PBN Q&A v2.0: Ask me anything about our improved PBN game in 2018

[alexodysglobal]

(Before you begin reading, please take a sec and cast your vote in the pool above. Thank you!!)

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Ok, so I got multiple requests (from folks around the forum and not only) to start a new PBN Q&A thread for 2018 and beyond since the old one here got too old and too big already (50 pages, 200k+ views, 985 replies, etc..) - therefore confusing for new folks who are just getting into PBNs or want to step up their SEO game.

It was initially launched back in August 2014 and plenty of information is now completely outdated!

Now, 4 years later, I believe it's time for yet another thread that will allow everyone to dive directly into what REALLY works when it comes to building, managing and ranking using PBNs in 2018's Google.

The goal is to help people avoid wasting their sleepless nights reading and trying to understand stuff that we don't do anymore, have improved, moved away from or simply no longer works.

With that being said, here we go: 'Private Blog Networks' aka 'PBNs' in 2018 and beyond...

Let's do this!

But before we continue, short disclaimer and a couple of requests:

DISCLAIMER:

I will do everything in my power to reply as quickly as possible. However, please note that in the previous thread I received warnings from mods for posting too often since I used to reply to each individual post separately. This time I'm going to reply just once every 24 hours while quoting all new questions and also probably skip weekends and catch up again on Mondays.

REQUESTS:

1. I definitely don't know it all, always consider myself a student and learn from you and people like you every single day. In fact, I managed to learn A TON during these previous 4 years of answering questions in the old thread, interacting with you guys, networking and developing good lasting long term relationships. So let's all be humble, try to help each other, learn new stuff and use this knowledge to make even more money!
   
   
2. While I don't claim nor have the right to 'own' this thread, I would really appreciate if folks looking to increase their post count or just drop signature bombs would refrain from answering question unless they know what they're talking about and can really help the person asking.
   
3. Please do not ask the same question twice. Due your own due dilligence research and make sure it wasn't previously answered in this exact same thread. The goal is to provide as much help and advice as quickly as possible, without wasting time on things that are self-explanatory or already have been offered a reasonable answer.

So let's hear them questions on:

• domains
• hosting
• setups
• linking
• 'testing'
• scaling
• protecting your PBNs
• blocking backlink checkers
• selling links
• explaining PBNs to clients
• you name it...

Thanks,
Alex

 

[MisterF]

Another great write up Alex, thanks for taking the time.

Guys I've highlighted points 2 & 3 above, so let's keep this on track, and don't post unless you have a valid question etc.

Thanks

 

[Dr_And]

Linking to 2 money sites on the same register from 2 pbn on different register ?

Repeated question ( sorry ) but wanna to know exactly answer : how many links to money site from each pbn ? And how many obl at all ?

Thx

 

[TheSphinx]

1) Auction vs Expired domains, Is the "Link juice pass rate" difference between both is huge?

2) How many days do you wait until linking to your website?

3) Sending cheap traffic to your PBN would increase the link power?

Thanks a lot!

 

[SmartVentures]

My question :

Buy domain on different register and Hosting also used on different provider. But install on wordpress for all website is good or design also need different.

 

[jxiong2012]

How do you link out to your moneysites? Do you prefer to link once using exact match anchor or do you link to multiple pages of the site?

If you're willing to risk the network do you need to make fake social medias/contact/about us? I use unique content for all the articles I post that are moneysite quality but I am not a web developer so I struggle with other pages. The front pages look like a standard blog

 

[Sceptic]

1.Is using different registrars and hosts important considering the recent GDPR privacy policy changes?
2.If yes, what’s the best approach to take? How many domains per registrar and host?

 

[nik2016]

how to hide crawlers/bot

 

[webdesignercuca]

Recently on two new sites that received links from my PBN there was a big drop in Google results.

My question:
How can I tell if my PBN has been discovered? I'm afraid to send links to other sites for that reason, I checked all the sites and they are still indexed in Google, so my PBN is okay?

 

[gigaViews]

Hey Alex,
can you approve the 36 days-rule by matt diggity or what is the best time-frame between setting up a pbn and putting the first links to the money page?
Thanks

 

[drstew]

Recently on two new sites that received links from my PBN there was a big drop in Google results.

My question:
How can I tell if my PBN has been discovered? I'm afraid to send links to other sites for that reason, I checked all the sites and they are still indexed in Google, so my PBN is okay?

Why don't you just run PBN tests to other sites that are sitting on pages 3+ in Google? Monitor the URL and KW you used in the anchor and track the results.

 

[K114a]

1. What anchor text trend you're observing? Are brand/naked url anchors are effective to use on PBNs? else we should use exact/partial match.

