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

asker1 said:
What about link velocity? Does it matter? Lets go back to my example - you have 200 PBN at your disposal and a single money site. How would you schedule it? Thanks.
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If it's a new site, you certainly want to avoid unnatural patterns. Drip over 2-3 months. Don't forget to add other link types into the mix at the same time. And keep an eye on anchor diversity.

If it's an established site, just mimic the link velocity that's already there. If your site got 15-30 new links per month over the past few years, it certainly would be kinda unnatural if the sites get 200 highly contextual links within 1-2 days. A bit of common sense goes a long way.

We probably wouldnt exceed 50 PBN links per month, especially if we use them to snipe exact match kws.
 
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janist said:
1. The first footprint you want to avoid is bad hosting.

We usually recommend single droplet with reputable cloud hosting companies, like:
  • Digital Ocean
  • Vultr
  • Linode
  • Rackspace
  • Cloudways (managed DO/Vultr hosting)
  • AWS
  • etc.
Only with this approach you get unique IPs that are not shared with any other website or even worse any other PBN sites (typical with PBN hosts)

Additional footprints you definitely want to avoid:
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What's your thoughts on bulkbuyhosting and launchcdn?
 
Regarding anchor diversity - do you think that there are big differences between English sites (.com google) and sites from lets say really small EU countries/languages?
Because every time I review my competitors pages (just exact URL, not whole domain) on ahrefs in a very competitive niche, small EU country - basically 90% of anchor texts are exact match and partial-match anchor texts and few random naked links from some forum posts or so. Most of them have zero brand anchor texts, generic etc. I have seen pages with 50 RD and from that 30 links were coming with same exact match anchor text, rest partial match and some naked ones.
I have tried to go all in with brand anchor text using PBNs without much success. Switched to exact ones and after few weeks it has taken off as a rocket.

So the question is - would you follow this aggressive anchor text ratio if everyone in your niche does it? I am kinda afraid to "waste" valuable PBN assets on some generic anchor texts or stuff like that.
 
asker1 said:
Regarding anchor diversity - do you think that there are big differences between English sites (.com google) and sites from lets say really small EU countries/languages?
Because every time I review my competitors pages (just exact URL, not whole domain) on ahrefs in a very competitive niche, small EU country - basically 90% of anchor texts are exact match and partial-match anchor texts and few random naked links from some forum posts or so. Most of them have zero brand anchor texts, generic etc. I have seen pages with 50 RD and from that 30 links were coming with same exact match anchor text, rest partial match and some naked ones.
I have tried to go all in with brand anchor text using PBNs without much success. Switched to exact ones and after few weeks it has taken off as a rocket.

So the question is - would you follow this aggressive anchor text ratio if everyone in your niche does it? I am kinda afraid to "waste" valuable PBN assets on some generic anchor texts or stuff like that.
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Yes, there's a huge difference between .com/.ca/.co.uk SERPs and smaller foreign SERPs. I wrote about it before in one of the answers.

You can get away with much more aggressive techniques and less-balanced anchor profiles. I dont know for how long, but for the time being it works like a charme.

And as mentioned before, we use PBNs the majority of the time to snipe exact match keywords and use outreach links, editorials, digital PR pieces for more branded or phrase match anchors.
 
When you are working with your tier 1 / tier 2 are you using any sort of automation for building 2.0s etc. or are the links strictly with purchased domains.

Also, this has been a really solid ama with a lot of great info.
 
Dr.Rok said:
When you are working with your tier 1 / tier 2 are you using any sort of automation for building 2.0s etc. or are the links strictly with purchased domains.

Also, this has been a really solid ama with a lot of great info.
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We haven't touched any automated links in a while. If we decide to add some web 2.0s into the mix, we have our inhouse team craft them manually, with unique content and customization.

Best case scenario: the PBN domain has a lot of strong links already and needs minimal t2 linking. In all other cases we usually use stick to our high performance links (static links we rent from webmasters), niche edits and guest posts for t2 links. A few of these are typically enough to power up a 'not-so-strong' PBN domains quite a bit.
 
janist said:
We haven't touched any automated links in a while. If we decide to add some web 2.0s into the mix, we have our inhouse team craft them manually, with unique content and customization.

Best case scenario: the PBN domain has a lot of strong links already and needs minimal t2 linking. In all other cases we usually use stick to our high performance links (static links we rent from webmasters), niche edits and guest posts for t2 links. A few of these are typically enough to power up a 'not-so-strong' PBN domains quite a bit.
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That makes quite a bit of sense if you have those resources available. Obviously you guys are established and have been doing this for some time so your business network is strong as well, however for a lot of people on here thats not the case. Where would you look to find quality paid guest posts / static links for rent etc.
 
