What is a Private Blog Network & How To Build A PBN?

So lets get started first with getting to know what a PBN is. Firstly, when I refer to a PBN I mean a Private Blog Network which is the whole network of blogs collectively. I will refer to each individual blog as a PBN blog or just a blog.

Now lets get into what it is but first you will need to understand how backlinks work in the online world. When a website is left a link from another site it gets scored better or worse depending on where the link came from.

So if for example you have a blog and you get a link from a very well known site that receives thousands of visitors, that will score your website better providing the backlink is a “dofollow” and the sites have relevance to each other. In essence its passing some of its own domain authority down to the site its linking too.

On the other hand if your blog gets a link from a site that doesnt receive many visitors, is stuffed full of links to other sites and has no relevance to your blog. Then your site will not be scored higher and in some cases can be scored worse by search engines as you are getting bad quality backlinks pointing to your blog.

The better your score is then the more your site or blog will be ranked and suggested by search engines and more importantly for a PBN be able to pass down domain authority.

What Is a Private Blog Network?

Now that you know how backlinks work, lets properly get into what a PBN is. Its a group of sepperate blogs run by one entity for the use of growing their own main site or using it to grow other sites.

Domain Authority

You can use the domain authority from each individual PBN blog to link to your main site and by doing this it will get scored better depending on where the links came from, how related it is, how good the article is containing the link and many other factors.

Each blog needs to be sepperate to one another so that search engines wont notice that one entity owns all these blog. Search engines dont favour PBN’s and if the algorithm notices your running one, will often shut it down by taking all the domain rating away rendering it useless.

You can also use this method to run a SEO consultancy where you can use your network of blogs to grow other business and websites. How ever it isnt quite as easy as buying 50 domains and hosting them all with loads of links to your main site.

Private Blog Network Footprints

For a successful PBN you will need a variety of blogs all hosted on sepperate IP’s, preferably with different nameservers that have unique content. The reason of this is to make it look much more like a natural site rather than a purpose build site just to grow other sites authority.

To keep a minimal footprint you need to make sure to follow certain rules right from the start of creating your PBN. Use different emails, this is an easy footprint for search engines to figure out. Other smaller factors like using the same plugins, themes or features on every site will distinguish this as a PBN to the search engines algorithm.

Using Cloudflare is a great way of cleaning any tracks due to the hosting going through another service as well as changing nameservers again to something different.

How to Build a PBN

Lets get started with how to build a PBN. First you need good hosting, dont just go for cheap hosting with out any research. I always use SeekaHost PBN Blog Hosting myself as they have the perfect balance of price to good value.

What To Look For In Hosting

The things you need to look out for are sepperate IP address, sepperate Nameservers and this is because we want to not create a footprint. By this I mean a trail left by our blogs indicating that one person owns them all as is using it as a PBN.

With SeekaHost every single PBN blog gets a sepperate IP address and also sepperate private nameservers. This is of course one of the most important things to have sure your have covered. Most WordPress packages are hosted on the same IP and same nameservers which make it really easy for search engines to notice your running a PBN.

Using Expired Domains

The reason there is such a big market in expired domains, or programs that charge hundreds of dollars a month to find expired domains is because they hold a lot of domain authority. It isnt as easy as it used to be years ago but with the right knowledge you can still find some really good domains to buy and use.

They might have a better domain authority because some domains have had a history of good backlinks from authoritative sites. From government or educational sites also which will score it well. It may already have some traffic coming to it and has got a good rank with search engines due to many other factors.

How ever there are many features that can make it a bad expired domain. Some of these features can be that it was used as a PBN previously with bad content and filled with links. You can also get websites wending you bad links to try and drive your website down in ranking and you can usually notice these as they are usually Chinese looking sites fill with links going out to sites.

Building Your Own Blog For a PBN

You dont always need to use an expired domain for a PBN. In all honesty I think think that in order for a PBN to work it needs to actually be a good site. And you are able to build a great site and maintain it with active posting and get some organic traffic. This can also be used as a PBN and will do much better than an expired domain with a large DR but no organic traffic and that might have been used before as a PBN blog.

The Right Type of Private Blog Network

This is why a lot of people will say that PBN’s dont work anymore. Its because they are doing it wrong. They are too quick to find any expired domain with a slightly high DR and a few thousand back links and assume that by sending a load of links over to their money site this will work.

Unfortunately it is not that easy and you dont only have to research the domain really well for many aspects including how many “dofollow” back links it has, how many different referring back links it has, what the DR score is, does it have spam backlinks and also how much traffic it was receiving.

The right type of PBN blog is one you can actually connect to google adsence, perhaps use for affiliate marketing and that has got great content. Too many people think that by building a simply PBN with loads of expired domains its going to make a tone of money or drive a load of sales to the money site.

What you need to do first is actually make the PBN site an attractive site with loads of information, great posts, relevant information and some organic traffic. Treat it more like an actual website your maintaining rather than a site just for links.

The right type of PBN blog will also help you recover some maintenance costs. As they might not cost aolot to start but when it comes for the renewal and you have 30 domains at $10 each and 30hosting packages and £2 each, your going to need some money to pay for it.

By creating each PBN blog individually and with unique content , and with organic traffic you call apply for google adsence or use affiliate marketing to actually create some side income to take care of some of the costs to maintain.

Building Relevant Links

Once you have your private blog network ready then its time to start building some backlinks. And I really want to stress that these have to be used more like diamonds rather than pebbles. By that I mean its much more beneficial to have one really great related link from each blog rather than a link from every page or post created by the blog.

Use the most related post you can with a blog close to your niche to get the best result from a backlinks to your main money site. And of course make sure its set as a “dofollow” link to pass down some SEO power.

There are other ways of making money from your blogs also and you can find all of these in another article i wrote on the SeekaHost tutorials page.

Conclusion

Using these tips and tricks to build a PBN will not only put you on a successful track but will also make sure to keep your footprints low and un noticed by search engines. Grow your money site and potentially use your network to create a consultancy to help others with different niches grow.