How do you identify PBN links while doing due diligence when attempting to purchase an existing site?

[milehighmuscle]

Hello Everyone!

I have a newbie question for you all! I believe I am asking it in the right thread.

My question is how do you identify PBN links while doing due diligence when attempting to purchase an existing site? Do you have a specific technique you use to do this? Do you recommend any course or resources to learn how to do this better?

What I currently do is look at the backlink profile on Ahrefs of the site im doing due diligence on. In the backlink profile I just look for sites with high DR and low traffic. Then I try and examine these sites to see if they have the characteristics of a PBN site (full blog posts on home page rather than excerpt, bulk unrelated content, homepage external links). Im still having trouble identifying which are PBNs and which are not.

Do you recommend any course or resources to learn how to do this better?

Thank you for your time and help!

 

[bernard]

It's usually very easy to identify a PBN if its built like that from the beginning.

As I see it, more sites these days start off as something else, then turn into PBNs through linksales.

Looking at the About page will usually be enough.

 

[thisishatred]

So as someone who has sold PBN links since like 2014, the above stuff are all things I watch out for.

For instance, my premium network sites are designed to look like money sites and dish out links to people who have growing sites as well. More often than not, my sites look better than the sites I'm sending links to.
I mean not to toot my own horn, but one of the health network sites was even under the eyes of a Google reviewer a couple of months ago - it's completely unscathed. This site is also reviewed by a Dietician and uses schema to tell Google about the person.

Most PBNs, like my regular network are designed to avoid footprints, not manual reviews. Even then, I also create about pages, generate several authors, and even start the site with 5-10 niche-themed articles (based on the niche of the site).


"My question is how do you identify PBN links while doing due diligence when attempting to purchase an existing site? "

I mean most guest post sites these days are borderline link farms. In my opinion that's worse than a singular PBN link on a homepage being sent to your site - purely from an algorithmic/pattern perspective.

What's more likely to get sniffed out, a 1:1 PBN link (most people fuck this up to, a true PBN is private and should have a singular link) or a link farm/guest post site that dishes out links to tons of sites?


"In the backlink profile I just look for sites with high DR and low traffic."

This is kind of a logical fallacy in my opinion.

I mean when I buy sites for my networks, I don't even give a shit about traffic, I just want strong links.

If I'm buying a site to turn into a money site, I want strong links + relevancy in my niche. If the site has existing traffic, cool, but these days the auctions for domains are fucking wild. The chances of something dropping and going to GD Auctions with great links + traffic and not having to pay an arm and a leg for it are few and far between. Even the folks at ODYS.Global rarely have domains for sale with traffic - the sites just have strong links and great brand names.

With that stuff in mind, If I receive free links from a new niche site in my industry and it's built with a similar idea in mind, who gives a shit, it's a free link.

If I receive links from a skeleton PBN with the base WordPress theme and full links on the homepage, you disavow it and move on.


"Then I try and examine these sites to see if they have the characteristics of a PBN site (full blog posts on home page rather than excerpt, bulk unrelated content, homepage external links). Im still having trouble identifying which are PBNs and which are not."

So what you're describing isn't a true PBN then. It's a PBN designed for link sales - like my regular network. Again most sellers even approach that aspect of PBNs incorrectly. They want to load up the network with as many posts as possible, if it de-indexes the clients are none-the-wiser and they simply rinse repeat.

Fly-by-night providers don't tend to last long - in which case - who gives a shit about those links? They'll likely expire (get deleted) when the site gets deindexed or you can simply disavow them.

 

[milehighmuscle]

It's usually very easy to identify a PBN if its built like that from the beginning.

As I see it, more sites these days start off as something else, then turn into PBNs through linksales.

Looking at the About page will usually be enough.

Thank you Bernard for your reply! What are you looking for on the About page that will typically show it may be a PBN?

Sorry, im fairly new to this so I appreciate your help!

So as someone who has sold PBN links since like 2014, the above stuff are all things I watch out for.

For instance, my premium network sites are designed to look like money sites and dish out links to people who have growing sites as well. More often than not, my sites look better than the sites I'm sending links to.
I mean not to toot my own horn, but one of the health network sites was even under the eyes of a Google reviewer a couple of months ago - it's completely unscathed. This site is also reviewed by a Dietician and uses schema to tell Google about the person.

