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

[janist]

Hi,

You mentioned a free A-Z doc in one of your posts in this thread. Any chance I could get my hands on that?

PM'd you.

Quick note: A lot of registrars are giving out huge discounts for renewals in January, so make sure to renew your PBN domains!

 

[vatlieukientruc]

PM'd you.

Quick note: A lot of registrars are giving out huge discounts for renewals in January, so make sure to renew your PBN domains!

I want it too, thanks in advance.

 

[philoxy]

If I could ask for it as well, that would be great and much appreciated!

 

[Chospa]

You're good, the main thing is not to give up

 

[SimoneMark82]

Great information on here. Thanks. Would be cool to see this AMA turned into a guide or PBN FAQ page at some point to be able to see all the info on one page.

 

[janist]

Great information on here. Thanks. Would be cool to see this AMA turned into a guide or PBN FAQ page at some point to be able to see all the info on one page.

That'd be cool, indeed. But it's not for me to decide

 

[silicuda]

When bidding on auction domains. Do you have a rules that you base your max bids on?

 

[janist]

When bidding on auction domains. Do you have a rules that you base your max bids on?

For PBNs? We try to keep it < $1000. But if you're in health or finance, then you can easily shell out $2k+ per auction domain - those little fuckers are expensive as hell.

For domains we want to use for money sites there's no individual cap.

 

[silicuda]

For PBNs? We try to keep it < $1000. But if you're in health or finance, then you can easily shell out $2k+ per auction domain - those little fuckers are expensive as hell.

For domains we want to use for money sites there's no individual cap.

I mean, do you have like if it has X do follow backlinks from tier1 sites, then you would pay max XXX
If it has Y then you'd pay max $XX

and so on?

 

[Abstroose]

Appreciate all the solid advice you've given in this thread.

One question for you: You've mentioned Runcloud a few times. Do you use Runcloud to manage your PBN? And if so, have you done anything to mitigate the fact their custom default nginx config reports the server as "nginx-rc" in website headers? This is obviously a huge footprint.

 

[janist]

I mean, do you have like if it has X do follow backlinks from tier1 sites, then you would pay max XXX
If it has Y then you'd pay max $XX

and so on?

Not really, no.

Appreciate all the solid advice you've given in this thread.

One question for you: You've mentioned Runcloud a few times. Do you use Runcloud to manage your PBN? And if so, have you done anything to mitigate the fact their custom default nginx config reports the server as "nginx-rc" in website headers? This is obviously a huge footprint.

Nice, I like technical footprints.

Yes, I read the post that they rename it to avoid Ubuntu issues. But I wouldn't count it as a huge footprint. A small one, maybe.

I think the vast majority of Runcloud users is not using the platform to manage their PBNs. Just by doing a quick check, I found 40k sites that share the header response ("Server => nginx-rc"). Most of these are real sites. If I can blend in with the masses, I'm fine with it.

If you want to absolutely avoid it, you can use Digital Ocean's / Vultr's 1-Click-Wordpress apps (link: https://www.digitalocean.com/commun...wordpress-one-click-install-on-digitalocean-2)
A bit more technical knowledge is required (setup via SSH) and management isn't as streamlined. But they will work just as well.

 

[plottsch]

Not sure if has been asked before, but do you ever wonder if blocking ahrefs might be used to flag PBNs by Google?

 

[janist]

Not sure if has been asked before, but do you ever wonder if blocking ahrefs might be used to flag PBNs by Google?

I do, actually. That's why we don't block any bots on our PBNs.

How many real websites actually do this? Most people never even heard of Ahrefs or SEMrush. In my opinion it leaves a rather big footprint (especially when using a plugin like spiderblocker). And if your competitor wants to report your site, they will do it anyway (unlikely though...).

PBNs are not without risk, that's for sure. However, I wouldn't buy into the whole fearmongering around "bot blocking" and.

 

[DeadJoe]

I do, actually. That's why we don't block any bots on our PBNs.

How many real websites actually do this? Most people never even heard of Ahrefs or SEMrush. In my opinion it leaves a rather big footprint (especially when using a plugin like spiderblocker). And if your competitor wants to report your site, they will do it anyway (unlikely though...).

