Final Infinity
Junior Member
- Mar 29, 2014
- 146
- 75
As I could not find any guide that explained the entire process of building a proplery done private Blog Network (PBN) and how to maintain it, I decided to write one. I hope that this will help anyone who is considering to build their own PBN, so they won't make any of the mistakes that are common at the start and can get a whole network deindexed, thus wasting tons of money. We have over 2,000 Pr Domains in our private Networks so I know what I am talking about.
What is a PBN?
A PBN is a private high pagerank blog network that is used in order to link to your money sites. If done right a pbn can transfer tons of juice towards your money site making it rank very easily. Even a small PBN of just 10-15 Domains can do some massive damage if you set it up right. What most people do, however, is setting up the network sloppily, giving it away to google. This way you will either rank only for a short time or not rank at all.
Do NOT cut corners, I cannot stress this point enough when it comes to PBNs. You might tell yourself that some point of the guide below isn't important just yet or that you can't afford it. If that is the case don't bother with doing a PBN because you will get found out and your money site and PBN will get deindexed or devalued within just a couple of months. You will waste all the money you have spend for nothing. So DO NOT CUT CORNERS.
How to pick Domains?
The first thing that you need to know when starting your own PBN is how to choose the Domains you are going to use. This is one of the most important steps as there are a lot of things that you will need to think about and check before buying even a single domain. One thing first, the domain and its backlinks do not need to be relevant to whatever money keyword you are planning to rank. Its simply not that important.
I personally do not bother with anything below Pr 3. Yes, Pr 2s do some damage as well but the price difference to Pr3s is not that great and Pr 3+ Domains simply bring that much more of a benefit.
Always check the backlinks and the Trust and Citation Flow of the domains. A general rule of thumb is that the TF should be roughly equal or higher compared to the CF. You should look for a minimum TF of 17-20. The CF should ideally be the same as the TF but can be no more than 4-5 higher than it.
e.g. TF 17 and CF 22 is alright but TF 17 and CF 23 I would be concerned with.
The higher the Trust Flow the better the domain, is a general rule of thumb. You do need to look at the backlinks though. The values above apply to the highest TF and CF the Domain has. Some have this at the http://domain.com level, others at http://www.domain.com You will need to check both to make sure.
The kind of backlink is very important. The harder a link is to get, the better it generally is. An in content link is much better than a lot of blog comment or forum links. When you analyze the backlinks make sure to check that they look natural and that you are not buying some discarded domain of some other SEO. You also need to check the Pr of the backlinks. In general a Domain of Pr X should have at least a number of links that have the same PR and a few with lower Pr. If you have domains that have links with higher Pr than the domain itself its even better.
You also need to check what keywords were linked. You do not want to buy a domain that had Adult / Casino / Pharmacy etc. links when you do not go into this market.
Always check Archive.org before you buy a domain. It could have a fake Pr (being 301 redirected) and / or the content could have been quite bad. Make sure that the website was a legitimate website before you are buying it.
Check the Domain in Google.com before you buy it as well. First check it with site:domain.com if it does not show up / a different domain shows up, it was either 301 redirected or penalized. If this is the case avoid it and do NOT buy, even if all other stats looked good.
Next search for domain.com in the normal search. If the domain is not the first result don't buy. It was penalized. In order to only buy good to very good domains you should also search for the domain name without the .com . E.g. if the domain was little-dogs.com you would search for little dogs. Good domains will come first in the search results for this. If a domain does not show up within the top 5 for something like this it either means that the domain name was a competitive keyword or that it was penalized. If you are reading this guide you most likely won't be able to distinguish with 100% certainty between those 2, so I would suggest not to buy the domain. A penalized domain can do a lot of damage to your money site so its not worth the risk if you are not 100% sure.
Netpeak Checker is one of the most useful tools if you have a long list of domains to check. I highly recommend to get it (its free).
Edit: It seems like I am a bit out of touch when it comes to domain prices. We catch the domains ourselves and I went with older prices, I only had a quick glance at a domain seller that we used to use at the very beginning and the prices he had were the same as they used to be. I just checked the domains since everyone was saying that the prices I quoted were unrealistic and it turns out that his domains have drastically lost in quality to what it was compared. My deepest apologies for that.
Domain Setup
After buying the domains you need to set them up of course. There is plenty of room to do this wrong so make sure to go through this carefully when setting up your domains.
Always register your domains with private registration. If you do not do this it leaves a huge footprint for google to tell that all the linking domains belong to one person.
I would highly recommend you not to use normal SEO Hosting. Their IPs are not only consecutive they are usually hosted on the same server or just a couple of servers as well. How could anybody see this? Easy, the header information is all the same for your blogs and google can read this, thus leaving a massive footprint again.