2. What do you do when a PBN domain just throws out neutral/no result?

 

[alexodysglobal]

Another great write up Alex, thanks for taking the time.

Guys I've highlighted points 2 & 3 above, so let's keep this on track, and don't post unless you have a valid question etc.

Thanks

@MisterF

Thanks for dropping by mate!

The goal is to help as many folks as we humanely can understand this PBN business.

Linking to 2 money sites on the same register from 2 pbn on different register ?

Repeated question ( sorry ) but wanna to know exactly answer : how many links to money site from each pbn ? And how many obl at all ?

Thx

@Dr_And

There is no exact answer.

You will see patterns of all kind.

Ideally you want everything as diversified as possible and no more than 1 link per PBN, I repeat, IDEALLY - but we all know that's not an option considering the economics of PBNs. Therefore, you either operate in well paid niches like gambling/betting or financial leads or you stick to getting more links from each PBN domain to cope up with the spending. Keep them somewhere in between 5 to 10 per PBN. The stronger the domain, the more links you can get, but don't go into the 20+. That would be too much, especially if your sole purpose is just getting links.

Better safe than sorry, as they say, so don't link more than once from the same PBN to the same money site. Try not to overlap and create patterns too. If PBNs 1 > 10 link to money site A, don't follow the same pattern for money site B, etc. Operate in unique non-repeatable actions, try to not create footprints that can be easily spotted by machine learning algorithms.

Don't worry too much about registrars.

GoDaddy's market share as a registrar should be over 30% now. We have clients with PBNs in the hundreds that have GoDaddy domains up to 90% and are doing perfectly fine.

Overall, we've noticed Google is paying much more attention to webmasters following website quality guideliness than going blatantly after PBNs and deindexing them massively like in the Cutts days.

1) Auction vs Expired domains, Is the "Link juice pass rate" difference between both is huge?

2) How many days do you wait until linking to your website?

3) Sending cheap traffic to your PBN would increase the link power?

Thanks a lot!

@TheSphinx

1) Both dropped and aged domains can be auctioned. Stick with aged.

2) We don't. However, it takes time for registrars to deliver the domains. It takes time to host them. It takes time to deploy a proper site. It takes time to decide what link to drop first. Therefore everything happens randomly. We can do it all in one day or we can have the domains up and running for weeks before linking. We've got decent results in both cases.

3) We haven't tested this, but I doubt it will.

My question :

Buy domain on different register and Hosting also used on different provider. But install on wordpress for all website is good or design also need different.

@SmartVentures

Almost gave up on your question, but decided to read it a third time and finally managed to understand what you're asking lol

According to https://www.codeinwp.com/blog/wordpress-statistics/, WordPress is the fastest growing CMS, with roughly 500+ new sites being built daily in the top 10 million websites on the web, so I don't see a problem using just WP.

How do you link out to your moneysites? Do you prefer to link once using exact match anchor or do you link to multiple pages of the site?

If you're willing to risk the network do you need to make fake social medias/contact/about us? I use unique content for all the articles I post that are moneysite quality but I am not a web developer so I struggle with other pages. The front pages look like a standard blog

@jxiong2012

We keep linking randomly, dropping somewhere between 1 to 2-3 links to each money site from a post, including an authority link. It really depends, but we're trying to make it look as legit as possible. The more links you drop, the longer the word count, etc

E.g: PBN post 1 links to domain.com/, domain.com/red-widget/, domain.com/white-widget/ and cnn.com/the-widget-scandal-2018/

We never repeat anchors and lately try to just keep our keywords in close proximity of the link whenever using generic, lsi, brand, etc.

You don't have to be a web developer to drop a fake address, some legal pages like privacy, terms, disclaimer and some about us info like contacts, etc

Social profiles are optional, but we do them for higher end premium domains that we've spent a lot on. So yeah, we add a few bells and whistles to make sure we don't risk our best domains.

It's 100% outsourced though. Would take too much time to do it yourself.

1.Is using different registrars and hosts important considering the recent GDPR privacy policy changes?
2.If yes, what’s the best approach to take? How many domains per registrar and host?

@Nerva

Don't think GDPR changes anything in regards to registrars.

Business as usual.

We just accept domains to whatever registrar the provider sends them to and then one year later right before expiration we transfer out those nasty ones like Network Solutions or eNom ($30 renewals lol) to the cool guys like NameSilo, PorkBun, etc..

I highly recommend folks not to worry about registrars in this business. There are many other much more important aspects which are detrimental to your website's ranking and overall success.

how to hide crawlers/bot

@nik2016

We almost gave up on this practice since we failed to find a way to successfully block SEMRush (they are cheating and no matter what user agent you block or IP range they still index your links) and recently Majestic has started leaking too.

