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Link Building

How to Build a PBN in 2020 – Ultimate Private Blog Network Guide

Jon November 8, 2019 47 Comments

In 2013 I created the ultimate guide to expired domains and since then have built over 10,000 PBN sites the right way!

This new and improved guide has everything you need to  build a Private Blog Network in 2019 the right way! I get asked many questions about wether of not PBN backlinks are still powerful in todays SEO world and my answer is... yes and I have some data to show you just how PBN backlinks in 2019 still work in this case study here.

This MASSIVE 9,000+ word guide provides you with everything you need to build a powerful private blog network the right way easily and surprisingly cheap! 

This free guide is the result of years of experience, weeks of work, 10,000+ PBNs built, hundreds of customers, 230 comments on my last guide and dozens of people contributing questions.

​Thank You to everyone who has helped make this guide the MONSTER it is!

I truly hope that by the end of this how to build a PBN guide you will have gained a lot of valuable information that you can apply to your sites.

You will learn how to...​

  • ​Find premium expired domains that are powerful, relevant and free of SPAM
  • Build an effective PBN with no footprint
  • Use a PBN the "right way" to improve your rankings
  • Use an exact repeatable process (with my procedures)
  • Build a quality PBN at a remarkably low cost!

This guide has everything you need to build a powerful PBN by yourself but if you are tight on time and want to simply pay my team to build you your PBN right visit my service...

  • The Best One Click - Done For You PBN Building Service
Jon Gillham
AuthorityWebsiteIncome.com & LightningRank.com 
​

This Guide Works - Less than 10% of the 10,000+ PBN sites my team have created have ever been de-indexed!

90 %
% Sites Still Indexed

I have kept my original Ultimate Guide to Expired Domains post up to date but it covered a lot of different topics not just focused on building a PBN. This post is meant to be for the action orientated among you who want to build your own PBN!

Included in this post is all the newest tools you can leverage to build a PBN by yourself for less money than ever before!

This post will NOT show you ALL (some advanced/complex strategies I use are not shared) the different strategies I use in my done for you services but will provide you with everything you need to build a HIGHLY effective PBN for yourself as economically as possible!

Want My Team to Build You A PBN?

Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!

  • 100% Done For You
  • Indexation Guaranteed!
  • Access to Better Domains & Hosting
  • Remarkably cost competitive (often less expensive) compared to building it yourself
  • 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
1 Click Done For You!

Everything You Need to Build Your Own Effective PBN As Easily and Cheaply as Possible!

This guide is free of fluff and as a result may gloss over some of the nuances. As a result there is a glossary and questions section at the bottom to try and fill in any gaps.

Finally... Enjoy & Good Luck Building!​

How is This Ultimate Guide Organized?

Table of Contents
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
How is This Ultimate Guide Organized?
Part 1 - How to Find Expired Domain for Your PBN
Done For You - Expired Domain Finding Service
Do It Yourself
Recommended Option – PBN Lab
Metrics to Target
Importance of Relevancy
How to Check Expired Domains for SPAM
Register Domain
7 Steps To Successfully Buying and Registering a PBN Domain
How to Get Fake WhoIs Data
How to Buy and Register a PBN Domain Correctly
Part 2 – How to Host a PBN
5 Requirements to Host Your PBN Sites:
Done for You Option
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Easiest Option - New Generation of Class A Diversity Hosting
Benefits of EasyBlogNetworks Hosting
Easy Blog Networks Tutorial
Part 3 How to Setup a PBN Site
Done for You Service
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Create Decent Quality Content Inexpensively
Identify Articles to Be Created
Post a Job on ODesk
Hire 2 Writers for Each Group of Keywords
Send Them a Message with Instructions
Receive, Review & Upload Articles
Build a Great Looking PBN Site That Can Pass a Manual Review!
SetupWordPress
Add Content
Finish the Layout
Part 4 – How to Rank With Your PBN
Articles
Number and Location of Links
Anchor Text & Destination
Final Result – PBN Example
How Much Did This Cost?
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Glossary
PBN Questions

Part 1 - How to Find Expired Domain for Your PBN

BUY HERE Option 1 - Done For You - Expired Domain Finding Service

If you are looking to purchase expired domains to use for your PBN my team has the following service 

See Expired Domain Plans and Pricing

BUY HERE - Option 2 - PBNHQ Marketplace

For a great marketplace that offers Expired Domains at reasonable prices and domains that have been manually SPAM reviewed (very rare) I recommend checking out this marketplace...

Manually Reviewed Expired Domain Marketplace

Do It Yourself

If you are looking to find domains yourself, I would suggest using RegisterCompass to help sort through domains. It provides you with access to both expired domains as well as auction domains.

Metrics to Target

What metrics should we be targeting?

Here is the table I like to use for reference. Finding a clean good domain is difficult…finding a clean Amazing domain is incredibly hard!!

Metric

Good

Premium

Epic

CF (Citation Flow)

15

20

25

TF (Trust Flow)

15

20

25

PA (Page Authority

15

20

30

DA (Domain Authority)

15

20

30

NOTE - Good domains seem to provide the highest ROI. Meaning building out more relevant domains that have Good metrics is the most efficient way to improve your sites rankings. I target a site that hits 3/4 metrics to put it in each group. EPIC/Amazing domains are very rare and can cost thousands!

Importance of Relevancy

What should you emphasize more? Relevance or Authority? My preference is to consider both and get a natural mix. But having a relevant domain provides a few benefits…

  • Relevancy is considered by Google (meaning a relevant but less powerful link improves your rankings as much as a more powerful but less relevant domain
  • It is easier to appear natural. When you have a site MinnesotaHomeShow.com pointing to InkJetRefills.com or something similarly unrelated it screams of PBN. However if you had MinnesotaPaperPrintShow.com linking to InkJetRefills.com it would make a lot more sense. (all sites in this example are 100% made up)
  • Creating content to be relevant is easier if the site is reasonably relevant. Natural content can be done in almost any combination but it is easier if the sites are relevant. I had a client in the Adult Diaper niche and we were able to generate links from sites in a bee keeping niche.

Enter your text here...

How to Use Register Compass to Find Expired Domains

Once you have a RegisterCompass account, you will want to go to the Domain Search section.

Step 1: Setting Filters

You will want to set your filters to the following, you can play around with this to find out what brings you the best results but we find these help to find the best quicker.

  • Exclude digits (0-9)
  • Only want .ca, .com, .org and .net
  • Set Domain Authority to 10

If you are looking for a specific niche, you can use the the topical trust flow filter by clicking on it and choosing the niche you are looking for domains in.

Step 2: Eliminate Spammy Domain Names

Any domains that look spammy are usually spammy so no need to check those but highlight the cell in your assigned colour so that others do not check it.

Spammy Domain Names

Non-Spammy Domain Names

Ahjzyz.com (doesn’t look english)

blueofcolors.com

Anti-aging-ratgeber.net (too many hyphens, should have 0-2 only)

calgarybodypaint.com

Cheap-jordanssale.com (usually anything with cheap in it is spammy)

Glcsc.org (this may be acronym)

Step 3: Check Metrics

Any domain that doesn’t look spammy we then run them through 3 different tools:

  • MajesticSEO (check Trust Flow and Citation Flow)
  • Archive (Check the history of the site)
  • OpenSiteExplorer (Check the Page Authority and Domain Authority)

**** if opensiteexplorer doesn’t work, or you don't want to pay an alternative you can use is SmallSEOTools 

We are looking for the following metrics:

  • Page authority= PA (we want over 20)
  • Domain Authority = DA (we want over 15)
  • Citation Flow (we want over 15)
  • Trust Flow (we want over 15)

NOTE: If one falls below what we want that’s okay as long as the other three meet or exceed their number.

First thing we need to do is check the Page Authority (PA) and Domain Authority (DA) of the site using opensiteexplorer.com. We will take a look at the domain fashionbeautybodyimage.com as an example.

You want to check both the non www (Root) and the www version (URL) to see which has the better metrics.

