplicate URLs from same host
• Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool – fast overview of link batches
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider – find all the broken links on a list of pages
• Remove Duplicate Items tool – remove duplicate URLs
• Extract Unique Hostnames tool – strip a list of URLs to their root domain
• BuzzStream – manage and organise outreach effectively

Here’s the FULL TRANSCRIPT and an explanation for each step of the process:

What is deep broken link building?

Broken link building is when you find a broken link on someone’s page, tell them about it and then suggest your link as a replacement.

DEEP broken link building is when you go one step further and find every site linking to the same broken link and reach out to them too!

You’re about to learn:

• How to find hundreds of broken links in minutes using the SEO Spider tool
• Get a list of all the sites linking to them using Ahrefs
• Decide which of those sites you WANT links from
• And reach out to them instantly with BuzzStream!

Case Study: LaminateFloorBlog.com

For the purpose of this broken link building tutorial I’ve created a little niche site called LaminateFloorBlog.com:

You see, I used to be in the laminate flooring industry back when I was working in China, so I know A LOT about the industry!

The particular page I want to build links to is all about cleaning laminate floors the right way. (Incase you were wondering, the right way is with microfiber mops ;))

Let’s get started!

Links pages are the best place to hunt for broken links

Use a Google search like, keyword inurl:links, to find hundreds of links pages in SECONDS:

Set search setting to 100 results per page and use the Simple Google Results bookmarklet to get results in plain list format (you’ll want to add the bookmarklet to your browser):

As you can see, the Simple Google Results bookmarklet lists Google’s results in plain listing so you can grab them in SECONDS:

Some of the URLs might be duplicate URLs from the same site. To remove duplicates, use 51 Blocks’ Remove Duplicate Hostnames tool:

And copy the results:

Now we’re going to use Ahrefs to help sort through the list of URLs and quickly remove any sites not worth crawling for broken links.

Go to Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool:

Paste in the de-duped list and hit Start Analysis:

Then export the results to Excel and remove all columns except Target and Domain Rank:

Repeat for 2nd and 3rd page of Google’s results, or as long as results are still relevant, e.g. page #3 of Google is still showing flooring links pages:

Copy Target and Domain Rank from each set of 100 results and paste them into the first Excel.

Select all and sort by Domain Rank.

Sorting by Domain Rank puts unique domains and sites like Pinterest at the top of the list as you’ll want to delete these because they’ll take too long to crawl for broken links:

The finished product is lots of relevant links pages

Copy all the Target URLs from the Excel and use 51 Blocks’ Remove Duplicate Hostnames tool to de-dupe the list again to make sure we don’t waste time crawling duplicate URLs!

Paste the de-duped list into a text editor and Save As a .txt file:

Crawling for Broken Links with the SEO Spider

It’s time to use Screaming Frog SEO Spider to find all the broken links on those pages!

In Screaming Frog SEO Spider choose List as the Mode:

Then, go to Configuration > Spider and check these boxes:

Once you’ve checked those, limit the search depth to 1:

Choose the .txt file you want to crawl (in the video example it was flooringlinks.txt) and click Start:

Grab a beer whilst it crawls

When it gets to 100%, export all the 4xx links by going to Advanced Export > Client Error (4xx) In Links:

The SEO Spider found hundreds of broken links:

At this point you can either just reach out to the people who own those links pages and fix their broken links:

Or…go DEEPER and find ALL the sites that are linking to these broken links and reach out to them too:

So let’s go deeper and find ALL the sites linking to those broken pages.

Because there are a lot of duplicate URLs you’ll need to use Ontolo’s Remove Duplicate Items tool. (This is different to the Remove Duplicate Hostnames tool, because it doesn’t remove different URLs from the same site):

Copy the de-duped list, open a new Excel and paste:

Delete URLs that don’t fit, e.g. unrelated to your niche, directories, etc. (Because there’s no point in pitching your link if it’s totally unrelated to the broken link).

Once you’re done select all, copy, paste into Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool and hit Start Analysis.

You can now quickly see which of the broken links have the most referring domains linking to them and make fast decisions about which opportunities you want to pursue:

Sort by Referring Domains and look for a good match with lots of referring domains:

I started with this one on Armstrong.com because it had lots of referring domains:

and Armstrong is a HUGE supplier of laminate flooring:

Although the particular broken URL is a page about cabinets (not laminate flooring), I still thought of a random way I could pitch my link

After you visit the broken URL and decide they’re a good match go ahead and download backlinks to that URL!

