An Idea For A PBN Network "Pyramid Scheme"

[Apexworks]

Pyramid schemes and MLMs get a lot of hate (generally with good reason) but I just had an idea that might work, which made me think of pyramid schemes or "chain letters".

Please bear with me as I just came up with this idea literally 5 minutes ago, after reading the excellent PBN Guide by @janist so perhaps my idea is a stupid, you tell me?

Imagine that we create a vast decentralized PBN network with a large number of different owners, rather than a centralized one.

The only way to enter the PBN network is by creating and adding your own PBN website to the network, as well as paying say a $50 "entry fee" plus a $25/month fee for each PBN.

By joining the network you are basically "gifting" your site to the PBN network, (which you now also own a part of as long as you remain a member).

You pass the ownership of the site to the network and it will be owned by the network forever, even if at some point you leave or get kicked out.

So here is how I imagine it could work (again just lose brainstorming here, don't get hung up on the details):

1. We decide on say 25 different desirable traits that we prefer for the PBNs in our network, such as:

- DA
- Number of backlinks from different domains
- Number of pages indexed in Google
- Average content quality
- etc etc.

2. These 25 traits are then sorted in order of importance and "weighted" in a simple software tool.

Let's say you can score between 1 and 10 on each trait, with 10 being the best. So the maximum basic score you can get if you have the ultimate PBN would be 250.

But let's also say that some traits are weighted as more important than others, so therefore the maximum you can get if you score 10 on each trait is actually 750 (3x the max total), although the total score you can get is actually 1000 because your joining date also matters (explained further down).

The weighted scoring system means that someone who scores an average of 5 on all 25 traits might "only" have a total score of 125 whilst someone else who also has an average score of 5, but who's PBN scores higher on some important traits that have more "weight", might have a score say 200 or 250.

However, your score is also affected by WHEN you first joined the PBN network.

So let's say the first 10 members get an extra 250 points for being early.

The next 10 members may get 225 points extra and the following 10 get 200 extra etc down to 0.

So the earlier you join "the pyramid" the more extra "early points" you'll earn.

If you at any point you leave the network or stop paying or if you are kicked out for quality issues that are under your control or abusing yours or someone else's PBN etc, you automatically lose all your "early point score" forever, and you'll also need to pay the $50 joining fee if you ever want to re-join the network.

This "early point score" is to there to entice people to join the network as early as possible and also to continue to take good care of their PBNs, since it will be lost forever if they don't follow the rules.

Anyway, let me get to the meat of the idea.

3. So to join you must come with at least a PBN, the $50 entry fee and the $25 per month, which is paid to the network.

4. When you join your PBN is now scored by other members in the network who have volunteered to carefully evaluate and score new PBNs that enter the network.

They have been carefully trained to evaluate new PBNs according to our criteria and they earn money for this service. Basically they are paid from the $50/PBN joining fee that new members pay.

So evaluating PBN sites is their "job" or part time gig, and there are a number of "reviewers" in our network who perform this PBN evaluation service.

5. Part of the $25/month fee (let's say $5/month) goes toward the "rogue pot" which builds up with more money every month until it's "released".

The "rouge pot" is only released when any member of the network finds a PBN that's breaking any of the 10 Commandments and/or is seriously breaching our internal PBN Guide that all members of the network must follow at all times. All members can at any time review other PBNs in the network, and if they find serious breaches they win the rogue pot.

The 10 Commandments need to be discussed, but it could be things such as:

"You must never add more than 1 link from the home page of your own PBN pointing to your own websites, the remaining 4 home page links belong to the network." This is assuming we have a 5 link maximum on the home page of all PBNs, it could be less, maybe 3.

"You must never add more than 3 links to your own websites from internal pages, all other remaining links belong to the network."

"You must add a minimum of 2 links per month to your PBN and you must update those link on your PBN profile page. Alternatively you must pay a $10 penalty that month so that we can pay someone else to get those 2 links."

Etc.

Basically the commandments and the guide that everyone must follow is to be discussed, but the idea is to build an extremely powerful and 100% clean PBN network.

So the "rouge pot" is a system to keep the network clean with only the best PBNs, by rewarding any network member who finds a PBN that doesn't follow the rules with some extra money.

6. When you first join the network, and your PBN has been approved and evaluated, you are rewarded with a score.

Let's say you have a really good PBN and it gets a score of 575 and let's say you're also a fairly early joiner, and you therefore get an extra 200 "early joiner points".