You should use IPs that are spread out as far as possible and preferably a different server for each of your domains to avoid those footprints. Also make sure to use different name servers for every domain you are hosting, otherwise you leave a footprint again.
Only use 1 domain in 1 cpanel, using several domains on the same IP etc. can leave a footprint. Important: Make sure to check that there is no E-Mail in the Cpanel Contact Info. If there is change it to something else. Do not use the same email twice, this can be tracked and will leave a footprint.
There are a lot of people who will tell you that creating all your Blogs in Wordpress is a big footprint. This is true and while footprints should be avoided, I have never had a problem with having the majority of my PBNs on Wordpress. A huge part of the internet is build on wordpress these days, so having most - but not all - of your domains on wordpress is not that bad. Always use different themes, don't use a theme twice.
We generally do it like this:
Domains that are relevant to the keywords are build on different CMSes, those that are not relevant we build on WP and hide using Spyder Spanker (more on this later under plug ins).
You should build your websites up to look as real as possible. This does not make a difference with the original rankings - we have ranked many money sites using PBNs with just 1x 300 Word Texts - but it makes a huge difference when it comes to a manual review. While manual reviews do not happen too often, it would be a shame to loose a network because you did not want to put in the time and effort to make it look real. So use images, videos and at least 5-10 Texts.
When we build up a website properly we use a 500-800 Word Text on the Frontpage and then a mix of 200 - 500 Word texts for the other pages. You should put the most effort into the websites that are relevant from the domain name to your money website.
Spyder Spanker is the most important plugin a blog network should use. It allows you, to hide your websites from backlink checking bots while leaving it open to search engine bots. By using this, you can effectively hide your backlinks from your competition so they will not see them in A Hrefs / Majestic etc.
As I said before, we use relevant websites on non WP Themes for links that are not hidden and Wordpress with Spyder Spanker for not relevant websites or websites with thin content. This way, you can show your competition that your website is genuine (by putting in a lot of work and texts to make the websites that are shown look real) while hiding your dirty little PBN secret. The chance to get reported for black hat SEO (which PBNs are) is a lot lower this way.
There is a lot of controversy about whether you should use your PBN to link to several money sites or 1 PBN to 1 Money Site. A simple fact is, that if you use the same PBN to link to several money sites you are leaving a big footprint. Google will easily be able to tell that all those websites are linking to the same domains.
In practice I have seen and known many people who have gotten away with linking 1 PBN to even 20 Money sites. I also have known several who have not gotten away with it as well though. Personally we do not risk it, our PBNs are simply 1 PBN - 1 Money Site. This is a lot more expensive as you need more PBNs but it also assures you that you are not leaving a footprint and that a manual review won't kick all your money sites and income away.
Use the strongest domains you have to link to money anchor texts. The brand, domain name etc. can be linked from less strong domains and other sources like social media. It is a complete waste to link to those from strong domains, there is absolutely no reason to do so.
Try to link from inside text instead of the side bars as those links tend to be better. You can use sidebar links to link out to other authority websites in order to give your website more credibility. You should also interlink some of your texts inside the content. Make sure to remove any links that the themes you are using might already have. In wordpress those are usually in the footer - though some place them in the sidebar as well.
Tracking of the Links
This is another important part. You ALWAYS need to track the links you send to your money sites. Track everything, when those links were placed, what hosting they are on, who wrote the articles, the IPs and servers they are on etc. Knowledge is power. We created a system to do this and relate when the links were placed to when our domains increased in ranking.
Why should you do this?
Tracking the date the links were placed lets you see how long it takes for links to take effect. This differs for different niches. Generally, we have discovered, that new links take roughly 21 days before they show any effect on your ranking since the last big google updates.
Tracking the IPs etc. lets you make sure that you spread them out far enough. Tracking who wrote what text is important in case texts become duplicate content. You can track whether a writer resells texts after you bought them of him this way (doesn't happen often but it does happen). Tracking what themes you have used makes sure that you do not use the same themes within a PBN that links to a single money site again.
Take a look at how we are tracking things in the screens below. I have attached 4 of them to show you as much of the system we have devised as possible. The first screen shows the ranktracker part of our system, the other 3 the part where you enter the links and the options. If you cannot code you should make an excel spreadsheet to track this.
If you follow this guide you should be able to build up a very safe and good blog network. If you have any questions just ask below, I will try to answer as many of them as I can.
Ranktracker:
http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/8en4eqtr_png.htm
Adding links to the system:
1 - http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/xwhef2qf_png.htm
2 - http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/n5mn57jz_png.htm
3 - http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/ldzgzw4u_png.htm
What is a PBN?
