Building My First PBN. Advice?

[Olov]

I'm trying to find a PBN guide here on the forum, but can't find any. Is there one that I've missed? I can imagine that some guys on the forum have some great experience and knowledge on PBNs.

I'm going to create my first PBN, it will be around 4-6 sites in total.

As I will snapback these domains, they will all end up at the same registrar. I will host all the sites under different IP adresses, but what are your thoughts about them all having the same nameserver? Is it a big risk or am I overthinking this?

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I would assume that it's relative. If I have 40 links pointing to my site and 4-5 of those are my PBN. Then I wouldn't think it matters if they all have the same nameserver, as long as they have different IP.

If my link profile contains of 10 links and 5 of those are from my PBN with the same nameserver, or if I had 20 PBN links from the same nameserver - then I'd think it's a big footprint.

I could be wrong about this, so if anyone has some input that would be appreciated.

Have a nice Friday all!

 

[Ryuzaki]

@Olov, the risk surrounding PBN's is entirely around the footprints you leave that make it possible to map out the fact that it's a PBN. Whether you get to that point or not depends on what kind of stuff you do on-page in terms of linking patterns.

The thing to realize too is that all PBNs come crashing down, no exceptions, and sometimes they take your money site with them.

You need the PBNs to share common link targets beyond just your own site and that does not include link sales or multiples of your own sites. Think about it in terms of "sites 1-3 link to X, sites 2-4 link to Y, sites 3-5 link to Z, sites 4-6 link to A" and all kinds of rotations. The game isn't always to not have a footprint, because you will have some. The game is to blur the footprints and dilute them enough that they don't know who's to blame for the PBN. Is it created to support your site or the 20 other sites that all get linked across all the properties. Of course you mix in lots of single random targets.

But in terms of hosting there's a lot of footprints out there that people doom themselves with because they don't know about them. Do you know what a Start of Authority Record is and how it's generated and how to read them? 99% of PBN builders have no clue about that and are doomed when they start.

Yes, I would have them on separate IPs. No, I would not have them on the same nameservers. It's very unlikely that that batch of sites would all have the same nameservers and all link to your site. Do you know how to set up custom A Records and custom nameservers?

There's a LOT to doing this properly to the point where it's not really that time effective or cost effective. There's a lot of overhead to keeping a good PBN live. If you're doing it right, you don't even have a PBN. You have a collection of 4-6 more money sites that just so happen to link to your other money site once or twice.

There's a reason almost all PBNs result in being used for link sales. Recouping the investment becomes important and it becomes obvious that the quickest way to do it while maintaining a similar but higher risk is to sell links. That shortens the lifetime but at least you break even and likely make some money.

My recommendation is to NOT build a PBN. It's not worth the time or money, and it's not worth getting on Google's bad side.

What I recommend is thinking of the internet as your PBN. You want sites on different IP's with different owners and different nameservers and different out-bound link profiles? The internet can be your PBN and you don't even have to pay for nice domains, hosting, or content. You just have to do some clever marketing and outreach.

 

[Olov]

@Olov, the risk surrounding PBN's is entirely around the footprints you leave that make it possible to map out the fact that it's a PBN. Whether you get to that point or not depends on what kind of stuff you do on-page in terms of linking patterns.

The thing to realize too is that all PBNs come crashing down, no exceptions, and sometimes they take your money site with them.

You need the PBNs to share common link targets beyond just your own site and that does not include link sales or multiples of your own sites. Think about it in terms of "sites 1-3 link to X, sites 2-4 link to Y, sites 3-5 link to Z, sites 4-6 link to A" and all kinds of rotations. The game isn't always to not have a footprint, because you will have some. The game is to blur the footprints and dilute them enough that they don't know who's to blame for the PBN. Is it created to support your site or the 20 other sites that all get linked across all the properties. Of course you mix in lots of single random targets.

But in terms of hosting there's a lot of footprints out there that people doom themselves with because they don't know about them. Do you know what a Start of Authority Record is and how it's generated and how to read them? 99% of PBN builders have no clue about that and are doomed when they start.

Yes, I would have them on separate IPs. No, I would not have them on the same nameservers. It's very unlikely that that batch of sites would all have the same nameservers and all link to your site. Do you know how to set up custom A Records and custom nameservers?

