How to Host a Private Blog Network – Review of the Best Options
Hosting your own PBN too much work? Have a look at my done for you PBN service HERE
Are you trying to determine what the best hosting options are for a PBN? There is no easy answer it will cost you money and if you try and save a lot of money with cheap hosts it can be a massive headache.
The pain with hosting a PBN is one reason why customers enjoy my Done For You Service where I build and manage a clients PBN to take the headache of PBN Hosting off their plates entirely.
So what am I looking for in a PBN host?
- 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!)
Do It Yourself PBN or SEO Hosting Options
If you are looking to handle the creation of a PBN by yourself here is a summary of the hosting options. A detailed review of each option is listed below.
Once you review the options if you think it makes sense to have my team find domains, build and then host a PBN for you apply here.
- Best – Reliable Shared Hosting Providers
- Second Best – Next generation SEO hosts
- Example – HostHub
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $88/month
- OK Option – Single Host with Multiple IPs
- HostNine and IXWebHosting are the most popular options
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $20/month
- OK Option – Cheap Shared Hosts (dollar hosts)
- See Complete List Below
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $25/month
- OK Option – CloudFlare CDN Rotating IPs (Cheapest Solution)
- CloudFlare with MediaTemple Hosting
- Cost fro 25 site PBN = $7.99
- Worst Option – SEO Hosts
- SEOHosting (but easiest)
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $150/month
Detailed Review of Each Private Blog Network Hosting Solution
ONE – Best Option – Reliable and Popular Shared Hosting Providers
This is the option I use for my service and personal PBN. The central goal of a PBN site is to be as “real” as possible including real content, links and hosted on a server with other mom & pop websites.
On any of the popular shared hosting providers there are hundreds of other websites from small businesses to mom blogs. This avoids the “bad neighbourhood” of IP numbers that has brought down so called “SEO Hosts” in the past.
List of some of the hosts I use…
(some of the links below are affiliate links)
| Host | Link |
| Webhostingbuzz | Sign Up Here |
| HostMonster | Sign Up Here |
| Eleven2 | Sign UP Here |
| IPage | Sign Up Here |
| HostPapa | Sign Up Here |
| DreamHost | Sign Up Here |
| HostNine | Sign Up Here |
| MediaTemple | Sign Up Here |
| Arvixe | Sign Up Here |
| HostGator | Sign Up Here |
| iPower | Sign Up Here |
| WebHostinPad | Sign Up Here |
TWO – Next Best Option – Next Generation SEO Host
I have started using a host called CloakHosting.com (not an affiliate link) to test it out and so far it is solid and lately the best option I have been using is HostHub.
The concept is basically the same as the option listed above. By combining multiple shared hosting accounts
The downside is that although they promise all different Class A Hosting Accounts in reality that is not what we get.
You can see the backend of my account below showing that I have several sites all on the same Class A host, although different Class C IPs.
(Red Arrows Same Class A but Different Class C)
Overall I believe if you are going to host the sites yourself this is a great option that combines suitable protection with an economical price.
THREE – OK Option – Single Host with Multiple IPs
Although I don’t recommend this as a hosting option if you are looking for the most economical way to test out a PBN than a HostNine reseller program is probably the best way to go.
With the HostNine each time you add a new site to your reseller account you can get a new IP.
I use this method but it is not my recommended option.
Note – IXWebHosting used to be recommended on this site but if you are going to host more than 10 sites and get much traffic they are a massive pain! I had to several times argue with their customer support about the bandwith draw my sites were pulling. Very time consuming for my VA to install wordpress on IX Web Hosting as well.
FOUR – OK Option – Cheap Shared Hosts (dollar hosts)
This option is attractive but I DO NOT recommend it. Unless you enjoy rebuilding sites and monitoring up time the dollar hosts are a recipe for disaster.
Anytime I have heard good things about a dollar host and tried them out it has been a huge failure because of the amount of time my VA’s had to spend rebuilding sites.
The up time, customer support and speed are all generally bad with cheap hosting and for me the amount of waster effort was not worth the few dollars it saved.
Another incredible frustration I have experienced is that for some reason many of these hosts don’t seem to have an auto-renew feature so every month you would need to go in and renew.
I no longer use any dollar hosts!
If you do want to test out the dollar hosting option I have had my VA compile a list of 30+ Dollar Hosts including a promo code so you can get the hosting even cheaper.