A PBN is a private high pagerank blog network that is used in order to link to your money sites. If done right a pbn can transfer tons of juice towards your money site making it rank very easily. Even a small PBN of just 10-15 Domains can do some massive damage if you set it up right. What most people do, however, is setting up the network sloppily, giving it away to google. This way you will either rank only for a short time or not rank at all.
Do NOT cut corners, I cannot stress this point enough when it comes to PBNs. You might tell yourself that some point of the guide below isn't important just yet or that you can't afford it. If that is the case don't bother with doing a PBN because you will get found out and your money site and PBN will get deindexed or devalued within just a couple of months. You will waste all the money you have spend for nothing. So DO NOT CUT CORNERS.
How to pick Domains?
The first thing that you need to know when starting your own PBN is how to choose the Domains you are going to use. This is one of the most important steps as there are a lot of things that you will need to think about and check before buying even a single domain. One thing first, the domain and its backlinks do not need to be relevant to whatever money keyword you are planning to rank. Its simply not that important.
- Pagerank:
I personally do not bother with anything below Pr 3. Yes, Pr 2s do some damage as well but the price difference to Pr3s is not that great and Pr 3+ Domains simply bring that much more of a benefit.
- Majestic SEO
Always check the backlinks and the Trust and Citation Flow of the domains. A general rule of thumb is that the TF should be roughly equal or higher compared to the CF. You should look for a minimum TF of 17-20. The CF should ideally be the same as the TF but can be no more than 4-5 higher than it.
e.g. TF 17 and CF 22 is alright but TF 17 and CF 23 I would be concerned with.
The higher the Trust Flow the better the domain, is a general rule of thumb. You do need to look at the backlinks though. The values above apply to the highest TF and CF the Domain has. Some have this at the http://domain.com level, others at http://www.domain.com You will need to check both to make sure.
- Backlinks:
The kind of backlink is very important. The harder a link is to get, the better it generally is. An in content link is much better than a lot of blog comment or forum links. When you analyze the backlinks make sure to check that they look natural and that you are not buying some discarded domain of some other SEO. You also need to check the Pr of the backlinks. In general a Domain of Pr X should have at least a number of links that have the same PR and a few with lower Pr. If you have domains that have links with higher Pr than the domain itself its even better.
You also need to check what keywords were linked. You do not want to buy a domain that had Adult / Casino / Pharmacy etc. links when you do not go into this market.
- Archive.org
Always check Archive.org before you buy a domain. It could have a fake Pr (being 301 redirected) and / or the content could have been quite bad. Make sure that the website was a legitimate website before you are buying it.
- Checking a domain in google.com
Check the Domain in Google.com before you buy it as well. First check it with site:domain.com if it does not show up / a different domain shows up, it was either 301 redirected or penalized. If this is the case avoid it and do NOT buy, even if all other stats looked good.
Next search for domain.com in the normal search. If the domain is not the first result don't buy. It was penalized. In order to only buy good to very good domains you should also search for the domain name without the .com . E.g. if the domain was little-dogs.com you would search for little dogs. Good domains will come first in the search results for this. If a domain does not show up within the top 5 for something like this it either means that the domain name was a competitive keyword or that it was penalized. If you are reading this guide you most likely won't be able to distinguish with 100% certainty between those 2, so I would suggest not to buy the domain. A penalized domain can do a lot of damage to your money site so its not worth the risk if you are not 100% sure.
- Useful Tools:
Netpeak Checker is one of the most useful tools if you have a long list of domains to check. I highly recommend to get it (its free).
- Prices:
Edit: It seems like I am a bit out of touch when it comes to domain prices. We catch the domains ourselves and I went with older prices, I only had a quick glance at a domain seller that we used to use at the very beginning and the prices he had were the same as they used to be. I just checked the domains since everyone was saying that the prices I quoted were unrealistic and it turns out that his domains have drastically lost in quality to what it was compared. My deepest apologies for that.
Domain Setup
After buying the domains you need to set them up of course. There is plenty of room to do this wrong so make sure to go through this carefully when setting up your domains.
- Private Registration
Always register your domains with private registration. If you do not do this it leaves a huge footprint for google to tell that all the linking domains belong to one person.
- IPs - Name Servers - Server Location
I would highly recommend you not to use normal SEO Hosting. Their IPs are not only consecutive they are usually hosted on the same server or just a couple of servers as well. How could anybody see this? Easy, the header information is all the same for your blogs and google can read this, thus leaving a massive footprint again.
You should use IPs that are spread out as far as possible and preferably a different server for each of your domains to avoid those footprints. Also make sure to use different name servers for every domain you are hosting, otherwise you leave a footprint again.
