Framework: Competitor 404 Sweep (run monthly)

Framework: Competitor 404 Sweep (run monthly)

One client ran this against 4 competitors and reclaimed 23 links in a quarter.

1. Crawl each competitor's site, export all internal 404s and 301-to-homepage soft redirects (847 broken targets found).
2. Pull backlinks pointing at those broken URLs. Keep targets with 5+ referring domains (cut to 112).
3. QA gate: confirm the linking page is indexed and topically relevant. 68 passed.
4. Map each to one of your existing pages or flag a 2-hour content build.
5. Batch outreach, 20 per day, cap throughput to protect inbox reputation.

Outcome: 9.2% placement rate, 23 links, zero new content for 17 of them.

Definition of done: all 68 mapped, contacted, dispositioned.

Automation fits at steps 1-2; human judgment owns step 3.