Most PBNs, like my regular network are designed to avoid footprints, not manual reviews. Even then, I also create about pages, generate several authors, and even start the site with 5-10 niche-themed articles (based on the niche of the site).


"My question is how do you identify PBN links while doing due diligence when attempting to purchase an existing site? "

I mean most guest post sites these days are borderline link farms. In my opinion that's worse than a singular PBN link on a homepage being sent to your site - purely from an algorithmic/pattern perspective.

What's more likely to get sniffed out, a 1:1 PBN link (most people fuck this up to, a true PBN is private and should have a singular link) or a link farm/guest post site that dishes out links to tons of sites?


"In the backlink profile I just look for sites with high DR and low traffic."

This is kind of a logical fallacy in my opinion.

I mean when I buy sites for my networks, I don't even give a shit about traffic, I just want strong links.

If I'm buying a site to turn into a money site, I want strong links + relevancy in my niche. If the site has existing traffic, cool, but these days the auctions for domains are fucking wild. The chances of something dropping and going to GD Auctions with great links + traffic and not having to pay an arm and a leg for it are few and far between. Even the folks at ODYS.Global rarely have domains for sale with traffic - the sites just have strong links and great brand names.

With that stuff in mind, If I receive free links from a new niche site in my industry and it's built with a similar idea in mind, who gives a shit, it's a free link.

If I receive links from a skeleton PBN with the base WordPress theme and full links on the homepage, you disavow it and move on.


"Then I try and examine these sites to see if they have the characteristics of a PBN site (full blog posts on home page rather than excerpt, bulk unrelated content, homepage external links). Im still having trouble identifying which are PBNs and which are not."

So what you're describing isn't a true PBN then. It's a PBN designed for link sales - like my regular network. Again most sellers even approach that aspect of PBNs incorrectly. They want to load up the network with as many posts as possible, if it de-indexes the clients are none-the-wiser and they simply rinse repeat.

Fly-by-night providers don't tend to last long - in which case - who gives a shit about those links? They'll likely expire (get deleted) when the site gets deindexed or you can simply disavow them.

Thanks so much for your in depth response! Really appreciate all of this information and your expertise!

If I understand you correctly youre saying that its very difficult to identify a well made PBN and the PBNs that are poorly made I shouldn't really worry about because I can disavow those links or they will get deleted on their own?

I guess my worry is I buy a site where I couldn't identify it was propped up by PBN links then those links expire (get deleted). The site gets penalized and the site tanks. In your opinion what is the best way to avoid this? What kind of research would I do?

Im somewhat new to all of this so I greatly appreciate your time and knowledge!

 

[thisishatred]

If I understand you correctly youre saying that its very difficult to identify a well made PBN and the PBNs that are poorly made I shouldn't really worry about because I can disavow those links or they will get deleted on their own?

Correct.

Like I said, my premium network only takes on clients based on applications and is on par with most folks money sites. Right now the biggest of the bunch averages 800 clicks per day or like 20k+ organic per month.

I guess the phrasing "PBN" isn't optimal here. It's kind of like the folks who bastardized "niche edits" or "link insertions" and now folks equate that to mean nefarious links - which not all services are.

From what I've seen other providers sell they're more so like the folks you described - the fly by night providers. If you're seeing tons of content on a domain where the theme of the articles ranges from "What to look for in a plumber" to "how to buy extensions online" - its probably a PBN or a link farm.

I guess my worry is I buy a site where I couldn't identify it was propped up by PBN links then those links expire (get deleted). The site gets penalized and the site tanks. In your opinion what is the best way to avoid this? What kind of research would I do?

Links expiring and then a penalty occurring don't really happen - at least from what I've seen. Google has become quite good at simply ignoring most of the "trash" that's out there too.

You're more apt to get a penalty with the links live.

If you discover what I call skeleton PBNs - sites with default WordPress themes and full post gibberish on the homepage, just disavow them.

If you suspect that the past owner bought them and you're this worried about traffic potentially tanking, don't buy the site? You could disavow them and attempt to replace the link equity with other forms of "white-hat links" - like edits, guest posts, etc.

In terms of "research" - something to keep in mind too is that if you're using a tool like Ahrefs to check RDs, most folks block ahrefsbot. I actually stick with Majestic for checks for stuff like this because MJ12Bot (their crawler) is known to ignore directives. However, there isn't much else I'd suggest doing apart from the above. Are you able to request their WMT link report?


