What is a Private Blog Network & How To Create A PBN For SEO?
SEO experts and companies avoid the word private blog network like the plague.
- No, we don’t do all that.
- We aren’t black hat SEO practitioners.
- We don’t violate Google’s Webmasters Guidelines.
You must have heard multiple variations of these lines when you try to approach the topic.
But is all that you hear true?
Is a private blog network a step to getting your website penalized?
Or is it a great SEO tactic that has just been clouded amid misinformation and misunderstanding?
Can you use it in 2021 and beyond?
Well, you are about to find out.
I have been using thousands of private blogs created on WordPress that were built using multiple IP hosting. The uniqueness of the IP of the network of blogs really matters. However, that’s not the only important factor.
You will learn all about PBNs and how to utilize the power of PBNs to gain ranks and even earn money from private blog networks.
I have not only created PBNs for my SEO work with clients in various niches at my time at ClickDo as a London based SEO Consultant but have also helped others build thousands of PBNs with the best PBN hosting and PBN and Blog Hosting manager tool.
Private Blog Networks - Defined. In SIMPLE Words.
The answer to ‘what is a private blog network?’ varies depending on who you ask.
Staunch opponents will define it as a network of websites that place large quantities of links to other websites. According to these members of the anti-PBN brigade, these websites have low-quality links, and the aim behind these websites is to manipulate Google’s search engine rankings.
If we throw jargon and lopsided opinions out of the window and boil it down to the basics, PBNs are just groups of websites that aim to help other websites rank better, which are usually managed by one individual or a group of people/business owners that use them together.
You ask bloggers and editors of reputable websites to publish your guest posts with your backlinks, right? These backlinks also help you rank better. Now, imagine you are playing both these roles. You are the website owner, and you are the one who wants a backlink.
Why is the first case legit and the second one a no-no?
Maybe a close-minded approach and the lack of proper information are at play behind that.
My definition of a private blog network is…
“A collection of websites with no footprints tracing them to each other, populated with user-centric, informational content, aimed at helping other websites rank better.”
Note the words that are in italics – user-centric, informational content.
Now, I will not comment on what others do. But here is what I can tell you about what I do.
I am an SEO consultant, and I have been using PBNs since 2014. I have laid the foundation of a world-class PBN hosting service. I also offer a multiple IP address blogs hosting control panel.
I advocate the use of PBNs because they have worked for me. Time and again. And PBNs work for me for two reasons.
One, the content that I post on the PBNs that I host and run for commercial use is top-notch. Two, I offer zero-footprint PBNs. This means you do not stand the risk of penalties by Google because the network won’t trace back to you.
The Good, The Bad And The Grey - Where Do PBNs Sit?
People say PBNs are a black hat practice. I disagree. But I don’t say it’s a white hat practice either.
It’s all in the grey.
By owning a private network of blogs that are visible to only Google bots and not to other crawlers like those of Ahrefs, etc., and using them to micromanage your link-building efforts violate Google’s Webmasters Guidelines. Accepted.
But by the same logic, asking others for backlinks and not actually ‘earning’ them is also a violation of the same guidelines.
I feel it is fair to use PBNs if you are not just rehashing content and dumping it on a website to get backlinks for another website. Valuable content with planned backlinks is not a sin.
And moreover, Google’s Webmasters Guidelines are, well, just guidelines. They are not rules or laws that violating is a criminal offence.
You can face manual penalties, though. That is when your PBN has low-quality links in connection with keyword stuffing, and the blogs all trace back to you. With footprint-free PBNs, you are in the clear and you can learn more about how to build a PBN at SeekaHost.
Another finding in support of PBNs is that Google does not really believe that private blog networks are ‘illegal’ or ‘unlawful.’
The above screen capture from Google’s Advertising Policies page mentions the types of ads that will not be run.
Now, look at the search result below –
Google has allowed ads regarding PBN hosting. The ad that can be seen in the image above is about SeekaHost.app
How to Buy PBN Hosting For Private Blog Network Hosting with SeekaHost.app
This ad would not have shown up if Google had felt that PBNs are something bad.
That is enough to say that Google is against the misuse of PBNs to pump low-quality or plagiarized content on the Internet and confuse its bots; that is why it penalizes such PBNs. Google is not against PBNs that publish worthwhile content that aids readers and website visitors.
This leads us to the next question…
How to use a PBN?
As already mentioned, a private blog network mainly serves the purpose of improving website ranks. You can make an educated guess that it is mostly used for SEO or marketing purposes.
A blog network can also be used to earn money online through offering guest post publications for PBN backlinks. This helps with ranking websites higher on search engines, if the adequate and accepted SEO strategies are applied.
If you are not familiar yet with SEO, then you should learn more about PBN and SEO skills at https://university.seekahost.com/courses/seo-training-course/ and the SeekaHost University, where you will find detailed video tutorials about link building and blogging.
The world’s best blog hosting control panel by SeekaHost makes it all easier to build blogs and get online in less than 60 seconds. With it you can set up and manage hundreds of blogs on WordPress with the best WordPress Blog Hosting UK services. It is especially designed for bloggers and PBN SEO services providers who need C Class, A and B IP hosting with no footprints.
You can watch this explainer video to see why the SeekaHost web hosting control panel is the best to manage multiple blogs:
With its very unique feature the SeekaHost App enables you to track all your hosted sites with Google Analytics and Clicky inside your dashboard, making it so much easier for you to keep track of the traffic to all your sites, how your content is ranking and which keywords to go after.
To get a better idea of how to follow all the points highlighted here to build private blogs of high-quality that are successful, I share some of sites as examples here and how they achieve a good DA and DR over at least 20, which is the minimum to achieve good results for SEO.
I want to highlight that building and maintaining a blog takes time and effort and if you are trying to build a network of different blogs in different niches, you may need to get assistance to keep the quality and standard high.
You will see in the following examples what is required and what it takes to build successfully ranking and maturing blogs.
The first thing to note is that all those blogs are managed with WordPress as a CMS and they are hosted in the SeekaHost App with WordPress Hosting or PBN Hosting by SeekaHost. You can learn more about the advantages especially for users looking to build PBNs here: Best WordPress Hosting Control Panel To Host WP Blogs & Websites (In Less than 60 seconds).
PBN Examples:
The Entrepreneurs Tool Kit – www.entrepreneurstoolkit.org
One of my favourite PBN sites on the list that I have acquired as an expired domain. It is registered and hosted in the SeekaHost app. The domain name I found via domain auction site DomCop was ideal to reach entrepreneurs and business people to share tips on web hosting, corporate websites and online businesses.
The article I published with the keyword “best PBN hosting” already ranks on the first page of Google, you can check it for yourself, just search for it.
You can see how useful the use of a private blog for SEO purposes can be and you should study how I have built this blog with content that ranks well. It also helps my company reach a wider audience and better market the brand online.
The e-Business Blog – www.ebusinessblog.co.uk
This is also an expired domain with positive properties and a great domain name for content with relevance for e-commerce and internet companies. So, this blog is used to share tips and news for topics all around e-businesses and to link relevant articles from other sites that are part of the PBN.
To achieve a higher domain authority, the published articles must be linked to other related PBNs and high authority websites and must contain valuable, high-quality content engaging readers. Read through some of the articles and you will also see that they are SEO-optimized with SEO-friendly content.
To grow such blogs, guest posts are often published and once the domain authority is at least 20, guest authors are also willing to pay a fee for the publication of their articles.
Now it is hopefully a little clearer what private blogs are in PBNs and how they can be effectively built and used for SEO to rank different websites higher on search engines.
Over To You
I have told you all that I had to share about PBNs for now. (I have written more about PBNs, how you can use and manage PBNs if PBNs are worth the effort today and how you can make money with your PBNs on my blog).
Now, I’d leave it up to you to decide if you want to use PBNs or not. If you decide to use this powerful SEO technique, I would always be just an email or message away via the PBN Demystified FB group.