7. Now it's up to you how you want to "spend" your points.

Points are spent when you "order" links from other PBNs in the network to your own websites.

a) It costs more to get a home page link than it costs to get an internal link from another PBN.

b) It costs more to get link (home page or internal) from a PBN that has a higher score than it does on from a PBN with a lower score.

c) Basically you can now choose how you want to allocate and spend your points on links from other PBNs, depending on what type of linka you'd prefer to get.

8. The idea would be to keep the link ratio at about 7 to 1, so you get 7 permanent links from other high quality PBN. This makes it's highly profitable to join the network, even though you have to "gift" your PBN when first joining.

So by providing one PBN to the network you can for example get:

a) 1 home page link from your own PBN. Everyone gets this, which incentivises them to submit high quality PBNs.

b) 2 home page links from other PBNs.

c) 4 internal links from other PBNs.

However, since it's all done with the point system, you might choose to get only 1 single home page link from a super powerful PBN in the network, and one internal link from another powerful PBN instead.

It's up to you allocate and spend your points.

9. So what about the "extra" $20/month per PBN, where does that go?

My idea is that it goes partly towards the members who have joined before you, (the earlier you joined the more you make from those who join after), and partly towards paying a small team to oversees the entire PBN network and onboard new members, train them etc.

10. More experienced and knowledgeable members like @janis may also choose to offer "done for you network PBN services", to members who want PBN links but aren't knowledgeable enough to build them.

So the member pays the service provider say $150-$250 to build the PBN for him, (plus the domain) as well as the $50 joining fee and the $25/month, but in return he gets access to an amazing PBN network for his sites forever.

Anyway, this got a lot longer than I thought a few minutes ago, but please tell me why this isn't a good idea? And if you think it's a good idea, who wants to build it!?

 

[Nargil]

Why would you ever want to share your PBN sites with a plethora of other unknown people? I would never share any decent PBN sites of mine and I presume most people would do the same.

Though then again, most people wouldn't recognize a decent PBN site from absolute shite.

You would completely devalue whatever PBN site you were to add to the network, not to mention that you would also reveal your money sites.

Oh and Google manual guys would have a field day deindexing everything. Networks like these have been actively hunted for quite a few years.

For churn and burn projects it's most likely viable, but the sites will be getting killed left and right so fast that it would not be feasible.

 

[Steptoe]

I think some of the ideas in the OP were kinda how the original PBNs (where P was more Public than Private) operated, stuff like ALN and Buildmyrank. They got nuked hard.

 

[MisterF]

I think some of the ideas in the OP were kinda how the original PBNs (where P was more Public than Private) operated, stuff like ALN and Buildmyrank. They got nuked hard.

Yeah they got killed by G

https://searchengineland.com/google-eliminates-another-link-network-116513
LinkVana and these were good at the time but they were public not private.

 

[janist]

Yes, this probably won't be feasible for any party involved, as the control factors are just too complex and as @Nargil mentioned, these are bound to be penalized sooner than later.

ALN and BMR were huge back in 2013-2015 and they worked excepetionally well, until the music stopped.

 

[splishsplash]

Pyramid schemes and MLMs get a lot of hate (generally with good reason) but I just had an idea that might work, which made me think of pyramid schemes or "chain letters".
*snip*

Really awful idea on so many levels

First, good domains are $1000+ these days, plus another few hundred to set it up with content and a good design. No one is going to build a good domain and submit it to a public network, giving up 80% of their strong domain in exchange for, what will be an abundance of trash pbns.

Following from that, it would just be 100's of trash pbns. That doesn't work in 2022. Quality > quantity wins every time.

And it of course would just get deindexed for being so public.

 

[4440]

$150-$250 + $50 + $25/month = someone take advantage, churn&burn your PBN networks with no cost.

 

[Apexworks]

I hear you guys, no one likes my idea.

I want to answer some of the comments though, because some if you haven't understood the idea properly I think.

Why would you ever want to share your PBN sites with a plethora of other unknown people? I would never share any decent PBN sites of mine and I presume most people would do the same.

You are not "sharing" your PBN, you give it up as "an investment" in order to join the PBN, like when someone "invests" in a pyramid scheme or MLM.

Once you've joined the PBN belongs to the network, not to you. Think of the PBN network like a decentralized DAO.

The reason you may want do that is because you would end up with at least 7x as many permanent high quality links from other PBNs in your network compared to what you would have from your own site. More than that if you join early.

Though then again, most people wouldn't recognize a decent PBN site from absolute shite.

This is why point 4 is there.