*Pro-tip for any other readers. You can get Majestic data from the Kwfinder tool suite. Their tool "linkminer" is data entirely pulled from Majestic's API (which is cheaper than going to majestic directly).

 

[bernard]

Thank you Bernard for your reply! What are you looking for on the About page that will typically show it may be a PBN?

First of all I look to see if there even is an About Page, some of the worse PBNs don't even have it.

Second, I check to see if there's a real person or team behind it. Is there a picture of a person? Is there a business registration number? Is there a phone number? Does it work?

If there is, then you can use Google Lens to check if it is a real person or a stockphoto. Now if it is a real person, then that is almost certainly not a PBN. If it is a stockphoto, then it doesnt have to mean it's not a real site. It could be an affiliate site, where many people don't like to put their face on.

Put it all together though and err on the side of caution.

Another way to check is to ask how the site makes money. Are there ads on the pages? Do they sell a product? Are there Amazon links?

Everyone wants to eat so if there is no obvious way they make money, then chances are they're a PBN.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Some other ideas are to check the outbound link profile. Usually people want co-citations to sites more powerful than the one they're trying to pump up. So if all the OBL's are huge sites except the one you're wanting to buy, that's a sign. And maybe there's less than a dozen or a couple dozen outbound links. Big sign.

And in that same regard, check the indexation count. Most private PBNs are built with efficiency in mind. If they can fool the algorithm, that's all they care about. They'll have all the articles all showing on the homepage (full text, I mean) so that the outbound link to the site you want to buy is on the homepage.

Also, another dead giveaway is that the site may have only ~5 articles published, plus an about and contact page. It's usually very slim. And if you want to spend even more time, check to see if all the pages that don't link to the site in question do end up linking to the article that links to the site you want to buy. Look for signs of page rank flow manipulation.

 

[milehighmuscle]

First of all I look to see if there even is an About Page, some of the worse PBNs don't even have it.

Second, I check to see if there's a real person or team behind it. Is there a picture of a person? Is there a business registration number? Is there a phone number? Does it work?

If there is, then you can use Google Lens to check if it is a real person or a stockphoto. Now if it is a real person, then that is almost certainly not a PBN. If it is a stockphoto, then it doesnt have to mean it's not a real site. It could be an affiliate site, where many people don't like to put their face on.

Put it all together though and err on the side of caution.

Another way to check is to ask how the site makes money. Are there ads on the pages? Do they sell a product? Are there Amazon links?

Everyone wants to eat so if there is no obvious way they make money, then chances are they're a PBN.

This is awesome! Thank you Bernard for this information. I didn't realize the About pages could help out with identifying PBNs.

Some other ideas are to check the outbound link profile. Usually people want co-citations to sites more powerful than the one they're trying to pump up. So if all the OBL's are huge sites except the one you're wanting to buy, that's a sign. And maybe there's less than a dozen or a couple dozen outbound links. Big sign.

And in that same regard, check the indexation count. Most private PBNs are built with efficiency in mind. If they can fool the algorithm, that's all they care about. They'll have all the articles all showing on the homepage (full text, I mean) so that the outbound link to the site you want to buy is on the homepage.

Also, another dead giveaway is that the site may have only ~5 articles published, plus an about and contact page. It's usually very slim. And if you want to spend even more time, check to see if all the pages that don't link to the site in question do end up linking to the article that links to the site you want to buy. Look for signs of page rank flow manipulation.

Hey Ryuzaki! Thank you for these other ideas. Im seeing now that it is a combination of multiple things that will help find out If a site has PBNs. There is really no clear cut method.

In the first section, youre discussing OBLs from the potential PBN site to huge sites. Not OBL from the site im looking to buy, is that correct?

Great information!

 

[Ryuzaki]

In the first section, youre discussing OBLs from the potential PBN site to huge sites. Not OBL from the site im looking to buy, is that correct?

Yes, correct. You analyze the OBL profile of the possible PBN site. It will include a link to the site you want to buy, of course. But if all others are to giant sites way out the league of the site you want to buy, it's another clue. Especially if there's only a handful of outbound links.

 

[bpc]

Look for signs of page rank flow manipulation.

As part of that, check to see if the site is running a 404 redirection plugin to funnel all the old link juice to the home page. If someone builds a pbn out of expired domains that is an easy way to make the most of any previous incoming links.