I sincerely believe they cheat just to avoid webmasters block their user agents/IPs and either get data from some 3rd parties or simple use some less known spiders to crawl and gather data without referring to those as their own.

If someone knows how to succesfully block SEMRush or Majestic these days, PM me.

We just make sure our best and strongest PBNs look like legit magazines/sites and do not worry much about blocking crawlers anymore.

(Unless you're selling links of course...)

Which is a completely different story.

Recently on two new sites that received links from my PBN there was a big drop in Google results.

My question:
How can I tell if my PBN has been discovered? I'm afraid to send links to other sites for that reason, I checked all the sites and they are still indexed in Google, so my PBN is okay?

@webdesignercuca

The drop can be the result of multiple other factors.

I would need to know the type of domains you have used. Did you do some basic spamchecking? Where did you buy them from? What are the chance you linked from penalized domains? Is their BL profile legit or spammy? Etc...

It also might have been to early to link or Google doesn't consider it appropriate at the time being. We've noticed plenty of cases when Google wants us to keep building some sites and won't reward links until a certain volume of content, authority and legitimacy is established (talking mostly about YMYL niches...)

Hey Alex,
can you approve the 36 days-rule by matt diggity or what is the best time-frame between setting up a pbn and putting the first links to the money page?
Thanks

@gigaViews

Nope, we just link randomly since we use aged domains.

I believe Matt's timing observation was based on his test on dropped domains.

We don't use dropped domains and neither should you.

1. What anchor text trend you're observing? Are brand/naked url anchors are effective to use on PBNs? else we should use exact/partial match.

2. What do you do when a PBN domain just throws out neutral/no result?

@K114a

1. Every niche is different and subject to variables unique to it. Study your competition and try to observe the anchor ratios they are getting away with. Also pay attention to their site structure, interlinking, support pages, etc - it's not always just about PBN links.

2. I keep it in the network since the results may easily be positive when linking to another site or URL.

Did you read my latest post on SEO randomness?

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/b...y-more-links-domains-or-just-move-to.1045591/

Alex

 

[lifehero]

Hey @alexthepbndude huge thanks for helping us out! super helpful

Better safe than sorry, as they say, so don't link more than once from the same PBN to the same money site

dropping somewhere between 1 to 2-3 links to each money site from a post

1. so you have been linking to the same 1 money site from one pbn, 1 ,2, and sometimes 3 times from a single post on that 1 pbn? so sometimes you have 3 links to the same money site from 1 pbn?

2. what hosting do you tend to use or recommend for setting up wordpress for multiple pbns, say 20-30?

3. is there a word count or post count that you try and go for on your pbns before linking out?

4. might be a dumb question, but do you typically want the link to your money site on the homepage of the pbn?

5. what are the actual effects that happen to your money site if your pbn is found out or one de-indexes ? or for better example, like these one time payment pbns here. if one de-indexes or whatever, what actually happens in your experience, does just the exact post url get penalized, or just de-ranked because of a loss of power or does your whole site get sent out to oblivion, off into never-neverland? i've got some pretty shit pbns (like all bad) pointing to one of my sites, and nothing bad has happened... yet...

lots of info i have read states that pbns are like the end of the world for your site if you ever use them.. which has kept me from using them on my main site, but i'm at the point now in rankings where i'm going to need to start dabbling with and building my own.

 

[ashish2112]

1. From where you get content for these sites ?
2. How to block backlink Checker ?

 

[alexodysglobal]

Hey @alexthepbndude huge thanks for helping us out! super helpful

1. so you have been linking to the same 1 money site from one pbn, 1 ,2, and sometimes 3 times from a single post on that 1 pbn? so sometimes you have 3 links to the same money site from 1 pbn?

2. what hosting do you tend to use or recommend for setting up wordpress for multiple pbns, say 20-30?

3. is there a word count or post count that you try and go for on your pbns before linking out?

4. might be a dumb question, but do you typically want the link to your money site on the homepage of the pbn?

5. what are the actual effects that happen to your money site if your pbn is found out or one de-indexes ? or for better example, like these one time payment pbns here. if one de-indexes or whatever, what actually happens in your experience, does just the exact post url get penalized, or just de-ranked because of a loss of power or does your whole site get sent out to oblivion, off into never-neverland? i've got some pretty shit pbns (like all bad) pointing to one of my sites, and nothing bad has happened... yet...

lots of info i have read states that pbns are like the end of the world for your site if you ever use them.. which has kept me from using them on my main site, but i'm at the point now in rankings where i'm going to need to start dabbling with and building my own.

