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

zobban said:

Just to show there is a will there is a way. I have under my years built 40 pbns. These rank 4 sites for me. It cost me about 500(domain cost), 1300 hosting per year. Never bought an auctioned site, scrapebox and lucky finds. Every time I come across a strong old site that might hold an expires domain or two. I add them to my next scrape. Has been working out nicely. Just stumbled upon one more yesterday, relevant to my niche 90 rd and 32dr with some really sweet links in the niche im in. It probably takes me a bit more work. But I had 200$ to spare when I got into this so I had to find a cheaper option. My first pbns were utterly trashin comparison to what I usw these days. But they moved the first site into a good spot where i got some ROI to increase the work.
I will definitely buy auctioned in the future but it works to find your own too. Might just not get the 5000$ domains. For simpler niches they work and as long as you have good content on your moneysite. When you rank, more links come in naturally.
Great AMA! I have learned some tricks from it to implement in my process going forward

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shahzeb khann said:

Should i add footer link after adding 5-10 articles in pbn or add content link weekly per post.

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shahzeb khann said:

If i keep on adding 1 post per week will that link will be effective as i have already taken link from pbn previous week.
I think a domain link once realized by G then it become useless to get more links and counted as spammy.

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janist said:

Thanks for the kind words. Definitely try out some auction domains, they really do pack a punch.



Nah, wouldn't recommend footer links. Go for contextual.



Why would you add a new post per week with a link? That's absolutely not necessary. Make sure you have your baseline content right and then you can maybe add some fresh content (without any links) bi-monthly. That's more than enough.

The goal of a truly private PBN is utilize the power of the domain to link to preferrably one money site, in rare instances you can add a second or third link to different money sites (in the same niche) - if the PBN is strong enough to pass enough jucie to all of them. Preferrably try to keep OBL = 1.

If you link out to the same money site with multiple articles you will not only have diminishing returns, but also a pretty tidy footprint.

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shahzeb khann said:

Only one contextual link from a pbn and then no more link..is that you said..
How 1 link will rank website..
In this way to get 20 link i need 20 pbn sites..

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shahzeb khann said:

My competitor adding footer and sidebar link and then keep on adding content.
After every alternate content he again link back to same ms page from same pbn.
He is ranking on first page. And using only 10 pbn.. how that is working.

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googleinc said:

who is trusted seller?

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shahzeb khann said:

Sorry i have lot of query about pbn..
How to design pbn best..
Blog style home page or static home page..
Where should link to ms.. from blog post or static page..
If no more link then should i post more article to pbn or leave it after linking..

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janist said:

Thanks @idoseo for your questions. Replies are in orange.



We spend roughly 5-10 minutes analyzing a PBN domain. After a couply of checks, you get the hang of it.

We don't really focus on metrics too much, tbh. But if you want some rough baselines to filter out the super crappy domains, we recommend:

• RD15+
• DR5+
• Optional: DA5-10+

We are usually more interested in the actual link and anchor profile and not in the metrics per se. Metrics increase exponentially once your PBN site is launched and you start to build a few t2 links.

Instead our domain analysis typically involves just these simple four steps:

1. Check if the domain is sitll indexed

Head to google, enter "site:domain.com" and see if the domain is still indexed. Typically this will only be the case for auctioned domains. Most expiring domains will be dropped from the index, but will re-index quite fast once the site is up and running. We just do this out of a habit. If the site is still indexed: cool. If not, no biggie.

2. Check Wayback

Head to https://archive.org/ enter the domain and check at least 1-2 captures for each year. You want to make sure that the domains has some age and has not been used for any spammy techniques before (can't believe how many spammy chinese crap sites we had to weed through) - we also want to make sure it was never really used as a PBN before (but that becomes usually quite obvious when checking the link and anchor profile).

3. Check for trademarks

We want to make sure that there are no active trademarks for the domains.

We usually use https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database for sites that targeted the US market or https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmtext for EU sites.

