AMA about PBNs (setup, footprints, things to avoid, et al.)

[Pam Danny]

Did you build new sites on these domains?

There are a ton of good expiring or dropped domains that are not in the index anymore. That's not a problem, as they re-index super fast if you build out a full fledged site on the domains.
As long as the history of the domain is clean and doesn't indicate any shady tactics, it should be good to go.

SO the only way to know if they will be re-indexed is to build blogs on them? If so, about how many posts per blog should be good to go?

 

[janist]

SO the only way to know if they will be re-indexed is to build blogs on them? If so, about how many posts per blog should be good to go?

That's the best way to make sure, yes. I'd suggest at least 2k+ words (including 1-2 posts, homepage content and contact us, about us etc.) as a bare minimum. That should suffice. It's also not rare that we see the root of domain indexed if its still with the default twenty twenty theme + maintenance mode while we build out the site.

 

[germanweb]

Do you also offer German Links? Since you are from German

 

[janist]

Do you also offer German Links? Since you are from German

This is not a sales thread, sorry.

 

[germanweb]

Do you have experience using forgein expired domains for linking to english or german sites? Does a PBN work with a bunch of for example french and italian expired domains with authority links from newspapers linking to a german speaking money site for example?

 

[janist]

Do you have experience using forgein expired domains for linking to english or german sites? Does a PBN work with a bunch of for example french and italian expired domains with authority links from newspapers linking to a german speaking money site for example?

Sure, that can work. Any ccTLD will work, if the link profile is good. Having said that, if you plan to create a PBN site on an .it or .fr domain, I highly recommend to use native content for the whole thing. Then simply link to your english or german site with the respective anchors. That's totally fine.

Obviously using native TLDs would be even better (.de PBNs for a german money site etc.) and you can never go wrong with top TLDs (org/net/com).

 

[copcvcj]

what is the next steps to do after you turn a pbn into a money site . what links should i point to the pbn converted money site ?

 

[janist]

what is the next steps to do after you turn a pbn into a money site . what links should i point to the pbn converted money site ?

Quite simple.

1. Remove any footprints that link to any other sites (OBL, etc.).
2. Do heavy in-depth kw research to build upon the newly found traffic and add a ton of content for these targeted keywords right away (25k+ at least). Set up tracking for all those keywords. Focus 70% on commercial intent keywords, 30% on informational.
3. Add Google Analytics + GSC + Facebook Pixel.
4. Optimize the speed of the site (heavy image compression via imagify + caching via wp-rocket premium)
5. Add a few additional premium plugins (really simple SSL, wordfence premium, monsterinsights pro, optinmonster)
6. Optimize content (for commercial intent) with SurferSEO + Rank Math.
7. If possible repurpose the content that's already there to build out some content hubs.
8. HEAVILY use internal links.
9. Add monetization + update the privacy policy, cookie policy and ToS with regards to the new changes - we use iubenda for all our sites.
10. Create social profiles for the site on the top 20-30 sites. Fill those with at least a few posts.
11. Fill all big citations + aggregators (if local). If it's an affilaite site, we would still do it, but on a smaller scale.
12. Build links (PBNs, digital PR, guestographics link insertions, guest posts) - scale where needed.
13. Repeat step 2 + 10.

 

[condorit]

First of all I want to thank you for this thread. Very informative! Here are some questions:

- on a domain (it was an expired one) I see some article indexed very fast and some NOT. Why? Also after time some articles were not indexing (and for this reason I added site to GSC = wrong). But also on GSC they not index
- If I build a site on an expired domain I can push it with some tier 2 backlinks: how those backlink impact on site and moneysite? Is tier 2 quality so important or can I go for quantity over quality?
- Will be a test worth to buy an expired domain with good quality backlinks but spammed with chinese backlinks AND THEN DISAVOW THEM? I know you tell to not add sites to GSC, but question here is about recovering quality of a domain maybe also to make it a money site
- If I have some sites added to GSC and want to make them pbn eliminating GSC and analytics, will not be strange for google to mantain them the same but unlink GSC? Is this a footprint?

ty

 

[janist]

First of all I want to thank you for this thread. Very informative! Here are some questions:

- on a domain (it was an expired one) I see some article indexed very fast and some NOT. Why? Also after time some articles were not indexing (and for this reason I added site to GSC = wrong). But also on GSC they not index
- If I build a site on an expired domain I can push it with some tier 2 backlinks: how those backlink impact on site and moneysite? Is tier 2 quality so important or can I go for quantity over quality?
- Will be a test worth to buy an expired domain with good quality backlinks but spammed with chinese backlinks AND THEN DISAVOW THEM? I know you tell to not add sites to GSC, but question here is about recovering quality of a domain maybe also to make it a money site
- If I have some sites added to GSC and want to make them pbn eliminating GSC and analytics, will not be strange for google to mantain them the same but unlink GSC? Is this a footprint?

ty

1. No-index tag, maybe? If you have it in GSC, you can check the specific page for any issues. Otherwise utilize internal links + build some links to the page and see what happens.
2. Obviously you want to avoid automated GSA/RankerX spam etc. These are both spammy and pass barely any link juice. Instead opt for low-RD PBNs, cheaper link inserts or guest posts, filtered sape links, manually crafted web 2.0s (uniqe content!), crowd links (forum posts, quora, etc.), community posts, etc. These all can work well as tier 2 links and you have at least some control over their quality.
3. Nah, wouldn't use it. That domains is most likely burned. And we've never used the disavow tool. The algorithm is smart enough to discredit shitty links. Unless you have a branded website and absolutely need to go through the manual process, we wouldn't touch it with a 10-feet pole.
4. Wouldn't worry about it. There are hundred and thousands of people who remove their GSC/Analytics tag from their sites everyday, for whatever reasons (site sold, switching to a diff. tracking tool, sheer negligence, etc.). It simply happens. Nothing you should worry about.

 

[Jerk55]

How do you get your domains? Do you use Godaddy auctions?

Are auction domains more effective than dropped domains (domains that have completely expired and are available for registration), all factors being equal?

@janist @splishsplash

 

[janist]

How do you get your domains? Do you use Godaddy auctions?

Are auction domains more effective than dropped domains (domains that have completely expired and are available for registration), all factors being equal?

@janist @splishsplash

You will probably have a hard time find a top TLD expired domain that will have similar metrics than any of the powerhouse domains at auction. But in the rare case that you do find one and all things being equal, then there's absolutely no reason not to go for the expired domain. Especially for ccTLDs it's still possible to find a super gem among the masses.

Where we get our domains? Well, the times where we scraped thousands of domains are over, as there are others that are SO MUCH better at it and our time is better spend elsewhere. So we like to outsource to vendors that have mastered this craft - especially for auction domains. We still check each of the domains individually of course (link profile, anchors, age, history, trademarks etc. pp) to make sure it holds up to the price tag.

Once in a while we still check the expired listing and the auctions at sedo or gdaddy to see whats on offer and if there's something up for scraps, but it's rare. Maybe once per month, if that. We use https://expireddomains.net/ to check these.

 

[Jerk55]

You will probably have a hard time find a top TLD expired domain that will have similar metrics than any of the powerhouse domains at auction. But in the rare case that you do find one and all things being equal, then there's absolutely no reason not to go for the expired domain. Especially for ccTLDs it's still possible to find a super gem among the masses.

Where we get our domains? Well, the times where we scraped thousands of domains are over, as there are others that are SO MUCH better at it and our time is better spend elsewhere. So we like to outsource to vendors that have mastered this craft - especially for auction domains. We still check each of the domains individually of course (link profile, anchors, age, history, trademarks etc. pp) to make sure it holds up to the price tag.

Once in a while we still check the expired listing and the auctions at sedo or gdaddy to see whats on offer and if there's something up for scraps, but it's rare. Maybe once per month, if that. We use https://expireddomains.net/ to check these.

Thanks. How many PBNs would rank a 1,000 searches per month amazon affiliate keyword in your experience?

 

[janist]

Thanks. How many PBNs would rank a 1,000 searches per month amazon affiliate keyword in your experience?

Think I already answered this. It's not really possible to give you a clear answer on this. It could be 10 links, it could be 20, maybe 50.

It depends on so many factors. First and foremost the keyword and the respective competition, your content, your existing link profile, your site setup, technical SEO, etc.

There is no general answer, unfortunately. Having said that anything below 5x RD50+ PBNs is usually not enough to move 1k+ commercial intent keywords.