From the above photo we can see that domain has the following metrics:

DA 10 (doesn’t meet metric, we want 15+)

PA 1 (doesn’t meet metric we want 20+)

From the above photo we can see that domain has the following metrics:

DA 10 (doesn’t meet metric, we want 15+)

PA 20 (meets metric)

As we can tell the root domain (non www) will be no good as both fail the DA and PA metric check. However the URL domain (www) so far only has 1 metric below, so we will now go ahead and check the URL domain in majestic.com.

Please note: If both the root domain and the URL domain don’t have at least 1 metric above the minimum then you would find another domain on the list and try again.

If the root domain or the URL domain has at least one metric above the minimum then you will move onto using majestic.com. First thing we want to check is the Trust Flow and Citation Flow of either the root domain or the url domain (whatever one passed step 6). In the example using fashionbeautybodyimage.com only the URL domain passed the metric check, so we will only check this domain.

Type in domain and click the magnifying glass

Click on the correct domain that you want to look at. In this example we want to look at the URL because the root domain failed step 6.

Check the Trust Flow (TF) and Citation Flow (CF) to see if they meet they metrics.

From this photo we can see that:

TF is 19 (meets metric as its 15+)

CF is 20 (meets metric as its 15+)

Look at all 4 metrics and see if 3 out of 4 meet the minimum

What We Need

What the Domain is

PA 20+

PA20 (meets metric)

DA 15+

DA 10 (doesn’t meets metric)

CF 15+

CF 20(meets metric)

TF 15+

TF 19 (meets metric)

From the table we can see that 3 out of 4 of the metrics are met with this domain so we can move onto 8e. If the domain doesn’t meet 3 out of 4, then the domain is no good.

Step 4: Checking the Backlinks

​Checking a site to make sure it has a clean backlink profile is VERY hard and the step that most people screw up!

Originally this section of the article was posted at How to Analyze Backlinks

I use MajesticSEO(not an affiliate link) to analyze backlinks because of the graphic representation of the link profile which makes it incredibly easy to quickly see the quality of the backlink profile.

Anchor Text

Anchor Text manipulation is pretty easy to spot in Majestic SEO. Using the Anchor Text section there are 2 key things to look for..

  • First unnatural anchor text density
  • Secondly obvious SPAM in anchor text keywords (porn/poker/pharmaceutical or completely un-relevant keywords)
    • Unnatural Anchor Text Density
      • bedandbreakfastparksville.ca – Not as obvious an example but with the large number of links and only 3 different anchor texts this site shows clear signs of manipulation.
      • naturesgoldspecialties.ca – This one is very obvious, 95% all with the same keyword – avoid!
    • Obvious SPAM in Anchor Text
      • classic-purse.com – This example is subtle! Often the spam is far more obvious with Porn/Pharmaceutical/Poker or other highly SPAMMED niches like PayDay loan anchor text. Whenever there are obvious signs of anchor text manipulation avoid it! In cases like the one below we need to ask ourselves if the anchor text could naturally occur in the way that it is being shown?

Link Metrics

  • Large difference Trust Flow to Citation Flow – Links build naturally should be balanced between citation flow and trust flow (or for MOZ PA/DA should not show a large (~3x or more) difference between them)
    • bushybride.ca – Here there is an obvious mis-match with Trust Flow = 2 and Citation Flow = 15. Ideally we want that ratio to be close to 1:1 but anywhere up to 1:3 can naturally occur but be cautious whenever you get below 1:2 Trust:Citation.
  • Root to URL completely different – This one is often miss-understood. When there are good metrics for one domain and then none for another it often means that links were intentionally built to one URL and then none to another. This represents link manipulation!
    • goteamintraining.com – Here the metrics on the Root Domain are ok but then the metrics at URL are non-existent!

VS…

  • Concentration of Links on the TF vs CF Map – This is one of the reasons why Majestic is so great. A quick look at the TF vs CF graph can tell a lot about the backlink profile. The ideal graph is a series of domains spread along the line moving 1:1 from the origin. Two indications of a SPAMMY backlink profile is when there is an unreasonable concentration of links all in one location or when all the links are low trust. On the graph each dot represents a single link and the Trust and Citation score of that link.
    • whoswhere.ca – In this example shown below there are 2 concentration and another grouping along the bottom representing Trust Flow on each of those links of ZERO. Typically what occurs is when a link building service is purchased a lot of the links will come from similar sites with the same CF/TF which results in concentrations on the TF vs CF graph.
    • bedandbreakfastparksville.ca – Here there is one single high density concentration of links, there is a chance with this link profile that it could occur naturally but this is a warning flag. Whenever there is a single concentration of links on the TF vs CF graph there is a reasonable expectation that the links are artificially created.

Type of Links

  • Non-Relevant Link Pages/Directories/Blog Network Pages
    • legal-professionals.net (non-relevant links) – Non-relevant backlinks like the ones to this site provide no value.
    • trendier-diaper-bags.com (directory) – Here is an example of a site that only uses directory links. Relevant human-reviewed directories are good but having only non-relevant free directories are bad!
    • nadafhospitality.com (directory) – Here is another example of too many low value link/directory pages.
    • howtotreatkidneystones.net (PBN & Hacked Sites) – Sometimes most metrics can look good but when you visit the pages linking to it it becomes obvious the links are all blog network links or sites that have been hacked.
    • kitchenexhaust.info (SPAM sites) – When the sites linking to the URL are only SPAM sites then it is obvious the site provides no value and should be avoided.
    • theweddingdiamonds.info (non-relevant directories) – Again relevant directories and link pages can be natural however, low value directories as shown by these links are bad.
    • whoswhere.ca (Blog Network) – There is the famous quote from Judge Potter Stewartstating in regards to Porn vs art “I know it when I see it” and this applies to most of us who look at websites and can quickly determine if the site is built only for links or not. When the majority of the links pointing to a domain was clearly built for the purposes of providing a link, like in this example, we should avoid it.
  • Blog Comment or Forum SPAM
    • allhandbags.info (Forum) – Blog comments and forum SPAM are old low value black-hat tactics that still many domains have links from. In these cases it is important to look at the comment and forum post and just think if it is reasonable. Blog comments and forum links that are real are fine, blog comments and forum links that are only left for the purpose of the link are bad! Another fast way to tell is to see if there are A LOT of useless comments on the post…if that is the case then the site likely has auto-approve comments on and has been hammered by low-value black hat SEOs.
  • Foreign Language Links
    • fantastic-bags.com – Here is an example of english links on foreign language websites. This is almost always a sign of link manipulation and if spotted should be avoided.
Step 5: Checking the site in Archive

Check archive.org to ensure it was not a foreign site but was a real english site.

 Click on a few blue circles to see what the site use to look like.

  • 9b. The sites should have been real sites that are in english. If the content is foreign then it is no good. The image below is an example of a good site.

Screen Shot 2016-08-02 at 7.27.38 PM.png

After you have checked a few, if it looks like it was always a real site and didn't change themes dramatically, or was used as a PBN in the past then it should be good.

13 Point Pre Purchase Checklist

Originally published here (Done for you PBN Service)

Relevance

  • Highly or moderately relevant. Is it conceivable that this website would naturally link to your money site? If you think it would conceivably naturally link to your site than it is moderately relevant. If there is no way it would link to your site unless completely randomly I do not consider it relevant.

Metrics

  • Page Authority (from OpenSiteExplorer.com I use DomainSpoon or my custom tool to check) 15+
  • Domain Authority (from OpenSiteExplorer.com I use DomainSpoon or my custom tool to check) 15+
  • Trust Flow (from MajesticSEO.com) 15+
  • Citation Flow (from MajesticSEO.com) 15+

Spam Check

  • Check anchor text for Porn, Pharmaceuticals, Poker or foreign language anchor text in Majestic SEO – If any signs of this kind of anchor text do not buy!
  • Natural Profile (no SEO) – Check backlinks for signs of blog network links, comment spam or directory spam – Use your discretion but if it looks like someone was doing low value SEO on the domain do not buy it!
  • Does the exact match anchor text look natural? Below 15% at least – If no Do Not Buy
  • Review website in Archive.org and see if the domain had content not related to the domain name – If the content does not make sense with the domain name it means it was already used as an expired domain (poorly used) – Do not buy it!