To do this, open the backlinks report in a new tab and export all the backlinks to Excel:

In the Excel, ONLY Copy URLs with Ahref Rank 5 and above:

Why only copy sites with Ahrefs Rank above 5?

Because Ahrefs Rank tells you:

• Exactly how much link juice a site will pass on to you
• And sites with high Ahrefs Rank
• Have more quality sites linking to them
• Which means you ONLY want links from these sites
• And can quickly decide which sites you DON’T want links from

Use 51 Blocks’ Remove Duplicate Hostnames tool again, copy the results and paste into a brand new Excel.

This new (and final Excel sheet) is to prepare the prospects for email outreach with BuzzStream!

In the new Excel, name column #1 “Linking From” and paste in that de-duped list:

Name column #2 “Domain”:

Now, copy all URLs with no “www.” and use Ontolo’s Extract Unique Hostnames tool to strip the URLs to their root domain, then paste the root domains into the Domain column:

Then repeat the process for the “www.” URLs. (The reason why you need to do this chunk of URLs separately is because Ontolo’s tool often mismatches the list if you do them all together and then it’s a nightmare to line them up in the Excel).

Name column #3 “Linking To” and insert the broken link everyone’s linking to:

I also name column #4 “Link Link Tag”, which is a Custom Links Field I use to tag my link prospects in BuzzStream – this makes it easy for me to find this group of prospects later once I upload them into my little black book of contacts:

You are now ready for outreach with BuzzStream!

Save the Excel as a .csv file, login to BuzzStream and create a new project for the page you’re building links to:

Name your project:

And enter the URL of the page you’re building links to:

Upload your list of prospects to the project via the Link Monitoring tab:

When you upload the file, make sure the data fields match up correctly and hit the Import these contacts button:

Whilst BuzzStream is scraping contact details from those sites, you can create an email template for outreach under the Websites tab:

Use the [ul:Linking From] field and the [ul:Linking To] field so you can reference the page their broken link is on and what they’re linking to:

Once you’ve created a template you can go and find those contacts you just uploaded. Use the filter:

Remember we added a Link Tag?

You can filter your black book of contacts to find your list of prospects (in this case tagged “Armstrong”) easily:

Now the list of Websites has been filtered to just list sites liking to Armstrong:

Sort by Discovered Contact Info and select contacts BuzzStream found email addresses for so you can start outreach IMMEDIATELY:

Click Start Outreach and choose the email template you just created:

As you can see [ul:Linking From] is now the correct URL:

You can schedule for later or send now:

After you’ve finished outreach for your first group of prospects you can go back to Ahrefs and continue working through the list!

Opening Pandora’s Box

Then once you’re done you can rinse and repeat the entire process with HUNDREDS more different search strings and open up Pandora’s Box to LIMITLESS broken link building opportunities!

And that’s my process for deep broken link building!

I wanted to share this with you because it is literally one of the main methods I used to take my new niche site’s traffic from 220 visits a day to over 500 a day in less than a month:

Here’s a recap of the tools I used in the tutorial:

• Simple Google Results bookmarklet – get Google’s results in plain list format
• Remove Duplicate Hostnames tool – remove duplicate URLs from same host
• Ahrefs’ Batch Analysis tool – fast overview of link batches
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider – find all the broken links on a list of pages
• Remove Duplicate Items tool – remove duplicate URLs
• Extract Unique Hostnames tool – strip a list of URLs to their root domain
• BuzzStream – manage and organise outreach effectively

And if you’re looking for more AMAZING resources on broken link building be sure to check these posts out:

Broken Link Building Treasure Troves

• The Broken Link Building Bible by Russ Jones
• Black Belt Broken Link Building by Neil Patel and Brian Dean
• How to Use the SEO Spider for Broken Link Building by Dan Sharp
• How to Find Thousands of Broken Link Opportunities at a Time by Ken McGaffin

Before I wrap this up I’d like to say a BIG thank you to Matthew Woodward for teaching me how to make YouTube videos here.

Wrapping it up

Going two levels deep is the key to opening Pandora’s Box of LIMITLESS broken link building opportunities. In the next video I might even go THREE levels deep and see if inception is possible

It took me a LOT of time to learn how to make videos and put this whole thing together, so please kindly help share if you liked it:

Also do subscribe to my NEW YouTube Channel: Clambr Up to get more over the shoulder videos just like this one!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you have any questions about deep broken link building, or a suggestion for my next video please leave them in the comments below. Thank you!

The post Deep Broken Link Building: Extraction Two Levels Deep appeared first on clambr.