@lifehero

1. Exactly. But we randomize the heck of it. 90% of posts from unique PBNs will just host 1 link only.

2. Priority Prospect

3. Nope, but these days our PBN setup guy adds around 1500 words or so when deploying a site.

4. Yep, homepage links in 90% of the cases.

5. Nothing dramatic, unless someone is reporting your whole network and you've got an army of manual reviewers storming your site (which rarely happens). Most often than not, just some slight fluctuations. If you aren't losing links in the hundreds all of a sudden, it can take months for rankings to go down. It's called the link ghost effect https://moz.com/blog/link-echoes-ghosts-whiteboard-friday

Yep, so ideally getting links from your own really private PBNs (not buying PBN links on someone's network) is the safest way you can get links since obviously you have 100% control. Nevertheless, the economics of owning a PBN may not play well for most folks since it won't usually guarantee bigger profits. So it's always a trade-off in between long term security and saving money. Imagine flying your own private jet vs economy class shared with hundreds of other people.

In my experience, most website owners and affiliates who still find PBNs extremely useful in their daily ranking strategy are operating highly profitable niches with leads and sales in the hundreds of dollars. Smaller fish have given up on PBNs and are more into buying links, which kinda makes sense financially, but can be a big risk for your money site in the long term.

Great AM. Thanks for sharing your knowledge.

@meenakshi1163

Hats off to you sir for dropping by.

1. From where you get content for these sites ?
2. How to block backlink Checker ?

@ashish2112

1. We buy it from Content Pundits

2. We've started deploying nicer sites for our best domains and we don't bother blocking backlink checkers anymore, especially now since Majestic started cheating and they leak your URLs even though you block them. Not to mention SEMRush which have been doing this for quite some time now.

Alex

 

[K114a]

@MisterF

@K114a

1. Every niche is different and subject to variables unique to it. Study your competition and try to observe the anchor ratios they are getting away with. Also pay attention to their site structure, interlinking, support pages, etc - it's not always just about PBN links.

2. I keep it in the network since the results may easily be positive when linking to another site or URL.

Did you read my latest post on SEO randomness?

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/b...y-more-links-domains-or-just-move-to.1045591/

Alex

My competitors used exact/partial matches. And they've been ranking pre-penguin real time update (I guess from 2016). If i follow them, wouldn't i get into trouble in *2018* where exact/partial match are something everyone should stay far away.

 

[alexodysglobal]

My competitors used exact/partial matches. And they've been ranking pre-penguin real time update (I guess from 2016). If i follow them, wouldn't i get into trouble in *2018* where exact/partial match are something everyone should stay far away.

@K114a

It really depends on your business/ranking model.

I would recommend staying away from using too many exact or partial matches when working on a long term project that involves SEO as a means of generating traffic. In fact, I would suggest to NEVER use the same anchor text twice.

On the other hand, plenty of churn and burn sites in gray/black hat niches are still getting away with a super high % of exact and partial match anchored links. So you never know until you try.

But always consider the future of your business and business model in the first place!

Alex

 

[deBling]

Hey,
1)does scial shares helps ?
2)is matter to have various platforms ?

 

[fb3003]

@K114a
.....

I would recommend staying away from using too many exact or partial matches when working on a long term project that involves SEO as a means of generating traffic. In fact, I would suggest to NEVER use the same anchor text twice.

........

multiple thanks for starting this thread and the one from 2014.

[1] As part of figuring out the ratio for exact match backlinks from your competition, can you please let me know how many backlinks do you consider when competition has exact match anchors from subdomains. In the following 2 sites, is it 1 backlink or 2?

• subdomainA.redapple.com
• subdomainB.redapple.com

[2] if your competition is sitting around 50% exact match ratio, and this is not a Burn site, how can you match them if you suggest to never use the same anchor text twice?

[3] if semrush is cheating, then do you consider this website to be the best one out there for figuring out the backlink ratios of your competition?

[4] how often do you add new posts to your PBN? (talking about random posts that do not link to your money sites)

[5] if you want to juice up your PBN, have you created a new web 2.0, link it to PBN, and then GSA the shit out of the web 2.0?

[6] for your aged PBN's, do you check their TF metric to see if they are still good or once the PBN is yours, you just maintain it and no longer care about its metrics?

[7] what do you mean about "dropped" domains? what is the difference with expired domains?

again thank you

another question,
[8] let's say because of wanting to get close to exact match anchor ratio of your main competitor, you need to change the backlink on your PBN. From my understanding you should not change those backlinks. Also I understand that google takes the first backlink on the page and will ignore the second backlink on the page. if this is the case, can you insert a new backlink the way you want it and still keep the original one, hoping that google will only consider the first one?

or do you suggest another way of changing backlinks on PBNs?