Redirection/Duplicate Check

  • Check if the site was last redirected to a new site by checking the most recent page in Archive.org to see if it was being redirected to a new site. If it was redirected before expiring then most of the juice seems to stay with the redirection. Do not buy.
  • Also check if all the old content has been moved to a new site – this may mean even though the redirection did not show up in Archive.org they did a 301 redirect on the old URL and Google has passed all the link juice to the new site. Usecopyscape.com or this free alternative for this.

Registrar History

  • Check the registrar history if it has been registered and dropped multiple times you need to be confident it was not abused by checking it in Archive.org. You can check the number of times a site has been registered by visiting –http://whois.domaintools.com

Register Domain

Registering the domain is a relatively easy process but there are a few critical things you need to do to make sure you don’t either lose your domains or expose your network…

7 Steps To Successfully Buying and Registering a PBN Domain

  • Use FakeWhois ideally or PrivacyProtection if you prefer
  • Use a “Real” email – buying 10 phone verified emails for Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail on Market.Source-Wave.com is an efficient option and be sure to verify each domain by emaila. Gmail – 10 phone verified accounts for $5b. Yahoo – 10 phone verified accounts for $5
  • Don’t register all your domains at one registrar (GoDaddy, Name.com & NameCheap are all very popular)
  • Don’t registrar all your domains at the same time (spread out over a couple days)
  • Mix up the TLDs don’t use all .info, .org, .com, .net, .co, .ca etc
  • Create one master email to forward all your free emails too so that you can keep track of the confirmation
  • BONUS TIP - For additional benefit us the same Alias information on the WhoIs data on the About/Contact page

We register domains at different registrars, This guide will go through GoDaddy and NameCheap registration for example. other registrars have some differences.

How to Get Fake WhoIs Data

  • 1. Buy an inventory of Phone Verified free email accounts
    • a. Gmail – 10 phone verified accounts for $5
    • b. Yahoo – 10 phone verified accounts for $5
  • 2. Forward those emails to a central email for managing your PBN domains
  • 3. Generate Fake WhoIs namea. http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
  • 4. Correct the Address to ensure it shows up as a real address
    • a. To find a correct address and other contact information we use search from any American or Canadian fast food locator website for examplehttp://www.fastfoodmaps.com
    • b. Advanced Option - There is another method using Google map
      • i. go to google maps and search for any city. It will usually take you to what it considers the city center. There look for a 3 way intersection. Since it's a 3 way intersection, one road will end in dead end. Click on the beginning of road and see what address does google display.
      • ii. It could be something like 200 blahblah street. As you keep moving up the street, it most likely will increase like 240 blahblah, 260 blahblah. You get the point. Then you enter 180 blahblah street in search box. Even though it doesn't exist, google will most likely still show this address.
    • c. BONUS – Reflect the WhoIs alias on the About/Contact and even homepage
    • d. BONUS – If this is for local SEO use an alias/address from the local area you are looking to rank for

How to Buy and Register a PBN Domain Correctly

GoDaddy

  • login to the registrar account.
  • find the search box and enter the domain name. click search
  • When you get the domain available, click “continue to cart”
  • Leave “Keep my personal info public” selected and click “proceed to checkout”
  • Click “Use alternate domain registrant contact information”
  • 6. You will have this popup, fill it as you can see at the second section in this guide. Important! Make sure that you checked “Apply this contact information to all 4 contact tabs for all domains.” down of the form. and remove all existing information.

NameCheap

  • After login to the account and chose the new domain, you should change auto-renew option to on and delete WhoisGaurd. Then Click to “Confirm Order”
  • Click to “Review domain configuration”
  • Select “Add New Contact” from Registrant Contact dropbox

Part 2 – How to Host a PBN

Hosting PBN sites is not easy but this section will help you cut through the crap and provide you with a very practical solution!

Simplest PBN Hosting Option!

5 Requirements to Host Your PBN Sites:

  • Each site must be on a unique or shared class A IP with a lot of other “real” sites.
  • The servers must be geographically spread out. All PBN sites hosted in the same data-center would be an easy footprint for Google to spot.
  • The host must not send me a “to much bandwidth” email after 10 visitors and try to force me to upgrade to a more expensive package. This can be very frustrating when my team has set up sites only to have to move them because the hosting company tries to force me to upgrade even though I know my sites are not pulling much bandwidth.
  • The uptime and speed of the host must be acceptable. I don’t expect extremely high numbers here but to expect average up time. Several hosts (fatCow in particular) I have had problems with uptime.
  • Ease of use of the host must be such that my VA can easily build the PBN site (sorry IXWebHosting but you take too much work to set up WordPress!)

Done for You Option

As you will find out properly hosting PBN sites can be a massive pain! Even with quality shared hosts there is a lot of effort that needs to go into keeping sites up and running.

My team can take care of this headache with our Done For You PBN Creation and Management.

Want My Team to Build You A PBN?

Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!

  • 100% Done For You
  • Indexation Guaranteed!
  • Access to Better Domains & Hosting
  • Remarkably cost competitive compared to building it yourself
  • 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
1 Click Done For You PBN!

Easiest Option - New Generation of Class A Diversity Hosting

Although this isn’t the best PBN hosting option (multiple shared hosts is the best PBN hosting option) for the purposes of this post it is the best option for someone looking to build and manage a PBN on their own efficiently.

BulkBuyHosting – Currently the best push button PBN hosting option!

Simplest PBN Hosting Option!

EBN takes the concept of of a centralized dashboard connecting multiple popular hosting accounts and connects them seamlessly!

Benefits of BulkBuy Hosting

  • Popular hosting providers used (GoDaddy, BlueHost etc)
  • One click wordpress setup
  • Automatic updates
  • Uptime monitoring
  • Network organizing for larger PBNs
  • Ongoing Indexation Check
  • Ongoing Metric Checks

All in one dashboard…

Second Best Option - Easy Blog Networks Tutorial

  • Signup at EBN – Here
  • Click “New” and enter blog details
  • Go to your registrar and change your DNS as instructed.
  • Login directly with one click from your dashboard and complete the customization of your site. This hosting option is not quite as good as having your own shared hosting accounts to spread your sites across but it is a very close second!

Part 3 How to Setup a PBN Site

Done for You Service

Again my team produces some pretty incredible sites and would be happy to produce sites for you.

If you are interested in a complete done for you solution from start to finish for a PBN then have a look at my offer here.

Want My Team to Build You A PBN?

Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!

  • 100% Done For You
  • Indexation Guaranteed!
  • Access to Better Domains & Hosting
  • Remarkably cost competitive compared to building it yourself
  • 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
1 Click Done For You PBN!

Create Decent Quality Content Inexpensively

One of the most difficult parts about building a PBN site is getting quality articles created inexpensively.

This process is NOT easy and as you scale it is one of the most difficult things to do at scale.

Right not my business can be producing as many as 700 articles! Continuing to deliver quality at this scale is very difficult.

We refuse to use spun articles and try to strike a balance between quality, cost and quantity.

Here is the strategy I first shared in my Quality Cheap Articles post that still remains valid.

This strategy hadnever been shared before and I had reservations about revealing this part of my process for getting articles written since I know it will likely be copied. But, I made a commitment with this site that I would be 100% transparent so in the name of that here is my step by step process for creating quality articles.

I use UpWork for almost all my hiring needs. The benefit of UpWork that I love is that you can easily assign a team manager to take care of hiring/firing/supervising tasks. I simply set up a process, teach a team manager it and then let them run with it while I monitor.

Over the last 8 years me and my team managers have paid for over 66,000 hours of work and worked with 1,404 contractors!

Every time I check these numbers scare me! Huge!

Only $50k (I Wish!)

In UpWork I have a team created called my “Content Creation” team and it is managed by one of my project managers.

