Editorial Staff
Link building is a powerful off-page SEO tactic.
The right method can boost your ranking organically, while the bad one will get your site penalized by Google.
One of the great way to get your site penalized is by using private blog network, in which you need to avoid in all cost.
However, most of the people fell into this trap without knowing it.
How?
When they’re paying the so called “SEO expert” to boost their site SEO and have no idea what is their method on the SEO.
The result? Their site’s search performance get boosted and then get penalized by Google few months after.
This is why it is important for you to fully understand what is private blog network, how they work, and why they are being used by the black hat SEO practitioner.
After you finished this module, you’ll be able to avoid it and protect your site ranking once for all.
What is Private Blog Network?
Private Blog Network or PBN is a network of websites that used by black hat SEO practitioner in order to build link and manipulate search engine ranking.
It involves multiple websites that link to one another or to one website.
The PBN method could possibly drive a result, but it has not a long term value.
Over the time, Google continuously improving their algorithm to fight against PBNs.
The PBNs might work well years ago, but since Google’s algorithm is getting smarter, it become harder for the PBNs and Google will end up penalize the site once they caught any PBN practice.
How does Private Blog Network Work?
PBN sites are usually owned by an individual of group of people that working together to link another, called the PBNs.
The PBNs started by creating multiple sites. It could be hundred or even thousand of sites.
So, how they manage hundreds or thousands of sites?
They don’t. These sites are created purely for dirty link building tactics without any real value.
Even if there is any real content inside these PBN sites, it will just be a duplicate contents that are shared among all these PBN sites.
These sites are typically have the same content, template, link scheme, and everything.
While everything is just copy and paste, they are just created under different unique domains.
These PBN sites are linking to similar pages or to one another repeatedly.
Criteria of Private Blog Network
Having a multiple sites does not mean that you’re categorized under private blog network.
For example, there are number of media companies such as Thesoulpublishing, LLC Media that own multiple sites and link one another in their footer.
However, they won’t be flagged as PBN since their sites are different from another, contents are created originally from their writers.
Here are some of the criteria of private blog network:
1. Same Hosting
The PBN sites are hosted with the same IP and hosting since they’re typically owned by an individual.
You can use the online tool like SpyOnWeb.com to check if they are from unique IP address and name server ID.
2. Same or Hidden WHOIS
The PBN sites are owned by the same site owner with the same WHOIS database.
However, some of the PBN practitioner hide their WHOIS information from all their PBN sites.
So, if you find hidden WHOIS, mark it as a red flag.
3. Consist of Duplicate and Low Quality Content
Producing good quality contents for a hundred or thousand sites is just does not make sense for an individual or group of people to do it.
One way to manage all of these sites is just by duplicating content from one to another.
Typically, you will see a low quality sites with very thin contents around it.
The easy way to check this, just copy and paste a paragraph to Google and see if there is any website published it.
4. High DA & CF, but Low TF
Do a site audit and check the site metrics profile in tools like Ahrefs or Majestic.
Normally, the PBN site will have high domain authority with low level on other metrics.
This is why, we have equipped you with all the SEO metrics in the previous module.
5. High Interlinking Between Sites
PBN sites are typically linking to one another.
If you are given a list of websites, do the backlink profile audit with tools like Ahrefs.
Check if they are interlinking one to another with high amount.
How to Protect Your Site From PBN
There is no reputable and reliable SEO experts that recommend to use PBN.
Even if they practice PBN, they will not reveal it to their clients.
This is why, you need to protect your site from these PBN tactic.
1. Don’t Purchase Any SEO Service Without Transparent Method
A reputable SEO service will always be transparent on how their method on increasing their client’s ranking.
For example, they are transparent that they will do a link building by approaching a real high authority sites for you with the good SEO metrics such as high DA, high TF, high traffics, and so on.
If you find them trying to disguise their method for the excuse of “we can’t reveal our technique secret”, just forget about them.
Don’t risk your site to get penalized and losing your money in the same time.
2. Don’t Buy Link Without Proper Audit
Getting a low price for a high authority sites could be tempting, but you should do the site audit first.
Other than domain authority, ensure to always check their trust flow and number of traffics.
Don’t forget to visit their site too to check whether they are publishing a real content that intended for their readers or just for link building purpose. You know the difference.
White Hat SEO Will Eventually Win at The End
You might get frustrated when you noticed your competitor that has better ranking than you are actually using PBN method.
You could actually report them through a website complain. But if you don’t, don’t worry since the Google algorithm will catch them sooner or later.
While your black hat SEO competitors get busted by the algorithm, their site will get penalized, deindexed, and demoted from the search result ranking.
This is when your site will gain the advantage.
Remember, black hat SEO could get a quick and tempting result, but they are just temporary.
