backlinks (PBNs or not) will keep working for as long as backlinks continue to matter in rankings. And today they still matter, so...
But from what I've heard they are not as powerful as a ranking factor as it was in the years past, so you might want to treat them as the cherry on top of the cake rather than the go-to ranking factor
In this analogy, the cake would be your site, complete with all other important ranking factors (content quality and keyword intent, user engagement and experience, technical SEO and structured data, mobile friendliness and site speed, trust factors like social media, EEAT, etc.)
So you gotta meet all of these requirements (in some niches / for some keywords some of these requirements will matter less / not at all), but ideally you still want to meet as many of them, as good as possible, and the backlinks will just help consolidate the good things happening to your site and hopefully keep the rankings for as long as possible...
If so, what are the best practices
build only quality links initially, and at slow pace (1-2 links a week, or 3-10 links a month I think is pretty safe for most cases). Also vary the anchor texts and diversify your backlink profile, don't get just PBNs, or just guest posts, etc. Although, you do want most of your better links to be contextual ones, which is why guest posts and niche edits are such a good option...
“secret” strategies to avoid getting penalized by Google while using a PBN?
the most obvious strategy I can think of that you should avoid is not getting multiple links from the same IP.
When it comes to link building, make sure that everything is as varied and mixed as possible, as google are very good at detecting patterns and if you only get PBNs, or only use the same few anchor texts all the time, or only get backlinks from the same IPs / servers / hosters, etc you are asking for trouble.
So, mix and vary everything as much as you can, while still following a pre-planned strategy, of course.
Also, if my website is mainly targeting Bing traffic, do PBNs have any impact on Bing rankings, or is it a waste of time for that platform?
I've no idea how Bing works, but I've also not heard that backlinks don't work for Bing, so yeah... I would say that PBNs are still safe for Bing...
