PBN with only money sites ?

[northstarplayer]

Hello,

It’s my first post on BHW, and it’s at the same time a post to present a black hat technique of a competitor I discovered, and get the feeling of the BHW community about it.

As I explained in my introduction, I am mainly doing white hat SEO and I am notably in a competitive niche where my competitors are using agressive techniques to rank in Google. And since several years, I am following a black hat SEO technique that one of my competitors is using with some great success, I have to admit.

Let’s consider the niche is related to discount codes to buy cars, of course it’s not the real niche ^_^
I would describe the black hat technique of my competitor to rank as follow :

• The competitor owns something I would describe like a PBN but without a dedicated money website, indeed I consider all sites of the PBN (around 15) being money sites
• Each site seems to be built on an expired domain name, and has probably strengthen by 301 redirections from other expired domains
• Each site is targeting a market (Germany for example), so it has content in the language of the market (German in my example), and is targeting one main keyword related to the market, like « Audi discount code » (basically the homepage) and as content pages for others keywords for the concerned market (« Volkswagen discount code, « Opel discount code », etc.)
• Each site has high quality content pages (generally +3000 words) and a number of pages between 5 and 20
• Each site of the PBN is linked with others websites of the PBN with an anchor with part of the main keyword targeted (« Audi » but without « discount code » in the anchor)
• Each site has also solid and relevant external links pointing to them (few very natural, links probably being bought or exchanged)
• Each domain has a different registrar and a dedicated IP
• Surprisingly, the websites are built the same way, using the same CMS, you can really see the template is the same even if it has some variations to look different
• Each site is ranking quite well on the main target keyword and has reasonable rankings for secondary keywords, and continuously ranks higher over time

My questions to the community are the following :

1. What are your thoughts on that PBN with only money sites ? Is there anything new or is it common black hat ? I never seen this technique used before but as explained in my introduction, I am here to learn more about the dark side.
2. Can this type of PBN continue to rank on the very long term ?
3. Does it worth to invest in this type of technique knowing all websites from the PBN can be one day penalized by Google ? Knowing I guess the investment of the competitor is very important, probably tens of thousands dollars for the content, the hosting, the domain names, the external links and so on.
4. I am surprised none of the competitors has reported this competitor PBN to Google, or even that Google itself through quality raters has not taken any action against it, knowing it’s quite easy to discover the PBN has all sites are links between them. How can this PBN has not slip through the cracks after all this time ?

Thanks in advance for your answers and advices related to this technique, I am very curious to know more about it.

 

[Walt0n]

It is always good when your PBNs get ranking.
Of course you can build a PBN with money sites why not?
Why it is forbidden to have many different websites?

How did you found his "PBN"?
Cause i think somebody who know what he do (und das sieht in dem Fall so aus), would block Ahrefs, use different Impressum, ect.

 

[splishsplash]

They aren't pbns.

A pbn is built to rank your money site.

These are just a bunch of money sites built on expired domains.

A pbn is not built to make money. It's built *purely* to rank another site. You wouldn't call a money site a pbn.

Answer to 3. This kind of mindset is what sets the rich and the poor apart.

Why not just ask, is it worth it to do anything, because one day we'll die.

Take it to the ridiculous extreme.

The question is completely irrelevant.

All that matters is money.

ROI.

A site isn't your pet, where you're asking, "Should I get a hamster knowing it'll die in 2 years and I'll have gotten emotionally attached".

If you spend $2k, and make $5k and your site is penalized after 1 month, would you say it was a failure?

How about if you spend $2k, and your site makes $5k after 2 years. Would you say the 2nd is better because it's whitehat and lasted longer?

All that matters is ROI!

If you can build something for $1k, and it makes you $2k, and gets penalized the next day, then build build build. Only think in terms of ROI, not whether something's blackhat, whitehat, how long it'll last.

Don't report people's shit btw.

Go out and learn from clever people. Replicate it. Make money. Don't be a rat.

Crush your competition by being better, not by hurting other people's bottom line.

 

[rafark]

That'd be a regular blog network (like Vox Media). Nothing wrong with it but not as powerful as a true PBN.

 

[northstarplayer]

Thanks for your answer splishsplash

A pbn is not built to make money. It's built *purely* to rank another site. You wouldn't call a money site a pbn.

Ok sorry, so indeed the description and the words were not right, I didn't really know how to name the technique.

ROI.

I totally agree, but you should understand everyone cannot afford to invest (or bet) tens of thousands dollars, if I had much more money I would probably try it and invest the amount to try this technique, but you are totally right about the perhaps I can start something similar at a smaller scale and in another niche to test this technique.

At the end, I am still curious to know if members have already built stuff like this, sometimes you just need a bunch of people who reassure you to move on and estimate it could worth to put money on it.

Crush your competition by being better, not by hurting other people's bottom line.

I don't think I am hurting people's bottom line through this post, I simply described a technique I discovered without revealing the niche, and I never took any action to harm this competitor.

That'd be a regular blog network (like Vox Media). Nothing wrong with it but not as powerful as a true PBN.

Indeed, I didn't know Vox Media but it look like a blog network, all sites being clearly linked to each other, but if we consider it's transparent, why is he using different registrar names and IP for each domain, like he is somehow trying to hide something to Google ?

Why it is forbidden to have many different websites?

I never said it was forbidden, but as he is linking all sites of the network to each other, it can be suspicious no ?

How did you found his "PBN"?

As splishsplash said, it doesn't seem to be a PBN but as described each site being linked to each other, it's easy to find the network.

 

[Willyfish]

interesting, but it is not forbidden, you can see many big institutions or even government websites linking to each other, google will not penalize them if every website is treated to be a website with a purpose that is not primarely to rank one website in particular. (that is the purpose contrary to a PBN)

In the insurance field I have an exemple in my mind too. It is not against google when it does look natural.

 

[Luco]

They aren't pbns.

A pbn is built to rank your money site.

These are just a bunch of money sites built on expired domains.

A pbn is not built to make money. It's built *purely* to rank another site. You wouldn't call a money site a pbn.

Answer to 3. This kind of mindset is what sets the rich and the poor apart.

Why not just ask, is it worth it to do anything, because one day we'll die.

Take it to the ridiculous extreme.

The question is completely irrelevant.

All that matters is money.

ROI.

A site isn't your pet, where you're asking, "Should I get a hamster knowing it'll die in 2 years and I'll have gotten emotionally attached".

If you spend $2k, and make $5k and your site is penalized after 1 month, would you say it was a failure?

How about if you spend $2k, and your site makes $5k after 2 years. Would you say the 2nd is better because it's whitehat and lasted longer?

All that matters is ROI!

If you can build something for $1k, and it makes you $2k, and gets penalized the next day, then build build build. Only think in terms of ROI, not whether something's blackhat, whitehat, how long it'll last.

Don't report people's shit btw.

Go out and learn from clever people. Replicate it. Make money. Don't be a rat.

Crush your competition by being better, not by hurting other people's bottom line.

^^^^
This is how cash are made on IM since day 1!
And OP you don't need any other reply, you have all the gold above!

 

[northstarplayer]

interesting, but it is not forbidden, you can see many big institutions or even government websites linking to each other, google will not penalize them if every website is treated to be a website with a purpose that is not primarely to rank one website in particular.

Indeed, each website has it's own purpose and great content related to the targeted keywords. I was wondering if Google could decide to punish this but it seems legit from what you are saying.

And OP you don't need any other reply, you have all the gold above!

I agree with you, precious advices and appreciated the frankness.