Why do Google never fully able to crack down PBN?

ZuppaSoup

Junior Member
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
103
Reaction score
12
PBNs has similar characteristics, a lot of old URLs redirected to homepage, often times the content is different from old content.

Why won't Google do something based on those 2 things? Do that characteristics similar to normal sites' trait?
 
There is nothing wrong with an old domain being bought and reused, many times not knowing it has been previously live. Unless the buyer is in our world they wouldn't think to check. A single site PBN is difficult to spot and penalise and a multiple site PBN built for a single business and not some off the shelf PBN is difficult to spot if there are no footprints and in amongst a natural link profile. Google ultimately picks up on the off the shelf PBNs because they really are 'public'.
 
There is nothing wrong with an old domain being bought and reused, many times not knowing it has been previously live. Unless the buyer is in our world they wouldn't think to check. A single site PBN is difficult to spot and penalise and a multiple site PBN built for a single business and not some off the shelf PBN is difficult to spot if there are no footprints and in amongst a natural link profile. Google ultimately picks up on the off the shelf PBNs because they really are 'public'.
I see, great explanation. If Google can't differentiate PBN with normal site then this technique will works for longer years unless they change their algorithm, like reducing site link's power if they don't have history in that niche, because so far if you build PBN with different niche than the old one, it still works, although it works best if the niche the same as the old one.
 
Could they wipe out most of the PBNs with a blink of an eye?

Yes.

Why they haven't done that?

Because they don't give a fuck. People who use PBNs are only a small percentage of people who would be willing to use Adwords otherwise. Spending money on cracking the PBNs down would not justify the possible gains. - That's my personal opinion.
 
I was guilty of using a "expired domain" in the past, like in 2011. just found out about a few years later, as some links popped up in ahrefs.
so why would they penalize it ?
 
From a business stand point,
Google adwords' revenue depends on the CPC bidding by real businesses. In highly competitive niches, bids can go over $50 per click.

Now if Google totally cracks down on pbn and all, INDIRECTLY the competition level will plunge to near zero. CPC probably drop from $50 to $0.50. (No pbn means less affiliate sites to compete against in serps.)

That is to say people most likely won't pay as much money to AdWords for advertisement.

In other words, Google loves competition.

Their aim is to manage the competition to maximize profit, and not crack down on this or that, they are not police.

And also, like @Nargil said, spending time and money to crack down pbn doesn't justify possible gain, if any at all.
 
Last edited:
I believe there is of course a lee-way before a site is flagged for unnatural links. This threshold is applicable for all sites, so that legit sites would not be flagged in the process, as a spam site as well. However, as PBN continues to grow, and with higher amount of links pointing outwards, it would be a matter of time before it hits the threshold and getting flagged in the process.
 
most good pbn are protected from htaccess info or cloaked links .

that why they don't get caught ...

if that what your asking?
 
most of the public pbns have lost its power because of their linking patterns, however private one still hard to detect, unless google wanted to demote low obl websites
 
Google detect plenty of crappy PBNs, I'd suggest. I think the day they need to start hunting down the better made ones, means they're struggling for profits. It'd be easier for them to make top 5 paid ads on a page.
 
Its not as easy as you think, if you are a programmer, you will understand.

To put in simplest form : " If legit website can have similar footprint, then google can't use to catch pbns"

This why they can't panelize duplicate content and sitewide backlinks for example.
 
From a business stand point,
Google adwords' revenue depends on the CPC bidding by real businesses. In highly competitive niches, bids can go over $50 per click.

Now if Google totally cracks down on pbn and all, INDIRECTLY the competition level will plunge to near zero. CPC probably drop from $50 to $0.50. (No pbn means less affiliate sites to compete against in serps.)

That is to say people most likely won't pay as much money to AdWords for advertisement.

In other words, Google loves competition.

Their aim is to manage the competition to maximize profit, and not crack down on this or that, they are not police.

And also, like @Nargil said, spending time and money to crack down pbn doesn't justify possible gain, if any at all.


i dont think so. if people wouldnt use pbns they would use something else
 
same as why police never arrest all triads.
the system need both sides to works. :D
 
It's really simple. A decent PBN isn't obviously a PBN.

If you create your pbn the right way the y should look like a legitimate site.
 
It's really simple. A decent PBN isn't obviously a PBN.

If you create your pbn the right way the y should look like a legitimate site.

True.
btw, Is there anyone in this forum who sales PBNS? iv been looking for a service like that for 2 weeks now, god damn.
 
Because Googles algorithm (according to me) focuses more on provide better organic results (removing spam and etc) they aren't really focused on catching 1000 people who refuse to pay for Adwords.
 
I think its hard to tell the difference between pbn & a legit website.
 
I have always been surprised they did not crack more after all these years.

In the past it seems they used partially manual techniques to crach down on some PBNs, like detecting a particular site from a network and then deindexing every site related to that or linked from it, one by one. So one reason could be that it is not easy algorithmically to compute PBN detection with good accuracy.

Also it is a question of internal politics. At this time it is not their priority, what matters more to them is that page 1 is deprived of spam, and they have done quite a good job at it. If a few people on page 1 use some PBN or even garbage spam as links, google seems to tolerate it if the page itself has good ux.
 
Last edited:
Could they wipe out most of the PBNs with a blink of an eye?

Yes.

Why they haven't done that?

Because they don't give a fuck. People who use PBNs are only a small percentage of people who would be willing to use Adwords otherwise. Spending money on cracking the PBNs down would not justify the possible gains. - That's my personal opinion.

And the fact of the matter is that they have their AI already "optimizing" the algo, no doubt maximizing Adwords profits for Google. If they were to manually take an action against PBNs specifically, perhaps it would hurt (or destroy) some of their big clients? Or perhaps it really is too small of beans, as PBNs aren't damaging their profits. But I agree... the answer isn't that they couldn't. Just look at all the footprints PBNs tend to have.

-ThopHayt
 
Back
Top