The system works like this…

Identify Articles to Be Created

I have a few different simple Google Document spreadsheets for my various projects with a typical list of…

  • Website
  • Title(target keyword)
  • Type of content (500, 750 or 1,000 word blog posts)
  • Link to eventual Google document of the article (for when the article is created)
  • Link to published URL (either on my site or another page online)

These details are all added directly into my  

Post a Job on ODesk

The job on ODesk doesn’t have to be anything special. The key to hiring good writers is understanding what they are looking for and providing it. My ideal writer is looking for an opportunity to get 5* feedback and steady work. I am looking for someone who is…

  • A Native English Speaker (USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia)
  • Has writing experience
  • College educated
  • Newer to UPWork and looking for experience/exposure•
  • Returning to the workforce and hungry to prove themselves

These qualities typically reflect themselves in a stay at home mom returning to the workforce or recent college graduates who is looking to get experience.

Here is my article writing job posting I like to use…

I have a quick 10 article writing job if you are interested in getting some 5* feedback on your ODesk profile and potential long term work.

I will provide you with the article titles and would like you to research them and then write 500 word articles

Required:
– Native English
– Interested in completing this job quickly for the fixed bid amount and receiving 5* feedback
– interested in potential longer term writing assignment after the successful completion of this job
– Bid at or below the $30 for 10 articles

Hire 2 Writers for Each Group of Keywords

No need to interview since there is very little you can learn to better inform your decision. By not interviewing you take on 2 risks…

  • Writer is not serious and does not complete the work – However, I don’t believe interviewing would reduce this risk and the consequence of not getting your articles is minor since you are hiring 2 writers for each group of keywords.
  • You receive of sub-par quality content – Again, this risk is minor since you have 2 writers working for each group of articles and if the content is decent(which it almost always is)

Many people will disagree with me on this but hiring them right away without an interview saves me and my team a lot of time!

My 2 Reasons for Hiring 2 Writers for Each Group of Keywords:

  • Timing – Some percentage (around 25%) of writers will not follow through on the contract so by having 2 writers I will have a high chance that articles will be ready for the site when I am ready for them.
  • Quality – Sometimes even when I hire my ideal candidate the quality of content is lower than I want on my main site. So by having 2 writers I have 2 articles to choose from on what to post.

Since my PBNs I am creating are relevant PBNs if I end up with too many articles I can easily use the articles on another site with an adjusted title.

Send Them a Message with Instructions

Here are the instructions I send via UPWorkas soon as my team manager hires them, this email is nothing special but lays out what deliverables are expected and when they are expected. A great podcast if you are interested in running an efficient team is Manager Tools who teach the basic principle of project management is defining “who is doing what by when”.

One change I made to this template that improved the number of writers that completed their articles was asking for a small action right away “email me confirming you have received and understand these instructions”.

Welcome to the team. I really look forward to working with you!

My name is _____ and I am the team lead here, please email at _______ to confirm you have received this email right away.

If you ever have any questions or concerns you can get in touch with Jon the owner at _______

Here are the 10 articles each article needs to be 500+ words and 100% unique…

Title 1

Title 2

…

Title 10


Following the general instructions provided at the link below (specifically section 4)

https://websiteincome.com/quality-article-writing-using-a-template/

Please send all articles in individual .doc form to the emails above.

Hopefully you can complete all 10 in 1 week, 5* feedback and more work will follow.

If you have any questions please contact me.

Thanks and I look forward to speaking with you more.

_______ (Team Lead)

Receive, Review & Upload Articles

Once the articles have been received they should be checked for the following…

  • Plagiarism – Free checker or CopyScape
CopyScape
  • Quality – Review the article to see if it is good enough to go onto the PBN. A tool that can quickly help improve the quality of an article is Grammarly.
Grammarly

My Content Creation Manager then uploads each article once it has been improved with Grammarly to a dropbox folder for my website creation team to pick up and publish.

In addition to uploading to the dropbox folder my Content Creation Manager updates the .

How many Articles? This question has no perfect answer but my belief is that a site with less than 5 articles looks suspicious. For that reason and with unfortunately very little data to back it up I have decided that each site will have around 4-7 articles and we vary this for each client with our Done For You Service.

Build a Great Looking PBN Site That Can Pass a Manual Review!

​

Question 1 – Do I use WordPress for all my PBN sites? My golden rule is whenever faced with a question ask myself if I believe this setup would be naturally occurring in Google and therefore nothing statistically significant sticking out. Based on asking this question do I think it is reasonable that another 5, 10 or 20 sites all running wordpress could link to the target Money Site? My believe is that yes as long as there is some other form of promotion occurring than having all the PBN sites be running wordpress is very low risk.

Question 2 – Do I block backlink Spiders to hide the PBN? I strongly disagree with a lot of people online about this one! My argument is simple, lets run through a simple mental experiment…

  • Q - What type of sites install lines of code that tell Backlink Crawlers(Like Moz, AHrefs, Majestic) to not index their sites and their links?
  • A – PBN sites or other shadier sites that all have something to hide from someone including Google.
  • Q – Is the code that was entered to tell the crawlers not to index the links visible to Google?
  • A – Yes
  • Q – Given that only shady sites enter a few specific lines of code visible to Google does it make sense that Google could look for this code as an initial indication of a potentially suspicious site?
  • A – Absolutely! And the reason I recommend against it in 95% of the situations.

There are a few exceptions… when the risk of being detected by competitors is higher than the risk of being detected by Google it makes sense to use these plugins.

To keep it simple if you believe there is a higher than 10% chance that one of your competitors is cut-throat enough they will be reverse engineering your link profile and reporting you than you should consider hiding your network.

SetupWordPress

This entire setup process is made easier with EasyBlogNetworks but has remained very similar over the years and proven itself with my de-indexation rate of under 10% ever!

Some of these plugins are now defunct but there are many similar options.

Change general settings

  • Title, tagline and description similar to old site but should not be the exact same (we dont want to be mistaken as the same as the old website (archive.org) (WayBack Machine Alternative)

Change Permalinks

  • Vary which setting you choose and sometimes use the custom structure /%postname%/ or other variation you choose. NEVER use the default

Discussion

  • Unselect the email me when someone leaves a comment option

Install Theme

  • Install a different free good looking theme everytime and make changes to them options as required. Pick a theme that doesn’t require a lot of modifications.

AntiSpam Plugin

  • Vary which plugin is installed on each site, use one of the following
    • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cookies-for-comments/
    • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/defensio-anti-spam/
    • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/growmap-anti-spambot-plugin/
    • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bad-behavior/

Install a Sitemap Plugin

  • Vary which sitemap you install
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bwp-google-xml-sitemaps/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-realtime-sitemap/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-sitemap/

SEO Plugin

  • Use an SEO plugin and configure
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/platinum-seo-pack/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-ultimate
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-seo/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/headspace2/

Link Checker

  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/broken-link-checker/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/outbound-link-manager/

No Follow No Index

  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/robots-meta/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-meta-robots/

Create Email & Forward to _____@gmail.com

  • Vary – Info, admin, administrator, webmaster @domainname.com
  • Following the Domain Registration process above you can use the same email as the WhoIs for a perfect setup.

