What is Lost Backlink?

A lost backlink is a link that an external backlink index previously confirmed and has since stopped detecting — meaning the referring page removed the link entirely, not that the destination page broke. This is a distinct condition from a broken destination, which is what backlink reclamation fixes: here, the link is simply gone.

Detecting lost links requires an external link index, because referral-traffic monitoring alone can't see them — by definition, a link that's been removed sends no more traffic, and a link that never sent traffic in the first place (most links don't) was never visible to a traffic-based view to begin with. A periodic index refresh is the only way to catch these, and it typically finds far more lost links than a traffic-based view ever would.

Lost is not the same as ignored. Dismissing a backlink source is a judgment call about whether it matters to you; a link being reported lost is the index's independent statement that it no longer exists. A source dismissed months ago can still later show up as lost once its link actually disappears — the two are tracked separately.