You would completely devalue whatever PBN site you were to add to the network, not to mention that you would also reveal your money sites.

This is a valid point, that you would indeed reveal your money sites to potential competitors. The value of "your" site should remain very high, because it is never abused by anyone, although it is not longer "yours".

Oh and Google manual guys would have a field day deindexing everything. Networks like these have been actively hunted for quite a few years.

This is true for all PBN networks and since these are mostly all built by different people at different times etc I would argue that there would be less footprint here than in a centralized network.

Also, this is much different than just buying links from a PBN, because you actually have to contribute and gift a proper PBN website to join.

For churn and burn projects it's most likely viable, but the sites will be getting killed left and right so fast that it would not be feasible.

The entire idea of this is to achieve the opposite.

I used to be able to rank for literally any keyword I wanted for more than a decade. A lot of that was based on my team building our own powerful PBN networks. The problem is that it's a huge amount of work to keep those sites up to date and relevant and acquiring new links for them etc etc.

The idea here is that this could be mitigated to a degree, but it's certainly not for churn and burn websites.

Remember that you probably have to invest a couple of grand just to get in here, and if you do anything untoward you'll lose everything you invested.

Yeah they got killed by G

https://searchengineland.com/google-eliminates-another-link-network-116513
LinkVana and these were good at the time but they were public not private.

Yeah, the key here would be to keep it as private as possible.

I can imagine an application process for any new wanna be member, whereby the "reviewers" evaluate the sites you want to link out to first, to make sure they're of sufficient high quality.

Yes, this probably won't be feasible for any party involved, as the control factors are just too complex and as @Nargil mentioned, these are bound to be penalized sooner than later.

ALN and BMR were huge back in 2013-2015 and they worked excepetionally well, until the music stopped.

Yeah, this is probably the biggest issue with this, the complexity. In some ways it's a lot easier to build your own PBNs but I have always felt that the problem over the long run is maintenance. Even with a team of 50 we had a difficult times maintaining our PBNs, mostly because it never felt like a high priority I suppose.

Even with good links and quality content these websites always deteriorated over time, because there is so much work to maintaining so many sites and update them etc.

I was never part of those networks since I always had my own, but yeah it needs to be more underground than those were I suppose.

Really awful idea on so many levels

Thanks for your honesty!

First, good domains are $1000+ these days, plus another few hundred to set it up with content and a good design. No one is going to build a good domain and submit it to a public network, giving up 80% of their strong domain in exchange for, what will be an abundance of trash pbns.

Well no, it's more likely that no one who doesn't take a very long term view of their linking strategies would be willing to pay thousands to build a good PBN only to have to give it up to join a network.

I have no idea why you think any trash PBNs would be allowed in the network? What if what I have suggested makes you think trashy PBNs would be allowed in? Did you understand point 4?

Following from that, it would just be 100's of trash pbns. That doesn't work in 2022. Quality > quantity wins every time.

Well you've clearly missed the entire point of this idea, as it is the opposite of what you suggest.

To be fair I have been extremely lazy in the last 5-6 years so I don't really know what works well in 2022, but this would likely be the highest quality PBN network that is not totally private, or at least that's the entire idea.

And it of course would just get deindexed for being so public.

It's always a balance between attracting new members and risks, so yeah it's a risk, but it could be mitigated in various ways.

Perhaps by only allowing in new members who have been recommended by an existing member?

$150-$250 + $50 + $25/month = someone take advantage, churn&burn your PBN networks with no cost.

Plus you need the original domain/website also, so yeah it's a fair bit to invest and therefore not suitable for churn & burn.

Anyway, it was just an idea, and I hear you all. I'm just really fed up with managing a lot of websites, even with a large team, because no one cares about your site as much as you do. This was an idea to try alleviate some of the work involved with building good structures.

However, as @janist pointed out, the complexity of this is probably too much, and it's not something I would want to start on my own. I kinda just wish someone else would start something like this.

 

[Dmytros]

There are hundreds PBN sellers on the market, but the quality of these nets is limited by the cost of domains. Last years the cost has grown considerably and what you could buy 3-4 years ago for $200 now goes for $3000 or more.

Those who have their own network of sites on expensive domains, they are unlikely to want it to go public.

For example, we have a PBN where some domains are worth up to $3K, but I have absolutely no interest in making these domains public to get links from guys who have a PBN on the drop for $9 bucks.

 

[Apexworks]

For example, we have a PBN where some domains are worth up to $3K, but I have absolutely no interest in making these domains public to get links from guys who have a PBN on the drop for $9 bucks.

