Lost backlinks are links that used to lead to the website but have disappeared – most often because a third-party website underwent a redesign, an article was removed or moved, or an editor deleted the link during an edit. This is one of the most effective activities in link building, because these are links that someone has already voluntarily granted once, so the probability of recovering them is much higher than when acquiring new ones. The procedure is simple: in an analytics tool, display the list of lost links for the recent period, verify whether the target page on your own website still exists, add a redirect if needed, and for removed links, politely contact the site operator with a reminder. It is worth including this check in a quarterly routine.
Source: developers.google.com
See also: Broken link building, Redirect chains, Backlink profile.