PBNs are not without risk, that's for sure. However, I wouldn't buy into the whole fearmongering around "bot blocking" and.

Well then how do you hide from prying eyes? PBNs no matter how well they've been built have limited traffic, if any at all. Plus, the benefit of having a PBN is to link via homepage. if you have a $1000 domain linking out to your site from the homepage, competition will immediately identify it as a PBN. Right?

 

[janist]

Well then how do you hide from prying eyes? PBNs no matter how well they've been built have limited traffic, if any at all. Plus, the benefit of having a PBN is to link via homepage. if you have a $1000 domain linking out to your site from the homepage, competition will immediately identify it as a PBN. Right?

I don't, that's the point.

There are hundreds of thousands of real websites that don't have any traffic: Local business sites that have no clue about SEO, new websites, old websites that are simply not maintained, and more. This is not a footprint in itself.

Imo, blocking crawlers is the bigger footprint. That's just my personal opinion based on our experience with PBNs. You have to remember, that SEO and link building is not an exact science. There's no handbook on the 100% perfect PBN, because it doesn't exist.

Risk avoidance is very subjective.

I'd rather risk a competitor report me (btw, if a competitor wants to report you, they will do it anway. Regardless if you're using PBNs, guest posts or other link types) than leaving a footprint by blocking bots. For others it may be the other way around.

 

[Panther28]

Well then how do you hide from prying eyes?

Yes its difficult, the problem is that the crawlers can use different ip's and useragents, and the ones you blocked before, they get around.
I use PP, and they implemented a feature you can see exactly what bots are visiting.
https://priorityprospect.com/updates/new-feature-multifunctional-firewall/

You can specify the bots that they recognize as well as custom user agents, or IP ranges.

You have to remember the price of these crawler tools puts them out of the reach of most noobs, even with the group shares, which barely work.
Only your most hardened competition will find your links, and if you are building your PBN's as real websites, then hell you got nothing to worry about.

 

[notNewB]

Let's say one is starting a money site in sports niche. Is there a point in building a pbn of 10 domains each in different sport type niche and putting links inside blog posts of these 10 domains to one money site? Will this investment be worth at all?

 

[janist]

Let's say one is starting a money site in sports niche. Is there a point in building a pbn of 10 domains each in different sport type niche and putting links inside blog posts of these 10 domains to one money site? Will this investment be worth at all?

Well, yeah. That's the whole point of a PBN.

Niche related sites that can pass a ton of link equity to your site. 10 PBNs are a good start.

 

[notNewB]

Well, yeah. That's the whole point of a PBN.
Niche related sites that can pass a ton of link equity to your site. 10 PBNs are a good start.

Thanks for the reply pal. Another one is, I didn't find a decent answer to the question of how to actually use them, either I didn't get the point when I found. So, let's say, I have set 10 PBNs ready, published niche related articles on them. Now, when I make a new article on my money site, am I okay to put links into all of the PBNs? (10 backlinks) Am I okay to put links into PBNs for each new article on the money site? I'm I okay to make interlinking among the PBNs?

 

[janist]

Thanks for the reply pal. Another one is, I didn't find a decent answer to the question of how to actually use them, either I didn't get the point when I found. So, let's say, I have set 10 PBNs ready, published niche related articles on them. Now, when I make a new article on my money site, am I okay to put links into all of the PBNs? (10 backlinks) Am I okay to put links into PBNs for each new article on the money site? I'm I okay to make interlinking among the PBNs?

I'll keep this short.

1. Preferrably, you want to link to your money site only once from each PBN. So OBL = 1 is the preferred way to handle this. It leaves no footprint and gives you the maximum link equity from each PBN domain. You want to link to those pages you want to rank. So 10 PBNs = 10 links to your money site (one from each PBN).
2. If you want to link out to another page on your money site, you will have diminished link equity. We don't really recommend doing this or use it very sparingly, as it can leave a (albeit small) footprint.
3. Never interlink your PBNs, ever (!!)