Agreed, but would you be interested in 7x the amount of links you get, if you had full quality control over all the other domains that joined the network?

You would basically give up control over one website (for good) in return for getting 7x permanent links from other high quality websites that you choose from a private network.

You would know that all the links you're next to will be contextually relevant and lead to other high quality sites, although some may be competitors.

You'd also know there will never be more than 3 or 5 (or whatever is decided) links from the home pages of the sites where your links are permanently placed.

You still think it sucks?

If the answer to that is yes, may I ask how you manage your link network?

I mean who is responsible for uploading new relevant content to it and acquire new incoming links etc?

This was always an issue for me, because it's so boring to work on and invest time and money into the sites that you know will never make any money. I mean indirectly they will of course, but when your team has just composed a brilliant 1500 word article it just hurts so bad to put it on a site that has no other real purpose than to host some links.

That was my feeling, and why I didn't like hosting a large PBN network, even though I liked the results from it.

 

[blackhat64]

count me in. As long as it is super relevant, spam free, filter through the junk crap.. Lets form the "PBN AVENGERS initiative.. Because it can be a bitch having to create website and find hosts for them, different whois, and other minor things.. It would be easier this way IMO.

 

[Apexworks]

count me in. As long as it is super relevant, spam free, filter through the junk crap.. Lets form the "PBN AVENGERS initiative.. Because it can be a bitch having to create website and find hosts for them, different whois, and other minor things.. It would be easier this way IMO.

Hey, you're the first supporter of this idea, welcome!

Yes, the key point of my idea, and I probably didn't explain this very well in my long-winded presentation, (I was writing things as they came to me), is that it should be a super high quality network and that you'll only need to manage 1, 2, 3 or maybe 10 sites at the most, instead of 100 or more.

However, you get the benefit of 7x as many sites as you invest in from being part of the network.

Ok so if you like the idea, give me some ideas for the 10 Commandments that you'd like to see, and for rules in general?

The way I see this work at the moment (but I'm open for ideas) is that you have a responsibility for maintining your own website that you've "invested" and "given" to the network to an exceptionally high quality, and in return the other members do the same with their sites.

So perhaps you have to submit a minimum of 2 to 4 very high quality article per month to your site?

Not some AI content or spun crap, but genuinely high quality content that readers will love and want to see. Those articles have to be beautifully formatted with legit pics, videos, useful tools and one or two links to authorities in the general niche (not competition) etc.

You also have to continue to link build for your PBN and build x number of external high-quality permanent contextual links per month pointing to your PBN site.

You enter all work you do to improve your PBN into a dashboard and everyone can see and evaluate what you've done to improve the site since you joined.

If you try to cut corners others will see it, and they'll be financially rewarded for pointing out anything untoward that you do.

Depending on the severity of what you did, you may not be kicked out straight away, but perhaps there is a "3 warnings and then you're out for good" rule in place even for minor offenses.

If you don't have the time or for some other reason can't do the expected work to keep your PBN site fresh and active you can choose to pay a penalty instead, and this way you avoid any infractions/warnings as a member.

This penalty then goes towards paying an approved and well trained team who can use those funds to create content and/or links to your site.

Anyway, those are just some of my ideas.

Let me know what you'd like to see in order to invest thousands into a website that you're essentially giving away for good, and know that you'll never get back, even if you leave the network?

Added:

PS. I like the name too! "The PBN Avengers Network" - By Invitation Only"

Added 2:

Two new "security features" that come to mind.

1. All sites are grouped based on their particular niche and/or or general category.

You can only ever see the PBN sites that are in the same niche as the one you "invested" and gave your website to.

2. New members have a 6-month probationary period when first joining. During this time they can't choose the sites they want to have links from by looking at the entire network, but rather they have to accept sites that the "reviewers" and/or members recommend for them.

These two measures will make it harder to infiltrate the network and even if an infiltration were to occur it will only hit that particular niche that was infiltrated.

 

[blackhat64]

I think the best, and most fair way of doing this initially is through "EYE FOR AN EYE" or "SITE FOR A SITE" type trade.

EXAMPLE=====

So lets say I join the group as a "NOBODY" looking a backlink from a Real Estate website, i would then contact APEX and provide him with the content/images to put up using his CMS platform of choice ( I am guessing wordpress initially since its universal ) on APEX's "server". Apex will get it up and running. In return, I will build a website that APEX needs. APEX will provide me the content / images and I will have his website hosted on my site. << just a quick example..

 

[Apexworks]

I think the best, and most fair way of doing this initially is through "EYE FOR AN EYE" or "SITE FOR A SITE" type trade.

EXAMPLE=====

So lets say I join the group as a "NOBODY" looking a backlink from a Real Estate website, i would then contact APEX and provide him with the content/images to put up using his CMS platform of choice ( I am guessing wordpress initially since its universal ) on APEX's "server". Apex will get it up and running. In return, I will build a website that APEX needs. APEX will provide me the content / images and I will have his website hosted on my site. << just a quick example..

Yeah that's a good idea, except don't contact me for that, I'm the least suitable person to run something like this!

I think it might be best to form this network as a DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organisation) built on top of Aragon or something.

That way everyone can vote for changes, "evictions" and so on using the blockchain.

Part of the key to the success of this will be in creating VERY DETAILED Standard Operating Procedures, combined with great training of anyone who wants to work as a "reviewer".

Added:

I'm afraid that @janist is right that it's too complex with so many moving parts and so much that can go wrong. Maybe we get lucky and someone with lots of experience and energy will read this and start building something like this.

 

[Dmytros]

You still think it sucks?

I don't think so.

You have an interesting idea, but I think that every SEO specialist has his own idea of what is a good PBN.

For example, all my PBNs have the maximum number of backlinks to the main page. Domains with a minimum number of registrations. If a domain gets released 7 times, no matter how high DR it has - I won't consider this domain as a good donor. I look at the anchor list, I carefully look at the web archive, I check if the domain is in the anti-viruses database.

Every day a huge number of domains are traded at auctions, but we select only 5-10 domains per day that meet the above criteria and I am not always able to buy something because of high prices. I'm not talking about niche domains, I'm talking about any domains. This is a big problem right now.

It doesn't matter how well designed the site is or how pretty the pictures are. I'll be looking at links.

Suppose I can reserve 5 spots, keep one for myself and I can give 4 more to others. But I won't take a random 4 seats, I'll demand the same parameters as my network and I'm 99% sure they won't meet my standards. It's easier for me to find buyers for my 4 seats to recoup the cost of the domain (which I do), than to get some strange links in return.

I have a former bank domain in my net and there are only 200 backlinks (mostly to the home page), and that domain cost almost $2800. If you're talking about 3 links from the home page, the cost per seat is $933.

This is the cost of a link from my domain (and here I have not counted hosting, website creation) and I will not give a link from it if I do not get an equal exchange.

I believe that decentralization can work, but it will be sites on very cheap domains, quality PBNs will not participate, simply because they are very few.

Look at usmemorialday .org (I have no relation to this domain, but it was interesting to see what they would do with it) - this domain was bought for $10750 - there are now 11 links. Domain like this happen once in six months.

 

[Apexworks]

I don't think so.

You have an interesting idea, but I think that every SEO specialist has his own idea of what is a good PBN.

This is an important point that I agree with, but I think the general agreement of everyone who has a lot of experience in SEO and is playing the long game is that we want the highest possible quality of the network and with the smallest footprint possible.

I think my idea can help to both reduce the footprint, because of the diversity of domains that may join, and reduce the maintenance required to keep a good network going.

The only remaining steps then are to agree on what constitutes a very high quality PBN. I agree this could be somewhat hard to come to a consensus on, but I think it may be possible.

For example, all my PBNs have the maximum number of backlinks to the main page. Domains with a minimum number of registrations. If a domain gets released 7 times, no matter how high DR it has - I won't consider this domain as a good donor.

I haven't been in the SEO game for a long time and I have bought very few expired domains to use for link building in the past. In fact I was sure that the practice of buying expired domains and using them for backlinks would be dead as a practise many years ago. I said this in another thread, that I have really overestimated Google for many years.

If I was once again buying expired domains to build a PBN I would 100% agree with what you say.

A domain that's been sold several times is clearly being abused, it must be one of the strongest footprints and if Google engineers aren't picking up on this they're asleep at the helm.

I look at the anchor list, I carefully look at the web archive, I check if the domain is in the anti-viruses database.

Every day a huge number of domains are traded at auctions, but we select only 5-10 domains per day that meet the above criteria and I am not always able to buy something because of high prices. I'm not talking about niche domains, I'm talking about any domains. This is a big problem right now.

Yes, I can imagine it is.

Let me tell you what we did in the past, during the decade when I was very successful in SEO (a long time ago now).