4. Check the link profile, link target and anchors

We are mostly interested in contextual links from high DR sites.

We usually use Ahrefs to analyze our PBN domains. For each PBN domain we head over to their site explorer, enter the domain and click on “backlinks” to get a rough glance at all the links. Once you've got a feeling for quality link profile, this will give you a nice idea already.

We then choose a few filters, namely “link type: content” and “one unique link per domain“ to get an idea of JUST the contextual backlinks pointing at the domain. It also shows us if these links have any links pointed at them (always good).

We then check the link targets.

We use ahrefs "best by links" feature to see at where the links are pointed at (in case we need to re-built or 301 a lot of inner pages). Preferrably we want most links pointed at one version of the homepage and max 2-5 inner pages. But that's just the best case scenario.

If the link profile and the link targets are strong we move on to the anchor text.

We use ahrefs "anchors" feature to get an idea of the anchor profile. We typically want a domain that is not spammed to death with exact match anchors. Anything under 15% exact match anchors is fine by us.

Summarized - we look for

• Indexation
• Wayback Records
• Active Trademarks
• Link profile, link targets and anchor profile

Preferrably look for niche specific auctioned domains. These can get quite pricey, but many of domain vendors do a lot of heavy vetting for these type of domains, including link profiling, history checks etc. So if you only have a few hundred to invest, I'd suggest these are you go-to.

If you go for lower-mid range expired domains, we recommend to power these up with a few tier 2 links (more on that below).


The best and most powerful approach would be to keep the OBL = 1. One PBN domain has one link to one money site. This will pass most of the link juice and reduce any link footprints to virtually zero.

However, we've seen not adverse effects when you link out to different money sites (OBL >1) as long as the niche is the same and the money sites don't share any footprints (hosting, DNS, SMTP servers etc.)



Typically we spend around 1 hour per PBN domain setup, sometimes more.

Maintenance and scaling is easy, once the site's are running. Price wise a 10x PBN network would cost you roughly:

• 10x mid quality expired domains (RD20+, decent 3rd party metrics (if you want those), top TLDs (com/net/org) incl. domain registration = $450 minimum. But for really good domains you pay easily pay $100+ / domain. So this is a bare minimum. You basically leverage domain volume over domain quality. Would possibly argue that you need more around $1000-3000 for 10 good domains + registration fee.
• 10x good cloud droplets incl. backups (via Vultr, Digitalocean, Linode, AWS, etc.) = $60 / month absolute minimum. Don't cheap out on PBN hosting. Having a decent hosting infrastructure is imo the most important aspect of any good PBN.
• 10x PBN set-ups with no footprints, theme customization, necessary plugins, htaccess customization, redirections, blocked IP lists etc. = $300-400 minimum, usually more around 500$ - unless you want to set them up all by yourself.
• 10x niche relevant articles (at least 1500-2000 words split over at least 1-3 articles) = $250 minimum
• A few premium themes + Elementor PRO ~ $500

So per domain you pay at least $100-150.


We usually do a hybrid mix of inner page and homepage links. For our private PBNs we keep the OBL = 1. For our service PBNs we keep it at <20.


Initial expenses were in excess of 30k. But we didn't build all our PBNs at the same time. We added more as we grew.

The costs are not that excessive, tbh. Maintenance is done by our inhouse team, but you can easily outsource that to a VA for $200-500 / month (depending on the site of oyur network).

Hosting costs are 3k-4k / month and domain renewals (with coupons) around $3800 / year.


See our outline above. If you build them all at once, i'd say around 50-60k minimum for 500 domains (if you can get good bulk discounts for the domains, domain registrations and the setup).


We haven't had many de-indexations (knock on wood). But if we see a PBN domain vanish completely from the index, we cut our losses and move on. That domain is burnt.


Yes, we do. We typically use our high performance links in various quantities if the link profile is not super strong, but still decent enough to build a PBN site on the domain.

We always point a few to the homepage and 3-4x as much to the PBN posts that contain our links (that we re-built or added as new posts).