(None are affiliate links)
FIVE – OK Option – CloudFlare CDN Rotating IPs (Cheapest Solution)
One concept for hosting a PBN some people are discussing is to use a CDN (content delivery network) such as cloudflare and then only one host which integrates well with CloudFlare like MediaTemple.
The theory behind this is that each time a site setup through CloudFlare gets called it is delivered from the closest/most efficient data center meaning a potentially different IP each time someone visits the site.
If there is a new IP almost everytime someone or a search engine bot visits a site then it means there would be no IP footprint…right?
Well, the fact is that the IP will be different but they will all be associated with the Cloudflare CDN network and the nameservers of the sites will also be associated with CloudFlare. This leaves the sites open to a large footprint.
If you were looking to spend as little money as possible building out a PBN then this is certainly better than simply placing all your PBN sites on the same host but
Note – I do highly recommend CloudFlare for peoples money site as there are a lot of benefits!
A great host if you are going to use the benefits of a CDN is MediaTemple.
SIX – Worst Option – SEO Hosts
I don’t need to spend too much time on option six. SEOHosting is both expensive and puts your PBN at risk.
Since almost all clients of SEOHosting are using it for PBNs or other non-google Terms of Service uses it puts your site on the same A Class IP as many other nefarious sites.
The result of all these bad neighbours is a bad neighbourhood of sites that Google can zero in on and wipe out as they have done in the past.
Summary of Do It Yourself PBN or SEO Hosting Options
Once you review the options if you think it makes sense to have my team find domains, build and then host a PBN for you apply here.
- Best – Reliable Shared Hosting Providers
- Second Best – Next generation SEO hosts
- Example – HostHub
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $88/month
- OK Option – Single Host with Multiple IPs
- HostNine and IXWebHosting are the most popular options
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $20/month
- OK Option – Cheap Shared Hosts (dollar hosts)
- See Complete List Below
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $25/month
- OK Option – CloudFlare CDN Rotating IPs (Cheapest Solution)
- CloudFlare with MediaTemple Hosting
- Cost fro 25 site PBN = $7.99
- Worst Option – SEO Hosts
- SEOHosting
- Cost for 25 site PBN = $150/month
UPDATE – Feb 23 – The Done For You PBN Service is now open! Let my team find, build and host a niche specific PBN for you built to my high standards!
Thanks for sharing the list of hosts even when they don’t have affiliate programs.
Interesting idea with the CloudFlare/MediaTemple option. Probably not a great solution for a large PBN but what about a small niche specific PBN that will make up only a portion of the links to the site.
So if you use option 1 do you put each PBN site on a completely unique account, or do you have like clusters of sites on different hosts, and make sure to not link to the same money sites too much from one cluster?
The host9 option makes sense in your explanation because you said each site gets a unique IP, but I don’t know if that’s doable with the other hosts. I imagine it could get complicated quickly with a huge PBN
These are some great tips jon – thanks. I’d never thought of most of these before. Right now, I’ve got mine hosted on IX (ugh) and a few dollar hosts as well as some shared hosting (ipage, fatcow, etc). It’s working well for me, but it can be a pain when you’ve got quite a few sites.
How about using Hostnine reseller account with cloudflare?
Hey Bro, I have few questions in my mind and I would like to know what do you suggest about them :-
1. How many websites are you adding per hosting ?
2. How many different PBN’S (not for the same MS ) you are going to add on the same hosting ?
3. How many articles do you add per PBN and also how many external links you add to it ?
4. If you are building a website from scratch when do you start building links and when do you add PBN’s to it ?
Nice overview, I was just about doing some research myself! Still I struggle to find where to get reliable hosting for less then $5/month. In my homecountry I can get hosting even for $1/month for simple websites (including WP sites). There obviously must be solid host companies providing same service worldwide but I struggle to find any decent options. Something like $10/month for a single small WP site or even static website is simply insane high.
thanks for sharing this idea.
i thought that hostgator was the best choice, but you make me realize that there are others that give the best option.
Helpful post John though I wouldn’t be keen on any SEO hosts – even if they’re “next generation”.
You can set up a static html website on Amazon S3 with Cloudfront and use a free dns service to point the domains in the right place. Works just fine and you have a variety of locations to choose from. Worth thinking about – certainly could be part of the mix.