We never bought expired domains at auction, (or maybe the right word is "very seldom" as I remember having bought a few in the casino industry).

In terms of link building we treated our PBN domains similar to our money sites, in that we went out and hunted down high quality links for them through outreach.

We never did any direct link swaps though.

So for example, if we wanted a link to Domain A (one of our PBNs) we would never link back to that site from Domain A.

Instead we would offer links from our other PBN sites on Domain B and perhaps also Domain C and Domain D (also in the same niche).

We also didn't interlink our own PBN network, so there was no connection between Domain A, B, C and D.

This obviously multiplied our link building work, but we had a large team and this gave us an entire decade of top rankings in the most competitive industries.

Our downfall (at least partly) was that it never felt like a priority to keep up to date with the content of our PBN network and at some point, once the domains were established and had a good link profile our link building efforts for them also slowed down dramatically.

This is the main problem that I would want to try to solve, the long-term maintenance of a super high quality PBN network.

Perhaps we could even have as a rule that every website in the network has to have been built up from scratch rather than bought as expired domains. Or perhaps we only accept the highest quality expired domains into the network with a maximum of one previous owner and many other tough criterias?

It doesn't matter how well designed the site is or how pretty the pictures are. I'll be looking at links.

I think both are very important.

I always had as a rule that every PBN site we had must be able to pass a detailed hand check by Google engineers and look like a genuine high quality website.

Again though, back then our main problem was always getting top quality content for our sites. It's no fun paying $50 or $100 per page to a top writer for what is after all just a back linking site that won't make any money on it's own. So once we had built the original site we didn't keep the domains fresh enough, sometimes they would go years without any new content added!

I'll demand the same parameters as my network and I'm 99% sure they won't meet my standards.

Perhaps we have a rule that the person who "gives" a website to the network has a veto on the new links that are added to it? So basically he can reject a link if he doesn't agree to the site it will be linking to? After all since those links will be next to his own it's very important...

It's easier for me to find buyers for my 4 seats to recoup the cost of the domain (which I do), than to get some strange links in return.

Hmm is it really though?

I mean you make your money from the money sites. Why can't you view your PBN domains as investments and accept that they are never going to break even or make money?

That's what I did anyway, but our money sites were making a lot of money, so it didn't feel particularly important. It's a bit like some staff costs. You know that staff who works on outreach and link building are never going to bring in any real income, but they're still important for everything to work.

I have a former bank domain in my net and there are only 200 backlinks (mostly to the home page), and that domain cost almost $2800. If you're talking about 3 links from the home page, the cost per seat is $933.

Yeah that seems reasonable to me.

But if your money site makes $28,000 per month investing in 10 of those type of domains is paid in 30 days, or 45 days with staff cost to build them etc.

This is the cost of a link from my domain (and here I have not counted hosting, website creation) and I will not give a link from it if I do not get an equal exchange.

Yes, but you're still thinking in terms of a 1 to 1 trade.

What I'm suggesting here is that you would get at least 7x the link value you have on this domain from other websites in the network.

I believe that decentralization can work, but it will be sites on very cheap domains, quality PBNs will not participate, simply because they are very few.

Do you really think this is true though?

Isn't that most people who are serious about SEO just don't sell any links and there PBNs are truly private. They have no reason to reveal them or discuss them, unless as I suggest they would gain tremendously by doing so.

I know that apart from when we were doing outreach to build links to our PBNs we never discussed our networks, and we certainly never sold any links. We were only buyers of links, never sellers.

Look at usmemorialday .org (I have no relation to this domain, but it was interesting to see what they would do with it) - this domain was bought for $10750 - there are now 11 links. Domain like this happen once in six months.

Yeah, I might have a look at it later, but I completely get your point, or at least I think I do. Buying expired domains is becoming so competitive that it's getting close to becoming a losing endeavor as you see it?

But does a PBN network really have to be built on expired domains? Ours wasn't and I don't see a reason why it would have to be now.

It takes a long time to build websites from scratch and you spend 6-9 months building links through outreach etc without getting anything in return, but in the end it pays off. Or at least that was my experience.

If the benefit of building up one or several solid PBN sites is now rewarded 7x more (or even more for those who get in early and take the bigger risk when the network is new) I would certainly be a lot more motivated to invest in building quality PBN websites.

Again though, I keep coming back to what @janist said earlier in the thread, that the complexity may be too high, and he's probably right. Ideas are often easy on paper, but in the end it's all about execution.

I just hope someone will read this and build start building something along these lines, so I can just join it instead of having to take part in building it!