Create a Contact Form (no follow & no index it)

  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-plugin/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/ajax-contact-me/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/custom-contact-forms/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-contactme/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/si-contact-form/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contact-form-7

Privacy Policy Page (no follow & no index it)

  • Create a “privacy policy” page. Set it to NOFOLLOW, NOINDEX
      • http://www.generateprivacypolicy.com/ (make sure to spin it if you use the same one everytime)
      • http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/index.php
      • Use others from other sites and Ctrl-F and replace the necessary parts

Install a related post plugin

  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/contextual-related-posts/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/yet-another-related-posts-plugin/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/efficient-related-posts/

Install a Social Share Button/Bar etc

Install one social sharing button plugin

  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/sharebar/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-toolbar/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/socializer/
  • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/slick-social-share-buttons/

Interlinking

  • To help with internal linking please set up one of these plugins and link to the original articles that have been made with some generic terms like home, about, contact, visit to ensure some interlinking will occur. 3 links per page max
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cross-linker/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/seo-automatic-links/

Speed Up Website

  • Limiting the draw on the server is important when building out these sites. Install one of these plugins to help speed up the website. Make sure you select the option that DOES NOT cache for signed in users(if its available)
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-super-cache/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/w3-total-cache/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-cache/

Redirects

  • It is important that you identify the old URLs from archive.org and do 301 redirects from the old URL to the new URL. If you are unable to get content to create a new page do a 301 redirect to the homepage.
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/redirection/
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/quick-pagepost-redirect-plugin
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/simple-301-redirects/

404 to 301 redirects

  • There will be some pages that you will not be able to find and 301 redirect to the correct page so this plugin will allow us to 301 redirect all broken links to our website to the homepage
      • http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/404-redirected/

Remove Old Content

  • Remove hello world and sample page

Add Content

  • From follow the link to the created content in the dropbox folder
  • Publish 5 articles immediately
  • Confirm title is relevant
  • Include the more tag around ~75% of the time
  • Include an image (~25%-~75% of the time)
  • Include a video from YouTube (~25%-~75% of the time)
  • Ensure there are subheadings
  • Ensure there are bullet points
  • Ensure tags are used – vary the number
  • Select 1 category
  • Complete SEO plugin settings
  • Link to 1 or more posts on the site
  • Link to 1 or more relevant authority sites
  • Do not link to money site in the first articles Schedule the remaining articles at 1 month intervals
  • Follow the above checklist
  • Link to the money site on the specified articles based on the – include the link above the more tag ~50% of the time

Finish the Layout

Modify Graphics

  • Make sure any graphics on the page (slider) etc are relevant
  • Include a custom logo on the sites

Widget Area – HomePage Description

  • Ensure somewhere in the sidebar there is text with a description of the site that is similar (BUT NOT THE SAME) as the original site

Mirror the original layout

  • If the original layout had a left or right sidebar match it

Widget Area (vary the layout with each site)

  • Links widget to relevant authority sites (not the money site)!
  • Video Widget – relevant video
  • News RSS widget
  • Custom Menu
  • Blogroll – link to other similar blogs if applicable
  • Ad – include the image of a relevant Ad and link to the home site – do not monetize with my affiliate links

Final Review – Does the site look/feel “real”? – If Yes done

Part 4 – How to Rank With Your PBN

Here is the exact training I originally created to train my team on how to make the most of the PBNs for our clients!

How do you get the most out of a Private Blog Network while at the same time minimizing your risk of Google penalizing you?

This section outlines the strategies I recommend when using your own PBN.

First let me share my general philosophy:

I would rather have a simple to follow safe strategy then a perfectly optimized strategy”

Jon Gillham

With that in mind here are the guidelines my team follows when building PBNs for me or clients and how I recommend people use their own PBN.

This is not the only way but it is what I have found is the right balance of easy to understand and effective!

Overview of Part 4 – How to Most Effectively use a PBN

Here is a super short summary of the guidelines in this section of the guide.

  • All Links Must Be As Natural As Possible!
  • Articles
  • Frequency – 1 article per week is ideal, 1 per month per site is great and 1 per site every 5 months is the minimum to keep your site fresh
  • Quality – Articles must be of reasonable quality (can’t be spun and I recommend native English writers)
  • Length – Article length should vary from 500 words to 1000 words
  • Relevancy – Articles should be relevant to both the PBN site and the money site
  • Rich Media in Articles – Include both images and video in posts in varying quantities
  • System I use to get inexpensive high quality articles created – here (and shared above in this Ultimate Guide to Building a PBN)
  • Number and Location of Links
  • Number of Links – 10 links max per site if the PBN site IS relevant and 1-2 links max if the site IS NOT relevant
  • Location of Links – Links should be in the body of the article with the best location being in the first couple of paragraphs (but don’t have it in the same spot on all articles)
  • Number of Money Site Links per PBN Post – Only 1 link to a money site from one PBN post is what I recommend
  • Other Authority Links – 1-3 links to authoritative non-competing pages such as news stories relevant to the article.
  • Anchor Text and Destination
  • Anchor Text
    • 1/3 – General or Name
    • 1/3 – URL Only
    • 1/3 – Phrase Match or Title of Site
  • Don’t use exact match at all! (play it safe)
  • Destination of Links
  • 50% homepage
  • 50% to a sub-page or post
  • All Links Must Be As Natural As Possible!

Articles

The first step of building links to your money site from your PBN is to get articles created.

NOTE – For customers of my done for you service I build 1 article per month per 5 site network but more articles can be added as customers see fit.

Frequency – In an ideal world each PBN site would get 1 new article per week but that isn’t practical so I suggest 1 per month or as a minimum 1 new article every 5 months to keep the site fresh in Googles eyes.

Quality – The articles must be of good quality as Google continues to get better at determining quality this will continue to be more and more important. Spun articles are not recommended and I am yet to hire a non native English speaker who can produce articles that meet my quality standard.

Length – Article length should vary from 500 words to 1000 words

Relevancy – My theory from the start with PBNs is that relevancy can not only overcome weaker metrics but also provides a safer link in terms of exposure to a Google penalty. Getting a link to an appliance repair website in Tulsa from the former website of a church in Alaska is tough to pull off. However, it is definitely possible I like to use the image below to picture what the title of an article should be…

The articles should be relevant to the website you are posting on, it should be relevant to the target domain and target niche. Let me show you what I mean with an example using “appliance repair in Tulsa” at “jimsappliance.com” (not a real site) being linked to from an Alaskan church website within a PBN…

The title should be relevant to the website it is being posted on, it should be relevant to the target niche and also the target domain…

How to Keep Your Congregation Warm in Winter – Expert Jim Shares His Heating Tips

Where to Get Articles – Getting quality articles created from native English speakers is a challenge! The best way I have found is using the system I outline here and hiring a content manager to manage the whole process including title creation.

Rich Media in Articles – Including images and video in varying quantities is easy to do and really helps make a webpage look natural. One image after the second paragraph in every post is NOT what we are after. We want a nice spread of both embedded, relevant YouTube videos and from 0-3 relevant images.

Number and Location of Links

Number of Links – The maximum number of links back to your main money site from one private blog network site is often asked. Lots of people believe that 1 link per site is best…I take a different approach to this question.

If the PBN site is relevant to the money site than as a rule of thumb I say no more than 10 links. People may think 10 links per site is crazy but here is my logic…if there is an authoritative site in a given niche it only makes sense that you link to it from your site in that same niche several times.

For example from this website (websiteincome.com) I link to a few sites regularly including SEOMoz.com and NichePursuits.com. Both of which I have probably linked to more than 10 times over the last year from this site naturally.

So if your PBN site is relevant to your money site then I would suggest thinking about using a limit of 10 links from it to one of your money sites.

Now there is a diminishing rate of return with links from sites…everything else being equal it is better to have a link from a different URL/IP then another from a site you already have a link from.

If the site isn’t relevant then I would suggest sticking with only 1-2 links from the PBN site to your money site.

Location of Links – The best location for a link is in the first couple of paragraphs of an article and naturally inserted into the middle of the text to be as natural as possible.

However, every link should not show up in the exact same location…they should vary from the top of the article to the bottom.

One place I DO NOT recommend the link going is at the very bottom of the article. The reason for this is that it could easily be mistaken for a lower value guest post which Google is cracking down on.

Contextual links higher up the article is the best place for a link.

Number of Money Site Links per Post – Limit to 1 link from an article to your money site, again people may disagree with this but it is the safest approach.

Other Authority Links – Nothing screams a PBN post like one link to one site, what I recommend is 1-3 other natural links to relevant authoritative sites. Wikipedia is the often recommended link destination but my preference is relevant news stories from any media outlet. HuffingtonPost or similar news outlets are great. Other great authoritative links are any niche organization. Try and avoid linking to competitors!

Anchor Text & Destination

Anchor text is where I believe most people go wrong and is the question I get the most.

After looking at literally THOUSANDS of expired domains on MajesticSEO.com I have both data and an intuition for what a natural backlink profile looks like.