We've seen great results from these without any adverse effects. We rarely use link inserts or guest posts, as most of the domains should already have a good amount of nice powerful contextual links.


Definitely. If you can avoid all the footprints, it's a mid-long term asset that you can leverage in many ways.

Click to expand...

janist said:

Thanks @idoseo for your questions. Replies are in orange.



We spend roughly 5-10 minutes analyzing a PBN domain. After a couply of checks, you get the hang of it.

We don't really focus on metrics too much, tbh. But if you want some rough baselines to filter out the super crappy domains, we recommend:

• RD15+
• DR5+
• Optional: DA5-10+

We are usually more interested in the actual link and anchor profile and not in the metrics per se. Metrics increase exponentially once your PBN site is launched and you start to build a few t2 links.

Instead our domain analysis typically involves just these simple four steps:

1. Check if the domain is sitll indexed

Head to google, enter "site:domain.com" and see if the domain is still indexed. Typically this will only be the case for auctioned domains. Most expiring domains will be dropped from the index, but will re-index quite fast once the site is up and running. We just do this out of a habit. If the site is still indexed: cool. If not, no biggie.

2. Check Wayback

Head to https://archive.org/ enter the domain and check at least 1-2 captures for each year. You want to make sure that the domains has some age and has not been used for any spammy techniques before (can't believe how many spammy chinese crap sites we had to weed through) - we also want to make sure it was never really used as a PBN before (but that becomes usually quite obvious when checking the link and anchor profile).

3. Check for trademarks

We want to make sure that there are no active trademarks for the domains.

We usually use https://www.uspto.gov/trademarks-application-process/search-trademark-database for sites that targeted the US market or https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmtext for EU sites.

4. Check the link profile, link target and anchors

We are mostly interested in contextual links from high DR sites.

We usually use Ahrefs to analyze our PBN domains. For each PBN domain we head over to their site explorer, enter the domain and click on “backlinks” to get a rough glance at all the links. Once you've got a feeling for quality link profile, this will give you a nice idea already.

We then choose a few filters, namely “link type: content” and “one unique link per domain“ to get an idea of JUST the contextual backlinks pointing at the domain. It also shows us if these links have any links pointed at them (always good).

We then check the link targets.

We use ahrefs "best by links" feature to see at where the links are pointed at (in case we need to re-built or 301 a lot of inner pages). Preferrably we want most links pointed at one version of the homepage and max 2-5 inner pages. But that's just the best case scenario.

If the link profile and the link targets are strong we move on to the anchor text.

We use ahrefs "anchors" feature to get an idea of the anchor profile. We typically want a domain that is not spammed to death with exact match anchors. Anything under 15% exact match anchors is fine by us.

Summarized - we look for

• Indexation
• Wayback Records
• Active Trademarks
• Link profile, link targets and anchor profile

Preferrably look for niche specific auctioned domains. These can get quite pricey, but many of domain vendors do a lot of heavy vetting for these type of domains, including link profiling, history checks etc. So if you only have a few hundred to invest, I'd suggest these are you go-to.

If you go for lower-mid range expired domains, we recommend to power these up with a few tier 2 links (more on that below).


The best and most powerful approach would be to keep the OBL = 1. One PBN domain has one link to one money site. This will pass most of the link juice and reduce any link footprints to virtually zero.

However, we've seen not adverse effects when you link out to different money sites (OBL >1) as long as the niche is the same and the money sites don't share any footprints (hosting, DNS, SMTP servers etc.)



Typically we spend around 1 hour per PBN domain setup, sometimes more.