- Cpanel
Only use 1 domain in 1 cpanel, using several domains on the same IP etc. can leave a footprint. Important: Make sure to check that there is no E-Mail in the Cpanel Contact Info. If there is change it to something else. Do not use the same email twice, this can be tracked and will leave a footprint.
- Blog CMS
There are a lot of people who will tell you that creating all your Blogs in Wordpress is a big footprint. This is true and while footprints should be avoided, I have never had a problem with having the majority of my PBNs on Wordpress. A huge part of the internet is build on wordpress these days, so having most - but not all - of your domains on wordpress is not that bad. Always use different themes, don't use a theme twice.
We generally do it like this:
Domains that are relevant to the keywords are build on different CMSes, those that are not relevant we build on WP and hide using Spyder Spanker (more on this later under plug ins).
- Texts
You should build your websites up to look as real as possible. This does not make a difference with the original rankings - we have ranked many money sites using PBNs with just 1x 300 Word Texts - but it makes a huge difference when it comes to a manual review. While manual reviews do not happen too often, it would be a shame to loose a network because you did not want to put in the time and effort to make it look real. So use images, videos and at least 5-10 Texts.
When we build up a website properly we use a 500-800 Word Text on the Frontpage and then a mix of 200 - 500 Word texts for the other pages. You should put the most effort into the websites that are relevant from the domain name to your money website.
- Plugins
Spyder Spanker is the most important plugin a blog network should use. It allows you, to hide your websites from backlink checking bots while leaving it open to search engine bots. By using this, you can effectively hide your backlinks from your competition so they will not see them in A Hrefs / Majestic etc.
As I said before, we use relevant websites on non WP Themes for links that are not hidden and Wordpress with Spyder Spanker for not relevant websites or websites with thin content. This way, you can show your competition that your website is genuine (by putting in a lot of work and texts to make the websites that are shown look real) while hiding your dirty little PBN secret. The chance to get reported for black hat SEO (which PBNs are) is a lot lower this way.
- Outlinking
There is a lot of controversy about whether you should use your PBN to link to several money sites or 1 PBN to 1 Money Site. A simple fact is, that if you use the same PBN to link to several money sites you are leaving a big footprint. Google will easily be able to tell that all those websites are linking to the same domains.
In practice I have seen and known many people who have gotten away with linking 1 PBN to even 20 Money sites. I also have known several who have not gotten away with it as well though. Personally we do not risk it, our PBNs are simply 1 PBN - 1 Money Site. This is a lot more expensive as you need more PBNs but it also assures you that you are not leaving a footprint and that a manual review won't kick all your money sites and income away.
Use the strongest domains you have to link to money anchor texts. The brand, domain name etc. can be linked from less strong domains and other sources like social media. It is a complete waste to link to those from strong domains, there is absolutely no reason to do so.
Try to link from inside text instead of the side bars as those links tend to be better. You can use sidebar links to link out to other authority websites in order to give your website more credibility. You should also interlink some of your texts inside the content. Make sure to remove any links that the themes you are using might already have. In wordpress those are usually in the footer - though some place them in the sidebar as well.
Tracking of the Links
This is another important part. You ALWAYS need to track the links you send to your money sites. Track everything, when those links were placed, what hosting they are on, who wrote the articles, the IPs and servers they are on etc. Knowledge is power. We created a system to do this and relate when the links were placed to when our domains increased in ranking.
Why should you do this?
Tracking the date the links were placed lets you see how long it takes for links to take effect. This differs for different niches. Generally, we have discovered, that new links take roughly 21 days before they show any effect on your ranking since the last big google updates.
Tracking the IPs etc. lets you make sure that you spread them out far enough. Tracking who wrote what text is important in case texts become duplicate content. You can track whether a writer resells texts after you bought them of him this way (doesn't happen often but it does happen). Tracking what themes you have used makes sure that you do not use the same themes within a PBN that links to a single money site again.
Take a look at how we are tracking things in the screens below. I have attached 4 of them to show you as much of the system we have devised as possible. The first screen shows the ranktracker part of our system, the other 3 the part where you enter the links and the options. If you cannot code you should make an excel spreadsheet to track this.
If you follow this guide you should be able to build up a very safe and good blog network. If you have any questions just ask below, I will try to answer as many of them as I can.
Ranktracker:
http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/8en4eqtr_png.htm
Adding links to the system:
1 - http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/xwhef2qf_png.htm
2 - http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/n5mn57jz_png.htm
3 - http://www.directupload.net/file/d/3732/ldzgzw4u_png.htm
Last edited:
