Creating Your Own Private Blog Network - A Basic Overview

[tom.toykam]

Hi All,

I just thought I would share a really basic overview of how I am constructing a Private Blog Network to rank sites.

Step 1 - Finding Sites

Although you can create fresh sites from scratch and there is nothing stopping you from doing this. I find it is often easier to find existing sites that have been abandoned by their previous owners. This of course is the concept of expired domains, where the previous owner has not renewed their domain and it is now available for others to register right away, or bid for a part of an auction.

The advantage of domains that have expired, is that it is possible to find sites that already have backlinks to them and authority that you can channel to your own sites.

When starting out, the best place to quickly find sites is expireddomains.net. Make sure to sign up for a free account and you get some nice filters to search for domains.

The only problem is that EVERYONE is already here looking, but you're just starting out, so it's ok.

There are two main categories that I'm interested in, domains that have expired and that have entered into an auction against other users on GoDaddy. Then domains that have been deleted and are available for registration right away.


Step 1a - Searching for domains

1. Create a free account on expireddomains.net
2. Login, choose either Deleted Domains (free to register) or Other Domains, then either GD Closeouts or GD Expired
3. Once looking at the chosen category, set up your filter with the following:

Common Filter Tab - No Fake PRs
Common Filter Tab - No unsure PRs
Adwords & SEO Filter Tab - 50 Moz External Links
Adwords & SEO Filter Tab - 30 Moz Page Authority
Adwords & SEO Filter Tab - 20 Moz Domain Authority
Adwords & SEO Filter Tab - 2 MozRank

4. Using this filter you'll cut down the domains to a more manageable amount
5. At this point I usually bring the filter back up and on the general tab I search for domains that contain the keywords I'm interested in
6. You should be looking at some decent domains that are relevant to your niche

I got asked a question in the comments for more details on authority metrics, the minimum I look for in a domain are the following:

DA (OSE) - 20
PA (OSE) - 30
CF (Maj) - 15
TF (Maj) - 15

What about PageRank?

I'm not too bothered about PR, if all the other metrics are telling me the site is on the money I'll go for it.

Remember, Matt Cutts confirmed at Pubcon that the PageRank toolbar broke in January and they haven't fixed it since.

People only looking for domains with PageRank is something you can use to your advantage when starting out. Find the nuggets people have overlooked.


Step 1b - Qualifying your domains

Before you start rushing to register these domains we need to make sure someone hasn't spammed the s**t out of them.

1. Get the domains your interested in
2. Get free accounts at Ahrefs/Majestic/OSE and pop the domain in, look for the usual tells, pharma anchors that sort of thing.
3. If the domains passes this test, boot up the way back machine (google it) and pop in your domain.
4. Take a look at the most recent cache of the site, if it was full of obvious spam content (pharma, gambling etc.) just ditch the domain.
5. Credit to phoenix9 - You should also check if the domain is still indexed on google or not. if yes, proceed to next step. if no, stay away, this is one sign of deindexed domain.

You're looking to find something that has clean backlinks and that hasn't already been abused by an SEO.


Step 1c - Buying Domains

Take action and buy the domain. If it relevant to your niche and has authority, go for it!

Remember to get private who.is on your domain though.


Step 2 - Hosting your site

Don't bother with gimmicky SEO hosting, head over to web hosting talk (google it) and look for their shared hosting offers.

You can easily pick up hosting for $1 or less per month with softlicious to install Wordpress.


Step 3 - Building your site

I host the majority of my sites on Wordpress, but also mix it up with Drupal etc. to make it more natural.

What you need to do:

1. Grab a nice theme and install it
2. Remove the theme credit in the footer (I'm a bastard, I know)
3. Go to Settings > Permalinks and choose Post Name (example.com/sample-post/)
4. You might need to update your .htaccess file, easy enough, just login your cpanel and go to file manager to find it, just remember to tick show hidden files
5. Grab the old logo from Google images/way back machine, order one from fiverr or create one in Photoshop
6. Boot up the way back machine and recreate the site using all the old content
7. Lookup all the old URLs (ahrefs/majestic/OSE) that have links pointing at them, install a redirection plugin and redirect these pages to relevant new pages
8. Install your favourite plugins, I usually go for Ultimate SEO or Yoast
9. Go the extra mile and recreate everything, interlinks, old outbound links and generic pages such as privacy/terms
10. Crack open a beer

NOW LEAVE THE SITE ALONE!!!

Let Google come and find the site, hopefully, if you're lucky, they will might think the site was temporarily down and has gone back up with a nice new design


Step 4 - Ranking

Now that the site have been reindexed, you can create new posts/links going to the sites that you want to rank.


Step 5 (Optional) - Breaking Even

This is optional, but you can sell links on your site to recoup the money you have invested.

I haven't done this myself, but it is an option if the costs of setting up a PBN are proving to be an obstacle.


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That's about it guys, really simple approach to get some nice contextual links from authoritative and relevant sites.

I had some nice results using the above when starting out, hopefully you will too!

Any questions just drop a comment, or send me a PM.

Tom

 

[NathanEG]

Using the Way back Machine to replicate the old site is absolutely genius! Thank you!

 

[tom.toykam]

Using the Way back Machine to replicate the old site is absolutely genius! Thank you!

No worries Nathan!

 

[BuyPRDomainsDotNet]

Useful post for Private Blog Network Builder !!
Thanks

 

[IProvideSEO]

Nice post, my method is very similar except I don't replicate the old site.

Why do you think it is beneficial to completely rebuild the old site?

 

[Rose Seo]

After domain expire domain ICANN reset the domain age also so private network person mostly use age domain.

 

[loveplazza]

thanks for sharing with us really too good information

 

[tom.toykam]

Nice post, my method is very similar except I don't replicate the old site.

Why do you think it is beneficial to completely rebuild the old site?

Thank you very much!

If I'm being honest, it's just my paranoia!

I see all my competitors using expired domains to great effect without replicating the site, so I can't say it has a real benefit from a ranking perspective.

But I like to think that if Google ever cracked down on expired domains it would afford a little more protection. It also makes the site feel more genuine, especially if it were ever manually reviewed.

Plus you can save yourself time writing out all the filler content

 

[c0bbz]

Would using the old content or images be in breach of any kind of copyright law?

 

[tom.toykam]

Would using the old content or images be in breach of any kind of copyright law?

I'm not 100% sure.

I've got just shy of 80 sites in my PBN right now and over the course of a year I've only have 2 complaints.

They were both genuine owners emailing to ask me for the domain back (I always setup and keep an eye on an email account for each site).

If they've got genuine proof it was their domain and are getting aggressive (legals etc.), I usually just hand it over.

A 2.5% fail rate is alright in my book and both times I was able to get what I paid back off them for handing it back.

 

[matt1972]

Have you had good success using domains excluding the PR factor and only using medium citation and trust flow?

 

[WatchAnyShowCom]

Very useful, thank you OP.

 

[JasonUSA]

Really helpful stuff. Thanks.

 

[tom.toykam]

Have you had good success using domains excluding the PR factor and only using medium citation and trust flow?

Hi Matt,

The minimum metrics I look for in a domain are the following:

DA (OSE) - 20
PA (OSE) - 30
CF (Maj) - 15
TF (Maj) - 15

With sites with the above, I have always seen a positive impact.

I haven't typically gone lower than the above, so I can't comment on domains with lower metrics.

If the above are present on a site relevant to my niche, with a clean backlink profile, then I'd go for the domain.

For around a $9 registration fee and $12 for hosting (year), you're looking at a nice backlink for around $25.

If you've got multiple sites in the niche then you can even reuse the site for other links or sell links to recoup your investment.

 

[phoenix9]

i want to add "qualifying your domain" step. You should also check if the domain is still indexed on google or not. if yes, proceed to next step. if no, stay away, this is one sign of deindexed domain.

 

[tom.toykam]

i want to add "qualifying your domain" step. You should also check if the domain is still indexed on google or not. if yes, proceed to next step. if no, stay away, this is one sign of deindexed domain.

Good point! I've added it.

 

[tom.toykam]

Here is an example domain, it's actually still available for another 30 minutes if someone is quick.

 

[warjam1945]

thanks...i just did

 

[bigballin6161]

Bookmarked! Thanks alot!

 

[bigballin6161]

So you open up a new shared hosting account for each site? Or do you put them on the same account? Or do you use different providers for each site? Also any tips on picking a good one? There is alot on there!