…if you discovered that a Catholic English school you linked out to from your .edu domain was no longer an English school, but now a budget plastic surgery site?

And just imagine how GRATEFUL you would be to the person who pointed that out?

You’d want to return the favour right?

This is the principle behind expired domain link building and why it WORKS.

How to Build Links with Expired Domains VIDEO

In the video below I’m going to take you through the entire expired domain link building process, from prospecting to outreach using my favourite tools for link building: ExpiredDomains.net, Majestic SEO and BuzzStream.

I made a little niche site about laminate flooring just for this video, so all the outreach you see is REAL and I even landed an amazing link on a PR4 page whilst filming!

Want more tutorials like this? Click here to subscribe to my NEW YouTube Channel: Clambr Up.

Tools used in order of appearance:

• ExpiredDomains.net – goldmine for finding expired domains
• Archive.org – for seeing what an expired domain was before it expired
• Majestic SEO – download backlinks and check backlink health
• Ontolo Remove Duplicate Host Names tool – for removing duplicate URLs
• Ontolo Strip to Root tool – strip the URL to the root domain
• BuzzStream – manage and organise outreach effectively

Here’s the FULL TRANSCRIPT and an explanation for each step of the process:

What is expired domain link building?

Expired domain link building is when you find an expired domain and tell everyone who’s linking to it that they’re linking to an expired domain and then suggest your link as a replacement.

What does an expired domain look like?

Expired domains can take many forms…

Sometimes they’ll be a parked domain like this:

Often they’ll be a 404 page and other times, they’ll have been hijacked and transformed into a low quality one page site that is totally unrelated to what the old domain used to be.

E.g. this domain, which was once owned by a Catholic English language school, is now a dodgy plastic surgery site:

Case Study: LaminateFloorBlog.com

For the purpose of this tutorial, I’ve created a little niche site called LaminateFloorBlog.com:

You see, I used to be in the laminate flooring industry back when I was working in China, so I know A LOT about the industry!

The particular page I want to build links to is all about how to clean laminate flooring the right way. (Incase you were wondering, the right way is with microfiber mops!)

Let’s get started by finding an expired domain!

To find expired domains go to ExpiredDomains.net and type in your keyword, e.g. “floor”.

Sort the results by DP (Domain Pop = number of backlinks from different domains) to find the best opportunity. This one really stood out:

Open up the site in a new browser window to make sure it is indeed expired (sometimes the sites on ExpiredDomains.net are still live).

Go to Archive.org and enter the domain into the Wayback Machine to see what the site was before it expired:

Click on the time period when the site looked like it was fully operational:

This site turned out to be a flooring manufacturer that had its own laminate flooring collection, making it a great fit for expired domain link building:

To find out who’s linking to the site use Majestic SEO

Go to Majestic SEO and download the backlinks of all the URLs linking to the root domain:

High Trust Flow and similarly high Citation Flow is a good sign of a decent backlink profile:

The more those two match up the better!

Download backlinks in Excel format, select all and sort by Source Trust Flow, Largest to Smallest:

Why sort by Source Trust Flow?

Because Trust Flow tells you…

• Exactly how much link juice a site will pass on to you
• And sites with high Trust Flow
• …have more trusted sites linking to them
• Which means you ONLY want links from these sites
• And can quickly decide which sites you DON’T want links from

Copy all Source URLs with Source Trust Flow above 10 (because you only want links from quality sites).

In the video example only 1,417 of the 76,785 URLs had a Source Trust Flow above 10, which just goes to show why it’s so important to do this!

Paste the URLs into Ontolo’s Remove Duplicate Host Names tool to de-dupe the list. (If you have Scrapebox use that instead).

Copy the de-duped list of URLs and create a new Excel sheet.

In this new Excel you’re going to…

• Strip the URLs to their root domains
• Run the root domains through Majestic SEO
• Delete any root domains with Trust Flow below 9
• And prepare the list for email outreach

Name the first column “Linking From” and paste in the de-duped list.

Now, delete any broken URLs, then use Ontolo’s Extract Unique Hostnames tool to strip the URLs to their host and put the unique domains into a separate column named “Domain”.

Here’s what it should look like once you’re done:

In the video example this left me with 327 prospects (down from 1,417).

From now on let’s call this Excel the “Primary Excel”, because this is the one you’ll be working in throughout the rest of the tutorial.

Now it’s time to check the Trust Flow of the root domains.

Why do you also need to check the Trust Flow of the root domains?

