So, you’ve heard about PBNs – A Private Blog Network, but you don’t know the risks associated. No worries, we’ll break things down, but before let’s define what a PBN is, so there’s no room for confusion. A PBN is a series or ‘network’ of websites that put a large number of links to other websites. The aim is to use these links to manipulate search engine rankings.
A PBN’s main purpose is to hyperlink from each site to several domains. Backlinks are carefully linked to the product page and service articles, which are known as money pages.
Before you buy PBN links
It is quite easy to own a PBN chain. All you have to do is buy a bunch of reputable expired domain names and then post some basic content to each website. Each post will have a backlink that sends users to the primary website. This benefits the site’s domain authority, SEO, and rankings.
However, while it’s easy to own, it can also be quite a long and expensive process without the right tools. On the flip-side, FLATsite makes it particularly easy to develop and maintain a top-notch PBN system.
Here are five things you should know before you buy PBN links for your PBN network.
Not all backlinks are good
Irrelivant backlinks can weaken your rankings. Using poor PBN for backlinks will, over time, lower your keyword rankings because Google algorithms ranks backlinks according to relevance.The algorithm is designed to diagnose odd link patterns.
Since PBN uses expired domains, Google will start wondering why a website that has nothing to do with your niche is suddenly mentioning you. This can damage your keyword ranking and your ranking authority.
You can get penalized
PBN links are classified as black-hat SEO, and Google has several reasons to penalize black-hat SEO. But before we tell you what those reasons are, let’s explain what black-hat SEO is.
Black-hat SEO involves the spamming and abuse of the system to get higher rankings. It’s a pay-to-win tactic that’s considered to be dishonest.
Now, here are three reasons Google will penalize black-hat SEO.
1. It threatens Google’s ranking credibility
Google AI’s main priority is to rank quality, trustworthy sources that give users the best value. For that reason, Google prioritizes websites with authoritative backlinks.
As such, hyperlinks from these sites are expected to be legit; they’re telling users that the site they’re being linked to is trustworthy too. When this is done, the keyword rankings of the site that was linked to increases.
But black-cap SEO uses money to bypass the process, which threatens Google’s ranking credibility.
2. It neglects user experience
PBN links are geared towards increasing the keyword ranking of different websites. These may not be websites that users are interested in visiting or using their products or services.
If these websites have the ability to decide what people see and trust, even if they are a security risk, it becomes all about the websites, and the user experience is neglected.
3. It interferes with Google’s bottom-line
Given that rankings are supposed to be organic, they render Google AdWords useless when individuals and companies can pay for ranking. This means Google will end up losing revenue.
So, while black-hat SEO will give you benefits, they will not be for very long as they will be unprioritized and penalized as soon as they are discovered.
Build your own PBN
Instead of using PBN links, try building your own PBN system. That’s always a safer bet. You can manually create a PBN system. It is, however, costly and very tedious without the right tools. The most cost effective option is to use the services of sites like FLATsite to develop a beneficial PBN system. Here are a few tips to guide you before you start:
- Buy legitimate sites. Ensure the sites existed for legitimate purposes.
- Clean up the organic SEO on the sites and fix any backend problem identified.
- Use hyperlinks to link each site back to the main site. But don’t link all of them back to your site at one time.
- You can also create a PBN service and sell links to other sites. This helps to make link place appear more natural.
Summary
Developing a Private Blog Network has legitimate benefits but can be pretty expensive; they may still be labelled as black-hat SEO. As such, you run the risk of being penalized, which not only affects your branding, but it also can hurts your bottom-line.
If you want to build authority to your website over the long-term without the risk, opt to develop a PBN system on FLATsite. You can also opt to invest in white-cap techniques or manual backlink outreach. These are more organic and legitimate ways to increase your keyword and the overall ranking for your site.