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I found an interesting query the other day. Someone was searching on the expression “can you lose backlinks?” You don’t find much discussion about losing backlinks in the SEO community but it certainly can and does happen. Here are a few examples of how backlinks vanish:

1. Your linking partner goes offline
2. Your linking partner ceases to exist
3. Your linking partner revises content and “cleans house”
4. Your linking partner replaces HTML links with Javascript links, or embeds “rel=’nofollow’”
5. Your linking partner is filtered, penalized, or banned for violating search engine guidelines
6. You change your page location without implementing a 301-redirect or asking that your partner update your links
7. Your linking partner sells his domain
8. You buy a domain naively thinking you’ll inherit all those links pointing to it
9. You stop paying for your rented link
10. Your linking partner’s page is dropped from the search index

Your linking partner goes offline - Sometimes a Web site goes down long enough that its pages are dropped from search indexes before the problem is resolved. This kind of link loss usually corrects itself once the site comes back online.

Your linking partner ceases to exist - Bad karma, dudes. You wonder why you’re no longer getting referrals from example.com and when you check it out you find a domainer’s park page there. Sometimes, people just let their domains expire and they never renew them.

Your linking partner revises content and “cleans house” - It happens to the best of us. Even major news sites redesign their URLs from time to time. This sucks when content goes behind a subscription-only interface, or when archives are created and content is buried deep in uncrawlable muck.

Your linking partner replaces HTML links with Javascript links, or embeds “rel=’nofollow’” - Every now and then some Web site operators listen to bad SEO advice and they start trying to hoard PageRank. You don’t need their stinking links anyway.

Your linking partner is filtered, penalized, or banned for violating search engine guidelines - If you’ve been getting links from these kinds of sites, you deserve to lose your link credits.

You change your page location without implementing a 301-redirect or asking that your partner update your links - Happens all the time. Don’t feel bad about it. Just update your 301-redirect list. And if you got the links by asking for them, maybe asking for an update will be okay. Be warned: I got tired of updating “partner” links years ago. One guy kept moving his site. Guys like me — we don’t need to link out to someone who keeps changing his URLs.

Your linking partner sells his domain - Bad luck, dude. Oh well, on to the next link.

You buy a domain naively thinking you’ll inherit all those links pointing to it - That’s what you get for paying attention to bad SEO advice. Maybe you’ll get to keep the link credit, and maybe not.

You stop paying for your rented link - It’s a business, and there’s always a downside to any business relationship.

Your linking partner’s page is dropped from the search index - This could just be a temporary thing. It happens all the time to lots of good little sites. Just be patient. It will be recrawled. And if you think you still have reason to agonize, just be glad you’re not the poor slob whose site just vanished from the SERPs.