Maintenance and scaling is easy, once the site's are running. Price wise a 10x PBN network would cost you roughly:

• 10x mid quality expired domains (RD20+, decent 3rd party metrics (if you want those), top TLDs (com/net/org) incl. domain registration = $450 minimum. But for really good domains you pay easily pay $100+ / domain. So this is a bare minimum. You basically leverage domain volume over domain quality. Would possibly argue that you need more around $1000-3000 for 10 good domains + registration fee.
• 10x good cloud droplets incl. backups (via Vultr, Digitalocean, Linode, AWS, etc.) = $60 / month absolute minimum. Don't cheap out on PBN hosting. Having a decent hosting infrastructure is imo the most important aspect of any good PBN.
• 10x PBN set-ups with no footprints, theme customization, necessary plugins, htaccess customization, redirections, blocked IP lists etc. = $300-400 minimum, usually more around 500$ - unless you want to set them up all by yourself.
• 10x niche relevant articles (at least 1500-2000 words split over at least 1-3 articles) = $250 minimum
• A few premium themes + Elementor PRO ~ $500

So per domain you pay at least $100-150.


We usually do a hybrid mix of inner page and homepage links. For our private PBNs we keep the OBL = 1. For our service PBNs we keep it at <20.


Initial expenses were in excess of 30k. But we didn't build all our PBNs at the same time. We added more as we grew.

The costs are not that excessive, tbh. Maintenance is done by our inhouse team, but you can easily outsource that to a VA for $200-500 / month (depending on the site of oyur network).

Hosting costs are 3k-4k / month and domain renewals (with coupons) around $3800 / year.


See our outline above. If you build them all at once, i'd say around 50-60k minimum for 500 domains (if you can get good bulk discounts for the domains, domain registrations and the setup).


We haven't had many de-indexations (knock on wood). But if we see a PBN domain vanish completely from the index, we cut our losses and move on. That domain is burnt.


Yes, we do. We typically use our high performance links in various quantities if the link profile is not super strong, but still decent enough to build a PBN site on the domain.

We always point a few to the homepage and 3-4x as much to the PBN posts that contain our links (that we re-built or added as new posts).

We've seen great results from these without any adverse effects. We rarely use link inserts or guest posts, as most of the domains should already have a good amount of nice powerful contextual links.


Definitely. If you can avoid all the footprints, it's a mid-long term asset that you can leverage in many ways.

Click to expand...

shahzeb khann said:

Irrespective of metric...
How many website pbn you need to rank a medium difficulty website..
Or for general with how many pbn website you rank a website..
Need general answer..i know lot of factor involved in it but how many pbn with da aound 10 -20 you think can rank a medium keyword..

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Luk3 said:

Very good thread! Learned a lot and think you have quite fun to dominate with your pbn network the serps

Similar question like the guy before. It is difficult to give an estimation if 15/20 or 100 links will work but what is when you see rankings moving with 20 pbn links and you rented the network let say for 3 months. Keyword dancing in the second month. Can you say roughly how quick the money site will be downgraded to the old position or is it normal that it takes longer?

Thanks.

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OlafRustle said:

What would you say about the aws free tier to host pbn sites? Would they not have a footprint?

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vosh jerr said:

Hi, i got around 200x PBN's but usually I used it for Tier 2 Links.

1. Buy all the domains from only 2 registrar with Private Whois (N*meCh*p & N*amesil*)
2. Installed all of the PBN's in 2 server Dedicated with Alternative Ip's (WHM/Cpanel)
3. Each IP Installed around 5 PBN's / Domains
4. 100% of PBN's using Cloudflare DNS

My Question is.. It is still safe because all of those PBN's only used to push my Tier 1 Links from Buy HQ PBN, Guestpost, Web 2.0, etc ?

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Pam Danny said:

I have some domains which i bought but didn't check that "site:domain.com" is not indexed. They have very good backlinks. I am assuming the domain is gone, Is there a way I can use the backlinks?

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TheDamuraFamily said:

What is the hardest niche to design a PBN for in your experience?

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sendlerad said:

@janist Great Post! Judging by your username, any chance you are Latvian? Sveiki!

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Roland77 said:

I found a good expired domain, but in wayback machine you can see it has been used as a general PBN site. It hasn't been spammed to death or anything. So the links look good and anchor text looks natural. Would it be worth buying and putting it back to its original niche, in your opinion?

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