Here are the guidelines I recommend to follow to keep your backlink profile looking clean while at the same time making sure to communicate to Google what your website should be ranking for.

Anchor text ratios I recommend…

  • 1/3 – General or Name
  • General are keywords such as (source, website, link, click here, visit us) a quick google search will provide you with lots of lists of generic keywords to use
  • Another great anchor text to use that I group into the general 1/3 is name based anchor text such as (Jim, Jim Smith, Jim @ website name). I recommend if your money site has a name/alias attached to it to use it in your anchor text as well.
  • 1/3 – URL Only
  • This is simple but 1/3 of all your anchor text should be only the URL
  • Tip – Don’t just link to the www or just the non www version. Make sure to link to both, one of the easiest ways to spot artificially built links is if the www has lots of links and the non www has zero links.
  • 1/3 – Phrase Match or Title of Site
  • Here is where people over do it all the time. Keep this group of keywords to 1/3 of all links to your money site.
  • The keywords in this group should be related to your target keyword but not an exact match of your target KW.
  • In this 1/3 of the links I also recommend using the exact title of your website

Note – if your title is your exact match I would still play it safe and modify the title slightly in the anchor text.

TIP – Play it Safe – Don’t use exact match.

The general consensus right now is to keep exact match anchor text to below 5% to avoid an off page over optimization penalty. In my mind it is simply safer and the results are still working if you simply don’t use your exact match anchor text at all. This keeps tracking easy and I never worry “oh crap will this push me to 5.5% exact match” which I think is a waste of time to have to think about.

Destination of Links – Where should your links be pointing? Well like everything I will take simplicity and safety over perfect optimization so my guidelines are simple…

  • 50% Homepage
  • 50% to different sub-pages or posts

With this case study I will build a HVAC $ Website and use both my 301 building block (Part 1&Part 2) strategy and a 5 site PBN to demonstrate how it works.

I obviously expect that this site will be reported and will be de-indexed eventually but I accept that and will use it simply as a demonstration PBN.

    Final Result – PBN Example

    This PBN example would be perfect for a HVAC small business or Amazon Affiliate Site promoting HVAC or Furnace Products. 

    [wpsharely id=”2130″]
    example-of-pbn-used-to-rank-local-seo-client

    Part 1 – Find Domains

    pbn-metrics-for-local-seo-client
    Find Similar Domains Using PBN Lab

    Part 2 – Host PBN

    how-to-host-pbn-example

    Metrics for TF Can Be Off in Host Checks Since We Need to Check All URLs

    Easily Setup Proper Hosting Now!

    Part 3 – Setup Sites

    premium-looking-pbn
    Once Click – Done For You PBN
    [wpsharely id=”2130″] [/wpsharely]

    How Much Did This Cost?

    ​Building a quality PBN is not easy! However following this guide will result in a quality PBN being built.

    ​

    $ 532.95 Initial Cost to Build a 5 Site PBN
    $ 37.75 Monthly Cost of a 5 Site PBN
    cost-to-build-a-pbn

    Want My Team to Build You A PBN?

    Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!

    • 100% Done For You
    • Indexation Guaranteed!
    • Access to Better Domains & Hosting
    • Remarkably cost competitive compared to building it yourself
    • 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
    See Plans and Pricing

    Glossary

    • Page Authority (PA)
    • Domain Authority (DA)
    • Citation Flow (CF)
    • Trust Flow (TF)
    • Linking Root Domains (LRD)
    • Page Rank (PR)
    • MozRank
    • Private Blog Network (PBN)
    • Expired Domains
    • TLD
    • 301 Redirect
    • Class A vs B vs C IP Address
    • Outbound Links (OBL)
    • Network Saturation

    PBN Questions

    How Many Outbound Links Should a Site Have and How Many Money Sites Can I Link To?

    Asked by Peter Webb, Alan, Thierry​, Steve

    Question - "I believe people would like to know what should be considered a “healthy” balance between the main site and the PBN. How big should one be compared to the other in order to keep flying under the radar?" similar question "If I have a small PBN say 3-5 sites for ranking a local business eg plumber can I use those PBN’s for ranking more than one plumbing business or would that leave a traceable footprint?"

    Answer - For the number of outbound links my suggestion is not to exceed 10 OBL to any one money site

    For how big should your PBN network be vs your money sites. My suggestion is to maintain a less than 50% saturation. Meaning if you have a 20 site PBN you can link to any number of money sites from 10 of your PBN sites.

    Example - If someone has a 10 site PBN related to plumbing and multiple plumbing companies he should use only 5 of the PBNs for any one of the sites. If you have only one client than use all 10!

    50 %
    Saturation

    Does Directly 301 Redirecting an Expired Domain to your Money Site Work?

    Asked by Mark Stevens

    Question - "Does using 301 redirects (i.e. just the domain redirected) work?"

    Answer - The short answer is that yes it does!

    To learn more about executing a 301 redirect using an expired domain only have a look at my "301 Building Block" strategy here...

    • 301 Building Block Strategy Part 1
    • 301 Building Block Strategy Part 2

    Will a PBN Help Rank an Amazon FBA Product Page?

    Asked by Jen

    Question - "Definitely would like to hear about using PBNs to rank Amazon products"

    Answer - Each Amazon Product page is competing to rank both inside Amazon and be displayed when a relevant "buying" search term is entered into Google.

    By adding links to your Amazon Product page you are showing Google that that

    For my Amazon FBA business I am most certainly using my PBN to link to both my affiliate sites that are promoting my product and to my Amazon Product page.

    More information on my Amazon FBA business and how I am using my PBN and Affiliate site skills to try and win in that space can be seen here.​

    PBN-for-Amazon-Product-Page-FBA-Ranking

    What are the other hosting options?

    Asked by Theodore

    Question - "My most concern is how to host and set up the sites. Most of the hosting companies I know are expensive and cannot be used to host a multiple domains because your pocket will be just emptied. So, I will love to see your own recommendations on the cheap hosting providers we can use."

    Answer - I highly recommend this hosting as the most user friendly PBN hosting option.

    However I understand it can be more expensive than people would prefer.

    Cheapest Hosting Option #1 - HostNine Reseller Account Tutorial

    Cheapest Hosting Option #2 - Rotating IP with CloudFlare​ for PBN Tutorial

    Where to Find and Buy Domains for a PBN?

    Asked by Tim

    Question - "The thing I find most difficult about starting PBN’s is finding quality expired domains to start with. I’ve spent countless hours to find one and NEVER found one worth buying. Could you share some insight into how and where to look for good domains?"

    Answer - If Part 1 of this post did not provide all the answers than here is the Ultimate Guide to PBN Domain Brokers where you will be able to evaluate all your purchase options.

    http vs https for PBN

    Asked by Devan

    Question - A specific technical question would be whether using HTTPS would help, I read that it can be a benefit for PBN due to having a name associated with the certificate.

    Answer - Although I do believe Google is directionally looking for sites to get verified with https so the answer is YES https I believe would provide a PBN site with more likihood of being trusted by Google. However, all https sites in a PBN would first be un-natural and second I do not believe it is necessary and creates a lot of additional work. Maybe if you had a few REALLY expensive domains you wanted to do everything in your power to protect it could make sense. I personally do not add https authentication to any of my PBNs.

    Should we add Social Signals to a PBN?

    Asked by Arnaud

    Question - Is there any value in adding social signals to your PBN sites?

    Answer - Yes, adding quality social signals would add "some" value...however I do not recommend it because I believe our time is better spent purchasing a domain that is powerful enough that it does not require social signals.

    My thought process is that Google is continuing to refine itself and discount crappy links, if the link is not good enough to send to your money site then shortly it won't provide any value to your PBN site either.

    Social signals are a weak ranking signal but do help sites get indexed more quickly, the only time I would recommend social signal purchases is to help get a site indexed after it has been registered.

    Here is a great location to purchase services for $10 or less for Social Signals​

    Do I need to do anything for an expired domain that is deindexed when purchased to get it reindexed?