Because even if a URL has high Trust Flow, it DOES NOT mean the entire domain is trustworthy.

That’s why you MUST also check the root domain’s Trust Flow to catch the sites that slipped through the net and remove them from your list of prospects.

How to check the Trust Flow of the root domains

Copy the first 150 root domains from your Excel.

Why 150?

Because the Bulk Backlink Checker tool you’ll run them through in the next step can process a maximum of 150 URLs at a time.

This tool is in Majestic SEO > Tools > Bulk Backlinks:

Paste the URLs into the Bulk Backlink Checker and click the Check Backlink Counts button:

Download the report, copy these 3 columns: Item, RefDomains and TrustFlow, and paste into the Primary Excel:

Rename the Item column, “Domain” and repeat the process for each remaining block of 150 domains.

Select all and sort by Trust Flow (Largest to Smallest):

Then remove anything below Trust Flow 9 or 10:

(This condensed my list of prospects from 327 to 305).

Finally, delete domains not worth contacting, e.g. Wikipedia, competitors, sites with less referring domains, etc.

This will leave you with much less prospects (151 in my case), but only quality, relevant sites:

You can now remove the RefDomains and TrustFlow columns from the Excel.

I add a Link Tag to keep track of my prospects later in BuzzStream. (This is a Custom Field I created in BuzzStream to keep track of each set of prospects I upload):

Email outreach with BuzzStream

You are now ready to begin outreach with BuzzStream!

Login and create a new project for the post you’re building links to:

Name your project:

And enter the URL of the page you’re building links to:

Upload your list of prospects to the project via the Link Monitoring tab:

When you upload the file, make sure the data fields match up correctly:

Whilst BuzzStream is scraping contact details from those sites, you can create an email template for outreach:

Use the [ul:Linking From] field:

By the time you’ve finished creating your email template BuzzStream should have finished scraping those contact details!

Sort by discovered contact info and select all the people BuzzStream found emails for so you can begin outreach IMMEDIATELY:

(Naturally, for the remaining contacts BuzzStream couldn’t find emails for you’ll either need to visit those sites yourself or outsource the research to someone else).

Click “Start Outreach” and choose the email template you just created:

The [ul:LinkingFrom] field should now be replaced with the correct URL:

You can schedule your emails for later or send now:

The Result?

After just sending 4 emails I received this reply:

Which was a VERY nice link on a PR4 page:

And that’s my process for expired domain link building! I hope it helps you create your own efficient routine!

I just wanted to share with you the exact way I build links using expired domains because this is one of the main methods I’ve been using to build a ton of links to my new niche site and take my traffic from 220 visits a day to over 500 a day in less than a month:

I’d like to give a big shout out to Brian Dean of Backlinko for introducing me to link building with expired domains in his post about SEO for Ecommerce, also to Aaron Hawkins who taught how to get the most out of Majestic SEO and most importantly to Matthew Woodward for his EPIC guide on how to create and optimize YouTube videos!

Here’s a recap of the tools I used in the tutorial:

• ExpiredDomains.net – goldmine for finding expired domains
• Archive.org – for seeing what an expired domain was before it expired
• Majestic SEO – download backlinks and check backlink health
• Ontolo Remove Duplicate Host Names tool – for removing duplicate URLs
• Ontolo Strip to Root tool – strip the URL to the root domain
• BuzzStream – manage and organise outreach effectively

And if you’re looking for more KICK ASS resources on expired domain link building be sure to check these posts out:

Other Rocking Resources

• Buying Expired Domains: What’s the Best Strategy? by Rebecca Kelly
• How to Build Links Using Expired Domains by Julie Joyce
• The Advanced Guide to Link Building Chapter 12 by Neil Patel and Brian Dean
• My Failed Attempt to Build a Private Blog Network Using Expired Domains by Spencer Haws
• The $10 Authority Site Link – A Guide to Broken Domain Link Building by Matt Burns
• Ultimate Expired Domain Guide by Jon Haver
• 17 Untapped Backlink Sources by Brian Dean

Wrapping it up

Leveraging expired domains to build links is hands down one of the most effective link building techniques out there!

It took me a hell of a lot of time to learn Illustrator, iMovie, Powerpoint, video editing and put this whole damn thing together, so please do share if you liked it

Also do make sure you subscribe to my brand spanking new YouTube Channel: Clambr Up to get more over the shoulder videos just like this one!

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you have any questions about expired domain link building, or a suggestion for my next video please leave them in the comments below.

The post Catholic School or Plastic Surgery? Expired Domain Link Building appeared first on clambr.