There's a LOT to doing this properly to the point where it's not really that time effective or cost effective. There's a lot of overhead to keeping a good PBN live. If you're doing it right, you don't even have a PBN. You have a collection of 4-6 more money sites that just so happen to link to your other money site once or twice.

There's a reason almost all PBNs result in being used for link sales. Recouping the investment becomes important and it becomes obvious that the quickest way to do it while maintaining a similar but higher risk is to sell links. That shortens the lifetime but at least you break even and likely make some money.

My recommendation is to NOT build a PBN. It's not worth the time or money, and it's not worth getting on Google's bad side.

What I recommend is thinking of the internet as your PBN. You want sites on different IP's with different owners and different nameservers and different out-bound link profiles? The internet can be your PBN and you don't even have to pay for nice domains, hosting, or content. You just have to do some clever marketing and outreach.

Thank you for an excellent post. Exactly what I was looking for! It sure did make me question if I should really build a PBN or not.

The thing is that I operate in a small country, where most of the competition are small and big companies. They have manpower, money and networks to push me down the hill. Don't get me wrong, I know the importance of keywords and competition analysis. I just decided to go against the fairly big/medium guys on a new project.

At this point I have done SEO for 2-3 years or something like that. I have several websites and my income is, at the moment, matching my 9-5 salary. So I am trying to evolve my SEO work by introducing a PBN.

I recognize that in my small country you don't get natural backlinks, just the odd blog link here and there, if you're lucky. And the big guys have several websites interlinked and they have networks between each other to keep competition out. The norm for one link (from normal websites/bloggers) with ok metrics is between 100-900 euros in my country, so its costly to do out reach. I thought a small PBN would be more cost effective, plus I get more control over the links. Although, I recognize that there is a big risk and a huge time investment - especially since I write the content myself.

You have some very strong points that makes me reconsider doing this. Perhaps its better to keep on buying expensive links on websites I don't have to invest any time in.

Much appreciated @Ryuzaki!

 

[bernard]

Thank you for an excellent post. Exactly what I was looking for! It sure did make me question if I should really build a PBN or not.

The thing is that I operate in a small country, where most of the competition are small and big companies. They have manpower, money and networks to push me down the hill. Don't get me wrong, I know the importance of keywords and competition analysis. I just decided to go against the fairly big/medium guys on a new project.

Olov, I think people don't quite know small markets like your swedish market. Google doesn't have the same reach, interest or ability to monitor PBNs there. Charles Floate said this in the most recent Authority Hacker podcast specifically about Scandinavia. I know that it's the defacto linkbuilding method in Sweden and similar, but I still agree with Ryu, that it's a bad idea.

It simply consumes so much time, that could be better spent on your own site(s). I think, long term, it's a real shame to spend so much time on a time limited asset. I am not against using PBNs somewhere like Sweden, but I would only do it to go after highly luctrative niches like loands, internet providers and similar and only if I had an aged domain and only if I knew I could do it.

Instead, I suggest you use your expired domains to make various smaller money making sites. You can then link from those to your main sites. I think @Ryuzaki is against this as well, but I think for our smaller markets, we have to do some different stuff cause it's much more difficult to get organic links here.

 

[illmasterj]

You can then link from those to your main sites. I think @Ryuzaki is against this as well, but I think for our smaller markets, we have to do some different stuff cause it's much more difficult to get organic links here.

Unless you're doing local business sites, could you use multi-language as a way to rank them?

For instance, build it in Swedish, then translate the whole thing to English and run the site in both languages. Do some local swaps and building for the Swedish pages and then use the English pages to use the more traditional strategies?

 

[bernard]

Unless you're doing local business sites, could you use multi-language as a way to rank them?

For instance, build it in Swedish, then translate the whole thing to English and run the site in both languages. Do some local swaps and building for the Swedish pages and then use the English pages to use the more traditional strategies?

I do this.

I create a piece in English, for example: "Top 10 insider spots to play frisbee in Stockholm" and then I do outreach to English language sites, typically expat magazines and the like.

I'll also do outreach using the foreignness as an asset "Why the Lithuanians are so much slimmer than Americans" and then I'll link my site or, better, to an english language article on my own site.

It's not ideal, I prefer local links for local sites, but quite simply it can be very difficult to get links in smaller markets, cause everyone is sort of competition.

 

[Olov]

Olov, I think people don't quite know small markets like your swedish market. Google doesn't have the same reach, interest or ability to monitor PBNs there. Charles Floate said this in the most recent Authority Hacker podcast specifically about Scandinavia. I know that it's the defacto linkbuilding method in Sweden and similar, but I still agree with Ryu, that it's a bad idea.

It simply consumes so much time, that could be better spent on your own site(s). I think, long term, it's a real shame to spend so much time on a time limited asset. I am not against using PBNs somewhere like Sweden, but I would only do it to go after highly luctrative niches like loands, internet providers and similar and only if I had an aged domain and only if I knew I could do it.

Instead, I suggest you use your expired domains to make various smaller money making sites. You can then link from those to your main sites. I think @Ryuzaki is against this as well, but I think for our smaller markets, we have to do some different stuff cause it's much more difficult to get organic links here.

I appreciate your input, Bernard. Very informative!

To get some context: I have a couple of niche sites. One of them being in a very lucrative space. So I know what it takes to climb to the top there. The benefit of having such a small market is that it's easier to learn and understand what's what and who's who.

Now I have created a broad site, a magazine type. So I will be involved in the most lucrative niches in the Scandinavian market. My small niche sites gave me knowledge, experience and understanding on how things work, so I am now trying to create something big. Not saying that I am an expert or anything, just that I am ready to up my level a little bit.

Regarding the smaller money sites, it is tempting. Because I have a couple of sites that could give my new project boost in rankings. But I don't want to link my money sites together. As that would risk my passive income, I rather risk time and money spent on a PBN... I think.

Just like you say the time consumption is of big importance. Every article written on a PBN could have been an article/money maker on my real sites. But in exchange for authority and general rankings, maybe it's worth it.

Something that stuck with me from @Ryuzaki post was that every PBN gets caught sooner or later. Are you of the same opinion? At least in Sweden I've seen a couple of (very) obvious PBNs that keeps giving juice year after year. I also hear people sometimes mention that they've had PBNs for many years without any problems.

Again - thanks for your feedback. Very valuable, especially since you've got experience in the neighberhood :-)

 

[bernard]

I used to have PBN's and got burned by Penguin and various other things.

I think the thing is that Scandinavia does not have any manual action happen often. Very rarely will some manual action get taken and only if some SEO with links to Google points it out. Eventually they will get them, yes, I agree. You won't discover it though. Maybe they just stop working. I see that with the competition I am outranking. They have tons of PBN links but they can't pass much value anymore.

I just don't want to do it. I ended up HATING working last time, because I had to install another wordpress installation, write another trash article, buy another cheap hosting provider. Is this what I dreamt of? To be a glorified tech support guy?

I realize much of this can be outsourced. If you can do it, and get the domains at a good price, then go for it. I conclude that I am comparatively MUCH better at writing and researching than being an admin. I think introspection is in order. Are you the kind of person who can really create and maintain processes? Are you very organized? If so, maybe PBNs could be a good idea.

It's a personal choice for me, because I am not convinced that PBNs would be the only thing taking my sites down. I also don't buy advertorials even if this is extremely common as well. I just look at my competition and see how much money they are spending every month on linkbuilding and I don't like it.

On the other hand, I am convinced I could probably have been at 6K USD a month and not 3K USD a month, had I just replicated the links my competiton has. However, I don't want to risk all that good content I've written.

Will it prove I am more safe against Google? I don't know, I hope so. I think overall, I also have a better resale value, so that's factoring in it as well.

If you're up for it, go ahead. For me, to conclude, I don't see myself being able to compete with other domain buyers without investing a lot of time and money into it, and I would rather invest in my sites. I'm also 100% convinced that you can get results in Scandinavia this way, but personally, I think buying links from real sites and newspapers and the like would be more efficient. Get advertorials on those mainstream sites, which are frequently almost orphan pages, then give them a round of PBNs. I think that would be VERY effective in Sweden. Mix it up with some real links from abroad, see my post above.