    Asked by Dom

    Question - Do you feel a PBN build on a domain that’s been expired and deindexed for some time needs certain steps before you add the links to the money site (such as dripping content for a few days/weeks and getting it looking “alive” again)?

    Answer - No, similar to the question above a site should be able to stand on its own when it has been found, purchased, hosted and built correctly. However, like I mention above sometimes the natural process of getting a site reindexed can tak longer than we like and in those cases some social links to it can help that process along

    Here is a great location to purchase services for $10 or less for Social Signals​

    Should we build links to a PBN site?

    Asked by Dom

    Question - Do you feel a PBN build on a domain that’s been expired and deindexed for some time needs certain steps before you add the links to the money site (such as dripping content for a few days/weeks and getting it looking “alive” again)?

    Answer - No, similar to the question above a site should be able to stand on its own when it has been found, purchased, hosted and built correctly.

    I only build links to my money site or PBNs that I would be comfortable putting towards my money sites.

    Sometimes the line between a money site and a PBN can blur (ie a site that started out as a PBN but got enough traffic to make money) in those cases I will build links to them but again the links will be of useful enough quality that I would put them to my money site as well.

    Do I need different A B C or D class IPs for my PBN?

    Asked by Mehmood

    Question - Do I need diferrent A, B, C or D class IP hosting for my PBN?

    Answer - This one is easy - A. Different A class IP is needed for PBNs linking to the same money site.

    People ask how can I have 2,000 different class A IPs.... I don't I have a hosting account at almost every popular shared hosting provider and silo each of mine and my clients PBNs are on a different host from other sites in the same network.

    What is the #1 Metric You Look For in PBN Domains?

    Asked by Dom among others

    Question - Do you find there’s 1 factor which effects the pbn power more than anything else? (DA/TF/Link injection schedule etc)?

    Answer - The fastest way to sort through a list of PBNs and provide an indication of their future effectiveness I find is Trust Flow from Majestic!

    How big a PBN do I need to rank #1?

    Asked by Jim

    Question - My idea is to build a small PBN in a vertical (dentist/lawyer etc.) to boost rankings for local businesses. I will then charge theses businesses a monthly fee. The question I need answered is, can a small network like this, 5-10 sites (with limited OBL’s) actually be powerful enough to boost rankings for local companies? I’m aware that there are many factors here but there is no real documentation re. the actual effectiveness of pbn’s.

    Answer - Although this question is hard the way I like to answer it is with data from Majestic. Having a look at whatever sites are ranking #1-#5 for the keyword you are targetting and then looking at the number of

    Example - Based on the question lets use "Dentists in Flint" and see who is ranking in the first few spots and check in Majestic to see how many referring IPs there are. Although this is not perfect since all links are not created equal it does provide a good gauge.

    ​

    anchor text build a pbn Building an Effective PBN Done For You Service Find Expired Domain Metrics private blog network Relevancy
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    AboutJon Gillham
    I am a husband, father of 3, engineer and a huge fan of developing systems to build useful and profitable businesses (mostly online). The reason I build online businesses is to provide financial independence for my family so I can spend time outside skiing and biking with my them.
    Jon Gillham, Online Entrepreneur
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    Comments (47)

    1. Chris
      November 10, 2015

      Hi Jon,
      this really is an awesome post. So much info to digest, I’ll probably have to reread it several times; so thanks for putting in the time and effort to create this. Quick question if you don’t mind:
      Do you ever try to recreate the old site? I have a couple of new domains for my PBN that were very basic sites for a small business, and I’m wondering should I try and keep them similar in content?

      Thanks!

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        November 10, 2015

        Hi Chris, I am sure it will take awhile to get through everything! (it took awhile to create).

        Regarding recreating the old site… this is definitely a legal grey area and to keep things simple on my end I do not rebuild the site.

        However, when done correctly a site with original content but similar layout certainly does better. Especially if when analyzing backlinks for the site there are a few articles that were clearly popular. Building similar content that could rank for similar keywords and placing that content on the same URL is definitely a good idea.

        Great questions, thanks for stopping bye this post!

        Reply
    2. Tim
      November 10, 2015

      Hey John,

      Thanks for referencing my question is what is absolutely the best post I’ve ever read on PBN’s. You’ve clearly put in a ton of work, so thank you very much! I’m now going to scroll back to the top and reread this one again!

      Tim

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        November 11, 2015

        Thanks for the question Tim, your input and readers like you definitely helps make the post more valuable for people!

        Reply
    3. Tim
      November 10, 2015

      One other thing…would you suggest using any of the expired domains one might find to build our authority site on?

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        November 11, 2015

        Hi Tim, I would recommend first testing the expired domain with a simple site and a few articles to see how it does in Google… if you see solid results than yes you can but what I recommend is the 301 building block strategy. You get the benefit of the expired domain juice but minimize much of the potential downside.

        Reply
    4. samarpan raj
      November 11, 2015

      OMG ! Jon this is freaking awesome post ..actually i have been searching for a updated guide on pbn from last few days ..fewdays back also i read ur old post on pbn downloaded ur tools ..today finally i read this post..thanks a lot bro 🙂 u are just awesome 🙂

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        November 11, 2015

        Thanks Samarpan, it took a lot of work and I am glad you find it useful!

        Reply
    5. buchie
      November 13, 2015

      Congrats Jon on yet another epic post.

      I do have a couple of questions. First, you say “If it was redirected before expiring then most of the juice seems to stay with the redirection”. Is this true? Oftentimes people forget about the redirected domain which is why you can sometimes find really strong ones for a steal. I have done so several times and I like to think that the backlinks I put up on those sites helped ranking my money sites, although it’s hard to say nowadays with the slowly but gradually kicking in of backlinks if it really were these backlinks. Definitely think so, but if you have a link to a study or some other proof I’d love to see it.

      Also, you say you strongly disagree with a lot of people online about blocking backlink spiders and you’re right, I’m one of them. I would never block all of them but the juiciest anchors usually get blocked in a way I think google can only detect if they run spiders who identify themselves as majestic or AhrefsBot, MJ12bot or whatever. And I don’t think they would do this because that would be way more unethical as what we’re all doing here, even illegal maybe, so I think we’re safe in that respect.

      Other than that, I have definitely picked up some ideas even though I’m experienced with this stuff. Thanks for that, and keep up the good work.

      Reply
    6. Sid
      December 13, 2015

      Any tool Recommendation for bulk domain availability checker…

      Reply
    7. Aqib Mahmood
      December 19, 2015

      This is the best article i ever seen regards to building a blog private network. I would really appreciate if you guys help me with two questions.

      1: Lets say if i want to rank my money site in Australian google(.com.au) should i make my network country specific wise? By purchasing .com.au ltd’s or make sure blog’s ip based in Australia.

      2: How effective or ineffective if PBN’s based on geographical.

      Reply
    8. Kevin
      January 31, 2016

      Question 2 – Do I block backlink Spiders to hide the PBN? I strongly disagree with a lot of people online about this one! My argument is simple, lets run through a simple mental experiment…

      Q – Is the code that was entered to tell the crawlers not to index the links visible to Google?
      A – Yes
      Q – Given that only shady sites enter a few specific lines of code visible to Google does it make sense that Google could look for this code as an initial indication of a potentially suspicious site?
      A – Absolutely! And the reason I recommend against it in 95% of the situations.

      what about using .htaccess?

      Reply
    9. Will
      February 8, 2016

      Very good guide, exactly the info I was looking for. Thanks

      Reply
    10. Jonas
      March 1, 2016

      A very good and informative article – Gold.
      Reading it though it all starts with using an Expired Domain.
      What if you build a PBN without expired domains – is that doable? how much longer would it take to rank/see the benefit of the PBN?
      Thanks
      Jonas

      Reply
    11. Huy
      March 20, 2016

      Hey Jon,

      Thank you so much for the post 🙂 so much valuable information here.

      Just got a question about linking out to money site though. You mentioned maximum 10 links back to money site. Should there be a maximum limit on how much times you link back from the home page? It would be kind of suspicious if money site is linked 10 times from the PBN’s home page right?

