Runbook
Lost backlinks runbook: confirm, rank, chase, log
A link disappearing at 9 a.m. is an incident, not a mood. Here is the order of operations we use, with the point where you stop and go home.
Trigger: your diff shows a missing referring domain
Do not panic yet. A missing row is a symptom with at least five boring causes, and four of them are not a real loss.
To check lost backlinks properly, treat the diff as an alarm and the live page as the evidence. Our index refreshes about once a month, so a domain can drop out of a snapshot because the crawler missed it, not because the publisher removed anything.
Open the page. Look for the link. Write down what you saw, with the time.
Severity table
| Level | What was lost | Who is told | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|
| SEV1 | Link from a domain feeding a money page, DR above 70 or a link that sent real clicks | SEO lead and account owner | Same day |
| SEV2 | Editorial link from a niche-relevant site, DR 40 to 70 | SEO owner | Within 3 working days |
| SEV3 | Directory, forum or profile link, DR below 40 | Nobody; log it | Next weekly review |
| SEV4 | Domain absent from one snapshot only | Nobody; recheck next pull | Next pull |
The runbook, in order
- 1
Reproduce the diff
Re-run the pull for your domain with the same parameters, for example
action=refdomains&q=yourdomain.com&per=1000. A transient error can fake a loss, and the call costs 2 credits. - 2
Fetch the live page
Load the donor URL in a plain browser session and in
curl. Search the HTML for your domain. Note the HTTP status, because a 404 and a 301 tell different stories. - 3
Classify the cause
Link removed, page deleted, page redirected, link wrapped in
rel="nofollow"orrel="sponsored", or site gone. Only the first is a human decision you can argue with. - 4
Assign severity
Use the table above. Look at what the page was linking to, because losing a link to a dead URL on your site is a redirect problem, not an outreach one.
- 5
Contact or accept
For SEV1 and SEV2 write to the publisher with the exact URL and the date you saw the link last. For SEV3 do nothing and move on.
- 6
Log it
One line in the sheet: date, donor, cause, severity, outcome. After six months this log is the best data you own about your own link losses.
On a hypothetical store with 300 referring domains, a monthly diff that shows eight missing is normal churn. Eight missing, all from one network of sites, is a different incident, and you should treat it that way.
Before you email anyone
- The donor page returns 200, and the link is really absent from the HTML.
- Your own site was not the one that changed: no URL rename, no switch from http to https, no 404 on the target.
- The link was not moved into a
rel="ugc"comment area or a script-rendered block the crawler skips; Google introducedugcandsponsoredin September 2019. - You know which page of yours the link pointed to, and that page is still worth defending.
- You have a replacement offer ready, because a bare complaint rarely gets a reply.
When it was your own change
Most lost links are self-inflicted. A migration, a slug cleanup or a CMS swap moves URLs, the old ones return 404, and the publisher's link now points nowhere.
The fix is a redirect map, not an apology email. The weekly diff makes the pattern easy to spot: many donors lose the same target URL in the same week.
If the drop lines up with a ranking change, jump to the core update post-mortem. If it lines up with a rival gaining ground, see competitor backlink alerts.
Short questions from the channel
How often should I check for lost backlinks?
Weekly is plenty. The index refreshes about monthly, so a daily job mostly returns the same snapshot. Run the pull weekly and let the script stay silent when nothing changed. For one critical donor, check the live page yourself on a calendar reminder.
Is a lost nofollow link worth chasing?
Usually not. Google treats nofollow as a hint since March 2020, so the link may still count a little. Chase it only if it sent real visitors. Otherwise log it at SEV3 and spend the hour elsewhere.
Does the free tool show lost links?
No. The overview, domain and stats actions are free but give current totals. Finding what vanished needs two snapshots of refdomains or backlinks, each 2 credits, which you compare yourself.
Can I get my lost links back?
Sometimes. If the page still exists and the removal looks accidental, a short polite message works more often than people expect. If the site was redesigned or sold, the old link is usually gone for good.