A private blog network (PBN) is a group of websites controlled by a single entity with an SEO-specific purpose. A PBN build is the same thing, but in the more technical sense – a term used when speaking about the nuances of what makes any individual website in the network tick.
Generally – any restored old websites (from Archive.org or WayBackMachine types of directories) or new websites built out to create a network of niche relevant websites covering as many CMSes and platform types (making it more variant and natural looking) – in order to grow for SEO purposes to later use as highly relevant backlink network that only you have access to, is a PBN. The obvious benefit here is giving yourself the edge to rank above others trying to rank for the same niches in the same localities.
What are the main benefits of PBN builds?
Complete control over your network and the SEO it provides.
If you’re a careful SEO and prefer to have complete control over every aspect of your campaign, PBNs definately scratch that particular itch. You control your network from the very start, deciding what kind of SEO you use to power THE NETWORK up with, which backlinks you place on it, remove backlinks that yield you negative results, etc. No other SEO method such as guest posting, niche edits, etc – yield you the same level of control as a PBN does.
No time or money wasted on outreach.
Putting aside the fact that you have limited control over what a webmaster does with their website after they give you a backlink – the amount of time and effort spent scaling an effective outreach campaign for even a single website can be overwhelming. When you’re going the private blog network route – you eliminate the need to rely on other webmasters, their schedules and their timelines – to move your SEO forward at a pace and schedule that you want.
PBNs have so many great uses.
While 4 out of 5 people use PBNs in a traditional way that lacks any sort of creativity because they’re satisfied with the results they get out of the work they put in – many people realize that PBNs are very versatile in how they can be used to generate you traffic and leads. As a single example, we’ve seen great success in using PBN networks to blanket large volumes of long-tail keywords in niches to generate trickles of traffic on each of the individual PBN websites – and then placed appropriate squeeze page/lead gen pop-overs to turn the trickles of traffic multiplied by 50-100 websites into quite a sizeable amount of daily leads within the niche. From there, it’s just scaling. And as we’ve explained – this is a singular out of the box way to use PBNs we’ve had success with when doing our endless product research and testing.
So why do good PBNs take so much effort to build?
The problem with building private blog networks CORRECTLY, meaning in a way which you can continue to use them for years and years to come – are that the materials to build quality PBNs are not cheap and often require a lot of actual TIME for research which can’t be cut down with software or automation, making it even harder to scale.
Materials don’t seem expensive right away, but when one thinks about the fact that it takes months and months of maintenance and building PER website to create a powerful PBN – the costs begin to add up. To minimize footprints, good PBN builds are generally hosted uniquely, with unique IPs, contact details of domain owners, WHOis protection – so the network isn’t “discovered” through some common link (or footprint) – allowing Google to detect and sandbox your entire collection of websites. Routine security and maintenance of a single website generally wouldn’t be expensive – but when you’re having someone maintain security for 100s of your websites in your private blog network – once again, costs add up.
By far – the 2 biggest expenses, are the initial domain purchased and the on-going content costs to grow each website in the network. Finding quality, verified, non-dropped domains with stats that skip 6-12 months of WAITING for the domain to age and be SEO-valuable in Google’s eyes – is a time-consuming process and often runs the costs of a few hundred dollars PER domain. After that, since Google likes websites that continually update their content (like a real blog or website would) – the costs of articles for all the websites in a PBN over the course of a year – can get really expensive.
The time consumption doesn’t end at finally finding a good domain. Then comes the process of planning out the website structures and initial content – BUT in a manner that doesn’t become repetitive or leave footprints that come when someone is trying to build a sizeable PBN without any experience. Every website in the PBN should be unique in its own way – because in Google’s eyes, you want them to think there’s just 30 independant blogs, websites and wikis covering all the aspects of a specific niche and/or specific locality. Installing and editing unique website themes and plugin selections – along with designing the branding/logos for every website in the network (in a manner that once again, doesn’t leave footprints or look the same as the other sites built) and overall website development all make for an average of 7-10 hours per QUALITY PBN build. This means – if you’re doing this without help from someone like MashOn – a 30 site PBN will take around 200 hours to build. If you’re trying to grow your business, or affiliate income, or lead gen – you don’t have an extra 200 hours per project, and we understand that (and are here to accomodate just that).
Overall – private blog networks are an ideal white hat SEO strategy for anyone who’s looking for a higher level of control in their overall SEO campaign, or anyone who’s planning on taking over a niche with a long-term strategy.