A PBN or Private Blog Network is a network or group of authoritative websites or domains collectively owned by a person or an entity and not shared in any form or manner but designed to manipulate SEO rankings for your main site(s), created with the intent of ranking higher in the Google search engine by passing link juice or link authority.. This site which needs to be ranked higher in Google is referred to as the Money site.
A search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, each PBN is set up in a manner that they are not linked to each other in any way but rather appear unrelated to each other so the person who controls them, can drop back-links on them and thus push up the rankings of the money site.
Generally, a PBN would be a mix of free blogs, like wordpress.com, tumbr.com, or livejournal.com or even third-party hosted Web 2.0 sites but in most cases, are made up of expired domains
What can a Powerful PBN do for Your SEO?
The bottom line; PBN's are a super effective and an extremely powerful tool only if done right. Instead of deploying tools like guest posts, it's far easier to create back-links from PBNs because most of these are made up of expired domains that, by Google are regarded as far more authoritative and provide more link juice which in turn mean better rankings as compared to brand new domains.
However, to avoid losing all your digital assets, it's important to ensure that the PBN is hidden from Google to avoid being de-indexed. Some ‘SEO Experts' resort to selling their links on the PBN network which can be detrimental to the other webmasters who are purchasing these as they run the risk of being found out by Google and thus being penalised.
In the end, if PBNs didn't really work, then Google wouldn't waste its time attempting to target the strategy.
What Action Did Google Take?
Google has taken a negative stance towards PBNs based on the act that many are deploying this on the pretext that it's easier to leverage the link equity in a set of sites within the PBN than it is to earn better organic rankings through content creation and marketing. Either through a manual review or through their algorithm, when Google became aware of PBNs and their use, the main actions were taken by them thus far have included De-indexing of the sites in the PBNs and placing thin content penalties on sites that receive links from PBNs.
What is an Expired Domain?
An expired domain where the domain registration has expired and is now available to register from any registrar at standard domain registration costs.
Why do expired domains have more authority?
Before we delve into understanding the reasons behind the authority power of a domain, it is important to understand and differentiate between the two types of types of domains.
Expired domains as previously mentioned are those that have reached their ‘best before' or ‘use by' date and haven't been renewed by the webmaster, thus open to the general public to purchase at standard costs.
Expiring domains, on the other hand, are those that are reaching their expiration date but aren't quite there yet being held by registrar with the intent of auctioning or selling these and retain their age.
There are two main reasons why expired or expiring domains have more authority:
Firstly and simply put, old is gold in the world of search engines. And this applies to the age of the domains too. The older they are, the more valuable they are according to Google.
Secondly, expired domains that have more link juice are powered by what is known as backlink profiles which refer to the overall design of the backlinks to a domain.
Finding good quality domains that are worth their weight in gold is the very foundation and perhaps the most crucial step toward building a solid PBN and to do this, there are a number of strategies that can be deployed.
Finding a broker is perhaps the most straightforward and least complicated of them all. Another strategy is scraping which involves deploying a series of tools or automated bots that help identify expired domain by crawling on the old WebPages. Although traditionally speaking scraping was quite laborious and time consuming given its manual nature, nowadays there are automated tools that assist with scraping. Some of these include BlueChip Backlinks, Ox Scraper and Domain Reanimator. It's a strategy that sure works.
Using Auction websites to buy expired domains is another useful source to look at as these provide for more powerful domains than those that can be acquired by way of scraping. Some popular Auction sites include GoDaddy Auctions and NameCheap Auctions to name a few. Whilst Auction domains attract a hefty price tag, they also are more powerful in link value and thus more powerful for SEO.
Another useful strategy is Backordering whereby you can employ a company to acquire a domain for you as soon as it expires or are near to being dropped from registration. Some back ordering companies include SnapNames, NameJet, and Pheenix.
If a PBN has quickly become your sole way of link building then you can be in a lot of trouble! Losing your asset is only part of the equation not to mention issue around privacy and security that would essentially leave your competitors in a feeding frenzy! Cost is another actor to factor in. Acquiring a good quality domain can be expensive along with then hosting. Google being the forefather is always watching and never forgets. So when your PBN does get caught out, which eventually it will, the risk of our site being hit, your traffic being impacted and your rankings dropping with solid hard penalties outweighs the rewards. All other factors aside, as Jesse Hanley from Ranking Press explains, increased risk, management, costs, and overheads is something that cannot be ignored. Will Blear, owner of One Man's Brand shares multiple stories of website owners experiencing tumbleweed and ghostly analytics instead of their highly-targeted visitors because Google found out and their first page rankings disappeared overnight. Whilst Brandon King, owner of Content Blossom holds faith in PBN as a relatively low-risk ranking strategy, there's always a trace left behind! Managing a highly successful and effective PBN system is put simply, costly both financially and time-wise along with requiring careful human intervention as one wrong move means going in the wrong direction. And of course, the big brother is always watching so living with the fear of when the ironclad fist falls!
PBN can be an extremely rewarding way of building links without the need to build relationships and in upping Google rankings, especially where it comes to highly competitive niches and can be done so in a very cost advantageous way allowing the PBN owners to enjoy full over the links. Having control is one thing but as Sia Mohajer from Market Monkey explains, having control even over the anchor text as well as link velocity, is a whole other level of control that comes with huge payouts when it comes to the ability to scale client and affiliate businesses. Easier than engaging in White Hat SEO techniques, PBN's allow for higher rate of flexibility which in turn means more freedom to try out newer strategies for first page rankings and conversion rates. Mark Webster, Co-Owner of Authority Hacker views PBN as an incredible way to gain effective and scalable short term rankings even for the most competitive keywords, if, implemented correctly.
Things to consider when engaging in PBN
When it comes to PBN, no amount of research is enough because Google can do way more than you, much quicker, bigger and bolder so something's that are worth considering with a PBN is as below:
1- Consider investing in only High-quality PBNs. If a PBN has been used, then perhaps it's not going to be as powerful as you want it to be anyway. The number of sites that are powering your PBN is just as important to consider. Only a handful of sites in your PBN doesn't exactly scream power.
2- It very hard to speculate the value of your website in the future if it's built using a PBN so your website is really just shooting in the dark.
3- Private PBN'S are of course of more value as these are hidden and almost exclusive as opposed to public PBNs that are basically out there for all to use and abuse.
4- Understanding the ratio of PBN/white hat links is important for sustainability. There are many quality tools out there that can be deployed so it may be absolutely senseless to invest in a 100% PBN-powered website. A well-built PBN lends itself lower probability odds of being deindexed thanks to its mix of a white hat diverse backlink profile than low-quality PBN.
5- For future ink building and troubleshooting, problematic pages do consider having all anchor text documented in a central document.
6- Engaging in due diligence is essential not just for PBN sites but all sites but especially for PBN sites, it's important to run a reverse IP lookup to ascertain its background along with ensuring the Whois information and registration is a combination of public and private across multiple registrars rather than being similar across all sites in the PBN.