The quarterly backlink audit: a 7-step triage

The quarterly backlink audit: a 7-step triage
Across 90 audited profiles, roughly 11% of acquired links are dead, redirected, or nofollowed within 12 months of placement — silent decay you're paying for and not tracking.

Run once a quarter:
— Export full referring-domains list, dedupe to one row per domain
— Status-check every linking URL: flag 404, 410, 301-to-homepage
— Re-check rel attribute: links flipped to nofollow or sponsored
— Confirm your anchor still exists in the live HTML (editors strip them)
— Bucket by DR band to see where decay concentrates
— Tally lost links by acquisition channel to find leaky tactics
— Outreach reclaim list: dead links worth a 'please restore' email

Reclaim emails on link-removal cases recover roughly 30% of placements — cheaper than building net-new.

Sample: 90 profiles audited, 2022-2024. Decay rate is median, varies by niche.
Track link survival by channel, not just volume; some tactics leak 25%+ at month 12.