Dr.Rok said:
That makes quite a bit of sense if you have those resources available. Obviously you guys are established and have been doing this for some time so your business network is strong as well, however for a lot of people on here thats not the case. Where would you look to find quality paid guest posts / static links for rent etc.
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Outsource it. There are tons of decent services here in the marketplace. Best way would be to simply use really strong domains from the beginning.
 
janist said:
Outsource it. There are tons of decent services here in the marketplace. Best way would be to simply use really strong domains from the beginning.
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Understandable, however finding strong / relevant domains isn't always the easiest task. As of late I find myself repurposing things in creative ways as best I can, thankfully much of it is local businesses so at least the domains all have the area in common to work from.

Thanks again for your help.
 
Wow, thanks for the in-depth answer. That'll give me some action to take.
 
Took a couple breaks but read the whole thread! There was some valuable info so thanks a lot!

Some simple questions:

1)Do you post new articles to the pbns from time to time, even if you are not selling out links?

2) what do you think about fresh domains for pbn, maybe with niche/keyword in the name? I think expired domain are not as strong now and all my fresh domains get indexed in a few days, max 1 week. (No search console nor indexing service)

3) You said you dont anymore, but what do you think about building links with automated softwares to pbns? Not too many and with a smart drip feed of course

4) you say you prefer obl=1. So, do you link many of your money sites or do you think pbn are super strong and still worth it? Because if its 1 link to 1 moneysite, with less money and effort why not few guest post?

5) "do not use cloudflare"
What if I have 2 pbns on same server (they will not point same money site but wanna change ip), still a "no" in your opinion?

Thanks!! Great ama (even tho idk what it means haha)
 
Isn't it a big footprint to have just 1 or 2 total OBL from your own PBN site?
 
xthefuture said:
Took a couple breaks but read the whole thread! There was some valuable info so thanks a lot!

Some simple questions:

1)Do you post new articles to the pbns from time to time, even if you are not selling out links?

2) what do you think about fresh domains for pbn, maybe with niche/keyword in the name? I think expired domain are not as strong now and all my fresh domains get indexed in a few days, max 1 week. (No search console nor indexing service)

3) You said you dont anymore, but what do you think about building links with automated softwares to pbns? Not too many and with a smart drip feed of course

4) you say you prefer obl=1. So, do you link many of your money sites or do you think pbn are super strong and still worth it? Because if its 1 link to 1 moneysite, with less money and effort why not few guest post?

5) "do not use cloudflare"
What if I have 2 pbns on same server (they will not point same money site but wanna change ip), still a "no" in your opinion?

Thanks!! Great ama (even tho idk what it means haha)
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Thanks, appreciate it.

1. Yes, I think i mentioned that already. We frequently post new content to each PBN. Not every week, not even every month, but frequently. It depends on how much content the site has already. You can use the wordpress word count plugin to check this. We aim to have at least 20k+ words for each PBN domain.

2. Not a fan. Kinda defeats the purpose of a PBN, which is to build out a site on a powerful and strong domain. You'd have to invest a lot into tier 2 links, to get the domain powered up. We'd rather invest that into direct links to our money site. Try to good for mid-priced auction domains instead (300-600$) those WILL work, if done right. New domains can work well as a buffer site, but that's about it.

3. We never do it and wouldn't recommend it.

4. As said before, you can certainly try OBL > 1 if you have more than one website in the same niche / vertical. Guest posts are a great complementary link, but they typically roll off the homepage within 2-3 days (if they are displayed at all). PBN links are in YOUR control. You say where the link goes and you'll never have to worry about removal of the link. A nice PBN domain may cost you more initially, but it'll last a long time (if done correctly).

5. Yeah, that's a no-go, imo.

AMA = Ask Me Anything ;-)

cyberzilla said:
Isn't it a big footprint to have just 1 or 2 total OBL from your own PBN site?
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xthefuture said:
He said he links to other sites related to content, like informative.
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This. Typically when I refer to OBL, i mean the outgoing links on the homepage or the most powerful inner page. The overall OBL for the whole domain is definitely higher.
 
what configurations do you use for your files: robots.txt at .htaccess?
 
mendel10 said:
what configurations do you use for your files: robots.txt at .htaccess?
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He said he doesnt block robots, because normal sites wouldnt do it. But I think sometimes can be good, especially on powerful pbn's
 
mendel10 said:
what configurations do you use for your files: robots.txt at .htaccess?
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We don't actively block bots like ahrefs, semrush, and co. We have some IP ranges we block, though.
 
janist said:
11. Don't use search console, ahrefs webmaster tools or google analytics on your PBNs.

Another duh. Paranoia gets the best of us. But why risk it?
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Jesus i'm using GSC for all my PBN's lol.
Guess i should delete it now ?
 
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