The practice of Private Blog Network (PBN) claims to work because it generates backlinks. They appeared as high and authority sites that appeared has been around for decades.
If you want to increase the organic traffic of your business site as your KPI, you cannot ignore the importance of link building or link building. Google confirmed in 2016 that backlinks are one of the top three ranking factors, next to content and RankBrain.
Link building is a powerful SEO tactic, and the right links can increase organic rankings and visibility. However, getting backlinks is not an easy job. At least by using tactics that do not violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.
Some SEO players choose to use tactics that violate these guidelines to accelerate the organic growth of their websites, one of which is the Private Blog Network (PBN) method.
In this article, we will dive deep into this controversial link building tactic and discuss some of the common myths that surround it.
What is a Private Blog Network?
According to Search Engine Mentor, Private Blog Network (PBN) is a network of websites that places a large number of links to other websites. This link network consists of low quality links designed to manipulate search engine rankings.
SEO players who choose to use PBN Services for link building usually use this tactic as a way to gain full control over their link building efforts. Because normal link building tactics will usually involve third parties, so that we can’t always control where the links come from.
For this reason, PBNs are often created using expired domains. These expired domains used to have sites that had earned links and had built some level of authority in the eyes of search engines.
These expired domains are purchased and converted into sites that are part of the Private Blog Network, usually having new content added with outbound links.
Black hat SEO players who use this tactic tend to go to great lengths to prevent Google from identifying that their site is part of the network or finding any traces between them, by:
- Hosting with different hosting providers
- Registering a domain with a different registrar
- Using a different domain extension
- Using a different theme or layout
- Creating content that doesn’t link to money sites in an attempt to disguise linked posts
While PBN sites are often talked about as part of a network, the goal is for them to appear as independent sites.
All of this sounds good, right?
No, PBN is a clear violation of Google’s Webmaster Quality Guidelines and can result in our site being penalized. For this reason, Private Blog Networking is not a recommended tactic.
Before getting excited into a new backlinks, try to dig and do a proper background research about the sites
When your site being penalized, the impact will not be right away. It could take several months and even half a year until your traffic is starting to decrease. It could be tricky in the sense of you might not know which cause of the traffic drop.