      Reply
    12. Dean
      May 17, 2016

      Great article. I am just wondering in general if I hit the #1 rank with my money site and stuck to your rule of not linking to any money site more than 10 times from a relevant PBN then to maintain my ranking do I constantly need to stay building PBNs and linking out to the money site long term or once it is ranked is it relatively safe to leave it sit there without building new links constantly? Thanks

      Reply
    13. Bill
      June 12, 2016

      Great article. You covered just about everything, but I do have one quick question. Have many PBN sites do you usually put on one hosting account?

      Reply
    14. Ed
      July 6, 2016

      I’m started going through this guide and I signed up for PBNLab through your link but there was no 45-day option. Right now, I just signed up for the one week option to put it through its paces but I really did want to test it longer. Any idea how I can get the 45-day period?

      Reply
    15. Mark
      August 4, 2016

      Hello Jon
      Thanks for your awesome tips and I have a question:

      I have foreign language website (Vietnamese language) and my niche is about Beauty.
      I want to build my own PBN. Is it ok if I buy your Expired Domain Service and the niche is Beauty and I will use my Vietnamese language for my own PBN? (I know the Expired domain will use English before)
      Please help me
      Thanks

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        August 9, 2016

        Hi Mark, great question. It is definitely ideal to have the domain be relevant with both the topic and the language. However… for your unique situation I have helped others build PBNs targeting foreign language markets with previous english PBN domains. So yes it definitely works but is not ideal.

        Reply
        • Mark
          August 28, 2016

          So it is not good if use Expired Domain (with english content before) to use the foreign language PBN site?

          Reply
    16. Malcolm
      August 16, 2016

      Hey Jon, I couldn’t help but notice the all too familiar “Parksville” example while reading this guide. Out of curiosity, are you from the island?

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        August 23, 2016

        I am not, but thanks for the question… just random site.

        Reply
    17. Umer Anees
      September 1, 2016

      This is very informative and nice article about PBN and you explained it in very detail. But i have one question that is really PBN is legal to use? If not, then why we risk our website? Thanks

      Reply
      • Jon Gillham
        September 19, 2016

        I am not a lawyer but have never heard why it would be illegal.

        Reply
    18. Mat
      September 10, 2016

      If I choose to build PBN with Web 2.0 is this a valid tactics or not worth my time? I think Web 2.0 are 10 times less powerful than expired domains. What is your opinion?

      Reply
    19. Mully
      September 20, 2016

      Thank you for this complete article on PBN strategy !
      I have one question :
      How many money sites can to link with one site PBN ?
      To link just one money site ? or to link 2/3/4… money sites with one site pbn ?

      A group of pbn website is create for one money site only ?

      Thanks

      Reply
    20. Gopi
      September 21, 2016

      Hi Jon,

      So Informative guide for beginners. I have a question in adding links.

      In PBn do we have to link add link home page or inner post, Because few guides saying getting link from home page is effective than inner pages.What is your point do i get link from home page.

      If its from home page if add any new article it will move from home page right, How to handle this.

      thanks in advance.

      Reply
    21. Dan
      September 23, 2016

      Well done. One of the most thorough PBN processes I’ve seen.

      But, I have to say and there is one metric you never addressed. I’ve read elsewhere that PBN sites (like any relevant, authoritative site) should have traffic and some social signals to prove legitimacy.

      I don’t think G would penalize a link if your PBN sites don’t. But, do you think G does or will continue to give much if any weight to a link from a PBN site (even though it’s passed Majestic’s TA and SA standards) if nobody visits or shares the site?

      If you have something to manufacture that as well…then you’ve really got something here that I’d buy into.

      Dan

      Reply
    22. ali
      October 2, 2016

      Nice post and it’s very useful for SEO, from now i will follow your all post. Thanks for posting useful information

      Reply
    23. Brad Monson
      December 5, 2016

      Hi Jon,

      What do you think about “Bulk Buy Hosting” for hosting PBN domains? Do you think it’s a good option?

      Reply
    24. HR System
      December 30, 2016

      I appreciate your time and dedication to write and share all this knowledge on PBN. I will try to make good use of this information for my website. Thanks and Happy new year 2017

      Reply
    25. Duncan
      January 24, 2017

      I was looking for basic information on PBNs and have to say that the article answered almost all the questions I had. I even subscribed to the newsletter! Thanks

      Reply
    26. Julio
      January 26, 2017

      Hi Jon, thanks for this complete article !
      I have a question about the registering of the domain. You are talking about Phone verified email accounts but do there is a risk if the email bought doesn’t works anymore or have been blocked for any reason.
      I the case this happening, is it possible to change the mail to replace it on the biggest registrars like godaddy, namecheap etc ?
      Also what would happens if the registrar calls the phone number used for fakewhois ?

      Reply
    27. Justin Levitt
      February 26, 2017

      Hi Jon

      Thanks for this PBN guide. It is by far the best guide I’ve come accross!

      I’m a bit of a newbie when it comes to PBN’s.

      I’ve just bought my first expired domain on Godaddy. I know in order to reduce footprint one should always mix uo registrars. So now that I’ve bought the domain how do I go about registering it? I’m pretty confused as I always thought that the place where one buys a domain is the same place in which it is registered? If I buy another expired domain on Godaddy, how do I not register it with them and register it with another site like namecheap.com etc?

      Thanks so much for your time

      Regards,

      Justin

      Reply
    28. Chris
      April 7, 2017

      This is simply the best PBN guide I’ve ever read. I’m pretty inspired after this and making solid plans to build out my own network now!

      Thanks 🙂

      Reply
    29. Alessandro
      May 27, 2017

      This is a terrific post! I just love the detail of each step to create a PBN, how to manage it and how to rank properly. This is why I’ve just contacted you 😉

      Reply
    30. Leon
      June 7, 2017

      Hey Jon quick question. I know a guy that is ranking really good in a health niche with PBNs that are created on fresh tld domains on T1 (.info for .88$ I guess). With no existing link profile at all. You will find 3-4 posts where 1 contains a link to the MS. Then those T1 pbns are spammed with web20 (probably rankerx) on T2 and gsa on T3. Can you tell me how is that possible? Shouldn’t such domains have no impact at all?

      Reply
    31. Pecintaqq
      June 8, 2017

      This is the best article about seo in the world
      I am lovers from Indonesia get good seo knowledge from you
      thanks Jon Gillham

      Reply
    32. Joel Davis
      June 9, 2017

      This is the best article out there on creating a PBN. I know because I did my due diligence. One question that has me stopped dead in my tracks out of fear of leaving a footprint–how do you pay for the domain? I bought a VISA gift card but GoDaddy won’t accept it. How do you pay for the domain registrations under the radar?

      Reply
    33. Adriano
      August 18, 2017

      Thanks for the post.The PBN for italian language is valid? Have you an idea?

      Reply
    34. Prem kumar
      August 27, 2017

      Thanks for the great post. You have guided us in detail.
      I have one question. If I purchased 5 domain of PA 30. My money site PA will increase more than PA 30.

      Reply
    35. Claude
      August 31, 2017

      Thanks for the epic post. I have a question regarding spider blocking: “Q – Is the code that was entered to tell the crawlers not to index the links visible to Google?” –> I dont agree here. If you block via htaccess (not robots.txt) obviously there is no way google can see it on the server side. Do you have any other information?

      Reply
    36. Marc
      September 1, 2017

      Awesome article Jon! This is the best tutorial on PBN’s I have seen anywhere. Quick question….do you recommend building your money site on an expired domain with existing backlinks or just starting with a fresh URL? Thanks!

      Reply
    37. Miranda
      October 2, 2017

      Superb article Jon!
      Maybe gonna ask for help from you when i gonna start building a pbn.

      Cheers,
      Miranda

      Reply
    38. Ken
      October 6, 2017

      Hi Jon, you mentioned that the article should be relevant to the original PBN and the moneysite, but does this apply to foreign niches? I mean, the original PBN is in English and the moneysite is in a foreign language. Is there any workaround this? Thanks.

      Reply
    39. D
      March 24, 2020

      Massive guide, thanks!

      Reply

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