Another bit of information I want to share about PBNs....
Making Your Sites Look Legit
I have raised the point of telling anyone who will listen that you want your sites to look real. No secret. Make your sites look like REAL websites. Provide real value. If you think for a minute Google does not know a lot of these big niches use PBNs you are crazy. Even small niches are full of them. The only difference is, when working in a small niche you will find the PBNs ranking well look like SHIT. For harder niches (For example, Mortgage), you will find PBNs that pass the smell test and unless you know what you are looking for (Such as location data) you will not know it is not a real website.
I asked myself, why is that? I do not have an answer. The only conclusion I had was that Google is not stupid. If I can sniff out a PBN with a couple Google searches and free tools, so can Google.
I would be willing to bet, Google knows but does not care. Not worth the time or resources to go after a marginal amount of sites which use Black Hat. In larger niches they do hammer down. So those niches require Black hatters to make there PBN look like a real site and pass the smell test.
That is my theory anyway and the reason for my madness.
But this brings me to making your site look more legit. When using Wordpress, I always make sure I vary the plug ins I use and methods for blocking crawlers. But in general, I fill in a LOT of extras which, in my opinion, makes a difference.
Is any of this required? No. Do I do it? You bet I do.
Random 'filler' Pages
Every SEO uses a Contact Us, About us, and Privacy Page. That is cool and all. But I add some other interesting pages such as:
HQ Location
DMCA
State / Country Specific Privacy (Some states, like California, have extra laws which may be applicable)
Career
Employment FAQ
Business History
Partner Locations
Sponsor Page
Charity Page
Staff Profiles
Contest Page
About the Author
Image Gallery Pages
Google Map Location
Disclaimer Pages
Submit Resume Page
Future Event Page
Niche Specific Calendar (Such as fashion shows)
Staff Blog(s)
Staff Highlights
Staff Resume / Experience
These are all added in, at random, to make it look like a real website.
Plug Ins which make a difference.
After I add all the filler to Wordpress in terms of pages, I add a mixture of plug ins which do the following:
- Add a Footer
- Exit Pop Up
- Entry Pop Up
- Social Media
- Fake Ads
- Dual Navigation
- Custom Author Profile
- Author Image
- Author Social Media
- Auto Generate Social Sharing
*On a side note, did you know there is a 'Contact Senator / Congress' Plug In for the USA? Yup, you can auto generate a contact congress page with a Google Map included for directions with a couple easy clicks. How does that sound for making your site look like a real political analysis website?
I did not list specific plug ins because I keep it random. I know of about half a dozen 'About Us / Contact' Generator Plug Ins. A couple dozen social media plug ins (Most are awful or have limited features). A handful of useful about author plug ins. A couple foot plug ins. Lastly a couple working Pop Up plug ins. I mix it up for every site. Remember, any pattern is a footprint for your network.
Widget Galore
This is something which irks me. You can add a huge amount of widgets to wordpress to make your side bar not look cookie cutter. Most people keep the side bar installed widgets and at most add the calendar. How many real sites have you seen which do that?
Not many.
Some useful widgets you can add are:
- Social Share Widget (Just like the ones you add to a post)
- Navigation
- Social Profile (Pinterest and Twitter have Widgets to feature your social media profile)
- Fake Ads
- Featured Post
- Author Profile
- Charity Widget
- Contact Us Widget
- DMCA Badge
- Disclaimer
- About Us
- Google Map / Location
I listed a dozen options off of the top of my head. You can make your little Wordpress site not look like a five year old made it. Each of the dozen I mention have a lot of options of different plug ins you can add and it really does not take much longer to do.
Make it look REAL
I have said before my PBN sites look better than my money sites. This is true. For anyone who has seen my PBN domains (A couple people from BHW have) they know I change every default on the theme, in settings, and I tweak each site to make it look like someone actually cares about it.
From Pop - Ups to Infographics, the sites have it all. Toss in random press releases and sites which have a theme which I do not deviate from, you can not tell it is a PBN domain.
The basic stuff of a logo of banner are easy. You can also add a custom image back ground. You can change date and time formatting. You can change site icon on some themes. You can tweak a lot of small things to not make your site look like trash.
I know of only one seller on BHW who does it remotely close to how I do it - which is sad. This is not the type of network I build for churn and burn but it is the type of network I build when I want a PBN to rank a site for months to come. If I plan to renew the domain in a year I put the effort in to make it worth keeping.
*Some things I missed include: Social Media Pages / Accounts, random link building, random Guest Posting, random Press Releases, approving some user engagement from comments and making money with PBN sites through ads or banners, selling a fake product, putting someone elses affiliate code on the site, etc. I am not even anal enough to do that, but it is something to keep in mind.
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