PBNs or Private Blog Networks are known to be a group of websites with high authority value that are interlinked to each other in order to generate backlink source for the main money site with the purpose of getting the main site ranked first in the search engine results page.
But, what really is a private blog network, how is it defined and what is its real purpose?
Table of Contents
What is a Link Network?
Before the PBNs, link farms were the prominent way to boost website ranking in the SERP. What are these link networks?
As you can see, it’s a common sight in each website to find words highlighted in blue color and when clicked, transfer us to another website and usually, it has something to do about the word clicked.
You’ve just clicked an Anchor Text.
Commonly, These anchor texts are keywords related to a search and are link points into which domains and web pages become interconnected across the internet.
This structure of the web is also what the search algorithms use as their data on how they can measure the relevance of each domain towards a search query being done.
The general notion is that the more website points to you through these keywords, the more you are becoming the answer to each search related to your niche.
And so, many webmasters in the early age of the internet capitalized on this. This gave birth to link networks.
Link networks are a group of domains that are intended to pump up a website score by linking lots of unrelated different websites and ultimately pointing towards the owner’s main website.
It is important to note that the ultimate goal is to funnel traffic towards the main money site and to ensure that it will be at the top of the SERP in the quickest way possible.
From this, webmasters tend to buy several domains and have them built from scratch.
Building several domains in a short period is difficult especially in the early 2000s when site builders aren’t existing yet and so these link network sites are usually of poor quality.
One characteristic of these primitive link networks is they only focus on the volume of links to point to the main site and disregard the quality of links flowing into the money site.
Evidence of these are the link sources either have spun contents, spammy content, poor design, and it is owned by a single entity is easy to detect.
Search engine webmaster guides have penalized these acts and so these link networks that serve as link farms are no longer of value as of today.
What does PBN stand for?
PBN means Private blog network and with the word itself, this is a group of blog sites that is of single proprietorship.
It is considered private as these clusters of domains are built not to be seen by the public, but rather, are built not to surface in the search engine results page, thus, making an under-the-radar link network for the benefits of the main money site.
What are Private Blog Networks?
Understanding that link farms are considered unethical in accordance with the webmaster’s guide, SEO hackers began to maximize the said rules to their advantage making the most out of the loopholes.
It is important to take note that the algorithm is programmed within the bound of the webmaster’s guide.
This is how webmasters come up with making PBNs or private blog networks wherein the blog site is only accessible to them.
Sometimes, PBNs are mistaken with Personal Blog Networks as they have the same abbreviation but they are different.
Personal blog networks can be accessed by anyone who has the link to them while private blog networks require access as it is protected with log-in credentials.
It is also worth noting that in the world of SEO, Content is King thus, webmasters capitalizes on rebuilding old domains and filling them with blog posts so that whenever a search engine crawler reaches the pages within the domain, these bots will find readable articles.
But how do these PBNs work?
How does PBN work?
Private blog networks are the innovative way of building a link farm that is utilized by many webmasters today.
Although Link Farms are considered a black hat practice and is penalized, PBNs are categorized as grey hat as there are loopholes in the webmaster’s guide that will help avoid getting penalized when utilizing PBNs.
First, SEO hackers are building these PBNs by purchasing expired or old domains that are of no correlation to each other. Why?
These domains still have their page rank value like Domain Authority, Backlink Score, Trust flow, Citation flow, which are some of the quantitative factors that search engine algorithms are computing to determine page rankings.
Since Private Blog Networks are capitalizing with the old domains’ virtual value, organic traffic is not much required and usually, new traffic is generated by employing pay-per-click services.
These old domains must have no correlation to make it look like they are not owned by a single owner.
Using online tools, every old page and post of those old domains will be rebuilt and contents will be added to them.
PBNs also are being invested in quality content to ensure that it is strong as crawlers can identify whether or not content is spammy or spun.
If it is really impossible to do so, some will use 301 and 404 redirects in order to mitigate the effects of broken links.
All these domains then will be interconnected through linking the blog posts of each domain through a series of researched keywords and anchor texts.
With link farms being obsolete with how they are structured, PBNs are innovated by hackers by keeping the link building layered.
Domains within a private blog network don’t link all directly to the main money site as it is with older link farms.
Layering is implemented by making tiers where the 3rd tier points to the second tier, and the second tier then links to the main money site.
By this, PBNs footprints can be easily hidden and harder to follow by search engine bots.
Private Blogs networks are also designed to look like a real active website wherein user interface and user experience can be considered premium.
Search engine algorithms are now intelligently programmed that they can identify websites with poor layout and thus, becomes a red flag and a good route towards detection.
Once the PBN sites are all set up, tiered linking to the main money site will start to make the link juices flow into it carrying the virtual value of the old site rebuilt speeding up the process of ranking your website on the SERP.
What can You do with PBN?
If you are building a strong brand presence on the web or an e-commerce site looking towards more sales conversion from organic traffic, opting for PBN is a great option.
You’re a website hobbyist aiming to make money out of your hobby site, and you yourself are quite fond of risk, you might want to consider going for a PBN.
Going back to your ultimate goal is the key to better decision-making when it comes to going for a PBN or not.
Remember that the main goal here is to gain most of the organic traffic on the web on searches being done on the niche that you belong to.
Brands would like to ensure that whenever a user searches for the generic product term, the brand website will appear first in the SERP.
This also goes well with e-commerce sites that want to convert organic traffic into sales by utilizing landing pages and PBNs that will drive search intent towards leads and eventually, buyers.
It is also important to know that websites can also earn in themselves through ads.
Thus if you’re at the top of the search engine results page, you have every chance to get the 33% of the organic traffic for that search keyword.
Enterprising individuals can also make a lucrative business out of PBN building by selling PBN backlinks to support their SEO campaigns.
With so many web pages competing over similar keywords, you can build a PBN with a target niche.
You can provide PBN link juices to their website boosting their site rankings and eventually getting to the top of the SERP which is everyone’s goal.
How do I know if a site is PBN?
Because PBNs are usually built like it is a money site, as mentioned previously that layering is being done, some of the PBN sites are meant to be unhidden and eventually slip through the ranks and become visible to the public.
That itself is not perilous but can be considered a risk as it could be the starting point towards detection and eventually getting busted.
Whether you build your own PBN for personal use, for PBN link selling, or if you’re only buying PBN links, it is a good practice to know how to determine if a website is a PBN site.
PBN footprints are some of the evidence a PBN site is leaving when the builder has overlooked some of these and people who are knowledgeable enough can also spot these footprints.
It is also important that you have proper web-based tools and browser extensions present in order to confirm your hunch.
You can initially spot a PBN site by the looks of it as there are still many PBN builders who don’t layout their domain that is easy to navigate and pleasing to the eyes.
You can also notice that their plugins, content formatting, and color palette seem to be visually off.
From here, you can start checking some of the links in this domain and checking the website link using proper tools and checking on the website backlink.
More likely that the websites have the same IP address of their domain name servers as well as their hosting servers.
Once you confirm that these websites are housed in the same servers, you can start checking their traffic history and you will surely find that there are gap months as PBN sites are made out of old and expired domains.
These three aspects are enough for you to tell if it is a PBN site.
Is PBN Black Hat?
PBNs, by essence, works like link farms which makes them considered as Black Hat practice.
Common mistakes being done by newbie SEO hackers are having an insufficient understanding of the webmaster guidelines and having little to no knowledge of what is considered black hat practice.
It is important to note that Black Hat SEO exists and their practice offers a very quick rise to the top of SERP at the high cost of getting your main money site penalized.
However, one cannot totally rule out that PBN is a black hat as there are loopholes in the webmaster’s guide that can be utilized to safeguard a PBN from being busted and penalized.
Thus, it is safe to say that PBN is more of a Gray Hat rather than being a Black Hat.
Do PBNs still work in 2022?
Does PBN still work in 2022? Absolutely Yes.
Search Engine webmaster’s guides are changing frequently with the average being annually but nothing has much changed with those ethical practices.
One thing that you, a webmaster, SEO geek, or website owner must make a habit of is to check the guides frequently as they can change without everyone’s notice.
What are PBN links?
Backlinks play a great role in understanding what PBN backlinks are.
As mentioned above, website rankings are computed by search engine algorithm and one the quantitative score is backlinks.
Links from external websites that point to your own website are called Backlink.
These links serve as referrals by other websites that your article or your domain is a good, if not the best, answer to the search query being done.
Now, this is one of the main functions of PBNs – to provide many backlinks and funnel the backlink score towards the main money site.
As we’ve also mentioned earlier, PBNs are made from purchased old or expired domains where the backlink score is also retained.
Not only that but the backlink quality is also measured on the PA/DA score of the webpage thus, expert PBN builders take a close look at these factors to ensure backlink quality.
To put it simply, PBN backlinks are links is coming from PBNs pointing to your website that makes the link juice and site authority flow.
How do I get PBN Backlinks
Getting PBN backlinks should be done with due diligence and that begins by reading articles about private blog networks and understanding how they work.
You must also be clear about your goals towards the SEO campaign so that you can maximize the potential of the PBN link you are to get.
There are two options from which you can get your PBN backlinks.
The first is to build your own private blog network which is a serious undertaking.
Technical knowledge and investing in well-researched domains and secure web hosting are very important elements of this venture.
The pros of having your own PBN are that you can control the leverage, anchor text and backlink placements, implementation timeline, and as well as you can sell PBN links to others.
Lacking proper knowledge on PBNs is a general con but if you’re opting to have your own and you aren’t confident on your PBN Literacy, chances are you’re about to waste much time and resources and doing so to which you might opt for the second option.
The second option is you can purchase PBN links from an established PBN link source.
You will still need to do your own research and background check the PBN source but you won’t have the burden of studying the whole PBN mechanics as the service provider has already done that for you.
The pros of going for a PBN links provider are that they have the expertise on this venture so you don’t have the risk of losing everything for trying to build one.
If you’re only going for a few links for your SEO campaign, building one is impractical and it would be better that you buy PBN links instead.
Also, diversification is a plus as you can buy PBN links from different sources compared to only the one that you’ve built and owned.
Consequently, the risk of buying PBN links from a non-reputable source is high especially if you haven’t done some research.
If the PBN source gets busted, you will surely feel the impact and you’ll have little to no chance of chasing the provider compared to that of having your own to which you have direct control over the PBN risks.
You can find best PBN links deals with great results here at T-RANKS.
Our PBN link provisions here are made from well-built and well-researched domains laying a very solid foundation for a secure link juice source.
Not only that, but you also have complete control over your links and the quality of these backlinks is premium.
These premium backlinks are flowing through contents that are written by humans, for humans, and search engine bots and we cover a wide variety of niche.
Conclusion
We hope that this article adds value to you as you venture into the world of websites.
Opting for PBN is both an exciting and risky path to take on when doing your SEO campaign so knowledge is really your power here.