 

[Jerk55]

Think I already answered this. It's not really possible to give you a clear answer on this. It could be 10 links, it could be 20, maybe 50.

It depends on so many factors. First and foremost the keyword and the respective competition, your content, your existing link profile, your site setup, technical SEO, etc.

There is no general answer, unfortunately. Having said that anything below 5x RD50+ PBNs is usually not enough to move 1k+ commercial intent keywords.

Thanks a ton

 

[sm0k3d]

I am thinking of setting up a "PBN" of sorts. More of "use the domains I have purchased and waiting to sell as backlinks" type of thing. So I read pretty much all the answers here and I just have a couple clarifying question:

Since speed of the sites is important, and thus why you have multiple droplets on AWS or whatever. What are your thoughts on 1-2 VPSes or dedicated servers and get a few extra static IPs? Even a small VPS should be able to handle multiple sites with thousands of unique visitors/month. I am just looking at it and seeing where money could be saved without reducing effectiveness.

Is there a specific reason you have many small droplets instead of a few beefy servers (min 100Mbps up/down, if not gigabit)?

 

[janist]

I am thinking of setting up a "PBN" of sorts. More of "use the domains I have purchased and waiting to sell as backlinks" type of thing. So I read pretty much all the answers here and I just have a couple clarifying question:

Since speed of the sites is important, and thus why you have multiple droplets on AWS or whatever. What are your thoughts on 1-2 VPSes or dedicated servers and get a few extra static IPs? Even a small VPS should be able to handle multiple sites with thousands of unique visitors/month. I am just looking at it and seeing where money could be saved without reducing effectiveness.

Is there a specific reason you have many small droplets instead of a few beefy servers (min 100Mbps up/down, if not gigabit)?

Yes, a VPS or even dedi leaves a huge footprint. That would probably be the worst way to host any PBN.

Only separate cloud hosting droplets offer you the footprint-free IP diversity you need for a robust PBN.

Typically an IP address is split into different blocks: AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD

It may look like this: 145.123.43.94

You don’t want your PBN domains to be hosted in the same IP cluster ranges. You also don’t want to share your IP with any other site or even worse PBN site. This would make it incredibly easy to identify your whole network.

Unfortunately, using just 1-2 vps/dedi servers with additional c-class IPs leaves these footprints in masses. Remember Build My Rank (BMR) or ALN? Yep... footprints galore. It worked well for a while, until the whole damn network got deindexed and all sites got a nifty penalty (yes, ours too).

What you want are UNIQUE A,B,C and D class IPs.

Something like this:

• PBN Domain A hosted on IP 145.123.43.94
• PBN Domain B hosted on IP 217.49.219.134
• etc.
• pp.

By using separate cloud hosting droplets you can achieve this. You can futher diversify datacenters and keep DNS records squeeky clean.

Imo, that's the only way to set up a PBN, as its easy to scale and relatively simple to manage (even for 500+ PBN sites). You get affordable truely DEDICATED servers for each PBN with a way to scale into the thousands.

 

[Panther28]

I have been using Priority Prospect for years now. It's a lot easier than using cloud hosts, as they have dedicated IP addresses like cloud hosts, but you don't share with anyone.

You can also buy thousands of unique C class IP's. But as per your advice, its important to use droplets, shared, and Cloudflare for diversity on some domains. Something I need to do more of really.
Just so used to my way of working now, you get stuck into easy habits when you find them.

Keep up the good work.

 

[sm0k3d]

Thank you for the detailed response and that makes sense. I was reading somewhere that IPs arent as important as people think because of all the shared hosting that goes on. However I can see how having IP within the same range can and will eventually (sooner probably rather than later) get caught and de-indexed

Thanks again!

 

[splishsplash]

I have been using Priority Prospect for years now. It's a lot easier than using cloud hosts, as they have dedicated IP addresses like cloud hosts, but you don't share with anyone.

You can also buy thousands of unique C class IP's. But as per your advice, its important to use droplets, shared, and Cloudflare for diversity on some domains. Something I need to do more of really.
Just so used to my way of working now, you get stuck into easy habits when you find them.

Keep up the good work.

Yep, priority prospect are a fantastic pbn host. You can't go wrong with dedicated IPs. They are a bit of a hidden gem. I don't see them talked about much! I guess those that use them want to keep it a bit hush hush.