PBN vs. Network of sites

[erichon]

Hi guys
I read a lot about pbn sites but for me it is not really clear what the difference of sites in pbns or a network of sites is. Maybe you can shed some light on it.
My thoughts:
When I build a pbn, I must take care that google does not discover the sites. BUT if I run some sites, not in a pbn, with proper content and high authority, why is google against it to link these sites? Even if you go the pbn route you need proper domains and must anyway update the content regularly, so I do not understand the sense. Please enlighten me!
thx

 

[tazarbm]

the difference of sites in pbns or a network of sites is. Maybe you can shed some light on it.

PBN = Private Blog Network, hence PBN. It means that you have your own network of sites that you can do whatever you please with (which usually means pointing backlinks from them to your money sites since that's the whole point of setting up a PBN)

Network of sites = the same as PBN, but - while PBNs are usually used for backlinks - network of sites, generally speaking, could be used for anything you want (including for backlinks).

When I build a pbn, I must take care that google does not discover the sites.

you WANT google to discover the sites, because sites that are indexed in google and - even better - which rank in google, are way more valuable than sites that don't rank or are not indexed.

So, you do want your PBN to be discovered by google. What you don't want is for google to know that all of the sites in your PBN belong to you, this is the most important part because once google figures out that those sites belong to you they'll de-index all of your sites (the money sites and the PBN) because they will - rightfully so - assume that you've built those sites to build links and building links is against google's TOS

BUT if I run some sites, not in a pbn, with proper content and high authority, why is google against it to link these sites?

because backlinks are one of the most important ranking factor and if you build links to your site you force your site to rank high in google and this messes up google's algorithms because google doesn't want everyone to rank high, they only want certain people / companies to have all of the traffic and all of the money. That's why they create all of these complex algorithms but we - the common people - ruin their algorithms when we build links, and google doesn't like it, of course.

Even if you go the pbn route you need proper domains and must anyway update the content regularly, so I do not understand the sense.

yes, nowadays it's not as easy to own PBNs like it was in the past.

In the past, 12-15 years ago, maybe longer, PBNs were as simple as buying a domain, slamming an ugly as fuck website onto them and then linking back to your money site from those 5, 10, 100, or however many domains you could afford buying. And with 50-100 such websites giving you links back to your site you could dominate a lot of niches for a lot of keywords.

But, over the years, google have tweaked their algorithm to detect and punish PBNs (and the money sites that these PBNs were pointing to) more and more with each update, and now, whoever wants to own a PBN needs to avoid breaking all of these rules that google have implemented, which means that you have to have deep pockets and be careful not to give away any clue that might make the google algorithm link the sites in your PBN to you because your sites will get deindexed (and possibly your domains will be blacklisted too in google's database as belonging to spammer)

Anyway, in order to avoid triggering google's algorithms, your PBN nowadays needs all sorts of countermeasures, which cost a lot of money and demand a lot of maintenance, which is why not many people can afford owning PBNs nowadays, and which is why PBN links are so expensive for the casual webmaster. The SEO game has changed a lot over the years, and not for the better for the poor / casual webmasters....

But yeah, in the beginning it wasn't like this. In the beginning all you had to do is buy 50 random domain names, buy 10-20 PLR articles, spin them with a software like Spin Rewriter to create unique content (even if that content didn't make sense, it didn't matter because the rules were very laxed back then) and link back to your website from each one of those 50 domains and bam, you'd outrank everyone in a small / mildly competitive niche!

Even if you go the pbn route you need proper domains and must anyway update the content regularly, so I do not understand the sense.

well, apparently I gave a bogus answer to your question, so ignore all of the fluff that I've mentioned above because it didn't answer to your question. But you'll have to excuse me as it's 1 AM as I'm typing this, so my brain started failing me

So, the real answer to your question is: backlinks are still important, and PBN backlinks in particular are even more important because when you have sites with high authority in your PBN you get most of that authority pouring into your money site (because you don't share the authority with other sites) and this is powerful enough to allow you to rank for tough keywords.

So, it does make sense to own a PBN. As long as backlinks matter PBNs are still the king of backlinks. But - and this is where my previous fluff comes in - owning a PBN nowadays is so expensive that not many people can afford doing it....

Anyway, I hope that this answered the question properly this time

 

[erichon]

Hi
thanks for your comprehensive answer.
I did not make my point clear. So why hide things from google, when I can get the same results with different sites on an expired domain, which I build up to proper sites and link from them to my money site. Example: assume:
My money site is black poodle, proper site high authority, ranking good, not super but ok. So I build real sites with the intention to link to the money site, like white poodle site, another one with green poosdle site and so on. Build them up to real sites and after they start ranking I build the links to my money site and to other sites. Why could google punish these sites. I could have a company that deals with poodles and each "product" has a website, that of course link to my main company site. So I do not need to hide that all this sites belong to me bacause that is my company. OR am I wrong?

 

[tazarbm]

Hi
thanks for your comprehensive answer.
I did not make my point clear. So why hide things from google, when I can get the same results with different sites on an expired domain, which I build up to proper sites and link from them to my money site. Example: assume:
My money site is black poodle, proper site high authority, ranking good, not super but ok. So I build real sites with the intention to link to the money site, like white poodle site, another one with green poosdle site and so on. Build them up to real sites and after they start ranking I build the links to my money site and to other sites. Why could google punish these sites. I could have a company that deals with poodles and each "product" has a website, that of course link to my main company site. So I do not need to hide that all this sites belong to me bacause that is my company. OR am I wrong?

please learn to quote, otherwise I will miss your replies (luckily, I was just cleaning up my browser tabs, that's how I saw your reply, but I could have totally missed it, so please use quotes next time)...

Now, to address your questions...

Why could google punish these sites.

I answered to this before: by building links to your own sites you are breaking Google's TOS which say that "building links with the intention of gaming the system (ie. improving rankings) is not allowed".

I don't know if these are the exact words that google uses, but it's more or less the point. So, if you build links to your own sites you're gaming the system, that's what google says.

Now, how exactly google can differentiate between building links to game the system and building links for directing people to relevant sites in your network (which is what you're asking, apparently) I do not know as I'm not working for google.

But Google - first and foremost - is a data gathering company, their search engine is just a byproduct (or secondary product I should say) of their business model, so they have a lot of info they gather and analyze, and based on these metrics they decide if your sites game their system or not.

Sometimes you might get away with doing black hat stuff (although, BH practices don't usually last), other times your intentions might be good and google would have no reason to suspect you of doing BH stuff, so you might get away with it. But the risk of being flagged as spammer / link builder is high with google, especially with all of the updates they've done in the last few years when even honest people get penalized. So, it's just better, generally speaking, to play it safe and keep your sites private if you know you're going to link between them.

I could have a company that deals with poodles and each "product" has a website, that of course link to my main company site. So I do not need to hide that all this sites belong to me bacause that is my company. OR am I wrong?

There are companies who have multiple sites, so I don't think that google is against this. But you must make it clear that these are all of your sites, you could put the links to all of your sites in your footer for example, and say something like "All of the sites belonging to our company"

Based on this transparency you might be able to get away with inter-linking your sites because:

1) you are explicitly telling google that these are your company's websites and you don't intend to game the system since you're already making this info public, and...

2) footer links are usually not very good in terms of SEO, so google should have no reasons to suspect you for trying to game the system since you're not going after the more powerful backlinks (in-content / homepage)

But if you're going to interlink these sites with in-content or homepage links you might get into trouble because that's what PBNs do, and - even though your intentions might be honest - google might still suspect you of trying to game their system since they're not 100% sure of your intentions so they might simply flag you - rightfully or not - as link builder, so - again - it's just better to play it safe and not let google know that these are your sites.

Given how many rules and triggers google have in place for scrutinizing every thing that SEOs do, it's better not to give google reasons to scrutinize your network of sites, even if - like I said - sometimes you might get away with it. It's just better to play it safe, and I've said this 3 times already

Anyway, I hope that this answered your questions. And I also hope that you're going to use quotes next time, otherwise you might never get a reply and you'll think that people hate your or something

 

[erichon]

Okay thanks a lot, now I got it. So better play it safe

 

[Nikolaos]

PBNs are used for backlinks. Network of sites might have backlinks but you can promote other stuff there apart from your main site.

 

[paisawaisa]

Google does not want you to trick them . So if you have network of sites and interlink between them, Google will punish you if they find out. Solution is to find a good seo provider who can make pbn undetected by Google. You can also do this yourself but costs will be high if you are doing this for only one blog.