If you are at all interested in SEO, you know that building a reputation through link exchanges is a real issue. Today, the secrets of Google 's algorithms remain well guarded, but one rule seems to be established: buying links is penalised. The American giant recommends natural link exchanges between two content creators or site owners. The problem is that canvassing, negotiating and succeeding in placing links naturally and free of charge is as difficult as it is time-consuming. In this case, the creation of a PBN (or Private Blog Network) is one of the solutions for successfully boosting the authority of your site without spending years on it.
What is the difference between a Private Blog Network (PBN) and traditional netlinking?
Netlinking is one of the pillars of SEO. Several methods exist to work its strategy: the traditional technique of backlinks is tested and recognized. Nevertheless, as algorithms evolve, more advanced methods are proving effective in site referencing. Some of these methods require a small investment, which is quickly recouped, such as the PBN or Private Blog Network.
PBN: what is the Private Blog Network and what are its advantages?
The PBN is a network of several satellite sites whose sole purpose is to increase the authority score of a main site, also called a money site. This netlinking strategy requires the acquisition of many domain names and the publication of content referring to the site that you want to push in the natural referencing.
Depending on your strategy, you can organise a PBN with a network of clustered sites designed to fulfil a well-defined purpose.
Extend your semantic cocoon with surgical precision
The various web players often limit themselves to on-page criteria to structure their semantic cocoon. It is obviously important to structure a content cocoon on the main site through internal meshing. However, we forget that this work on thematic silos and the construction of the semantic cocoon can also be extended to the satellite sites that push your money site.
Indeed, thematic links are always the most relevant. The content of your main site must be on a complementary theme to that of the satellite site for the backlinks to be powerful enough.
For example: let's say your money site sells stationery products. You want to push the "diaries" category in the search engine rankings. Develop diversified content on the theme of diaries on each private blog in your network and link each of these articles to the corresponding category page on your money site. Be careful, your network of sites must remain watertight: do not link the satellites to each other.
Control the transfer of authority to your main site from start to finish
At the risk of pushing open doors, let's remember that the objective of netlinking in SEO is to take advantage of a transfer of authority to improve the quality of your page in the eyes of search engines. If a third party site offers a link to your site in addition to many others, the "juice" is diluted between all these outgoing and incoming links.
This means that the transfer of authority to your money site is considerably weakened. The point of a PBN is to ensure that all of this "juice" is reserved for your main site. This is called PageRank Sculpting: you fine-tune the "dose" of authority given to your money site from a private blog in your own network.
Stabilise your netlinking power with your Private Blog Network
On a site that posts a new article every week, an effective backlink can become useless for your referencing... After a few months! Indeed, the power of a natural link to a page of your money site weakens as time goes by. Indeed, it becomes less quickly accessible from the home page of this host.
On the other hand, if you own your network of sites, you control the frequency of publication and therefore the strength of the link you send to your main website. The only rule to keep in mind to stay in Google's favour is to keep your article prominent and accessible with a minimum of clicks from the home page.
Capitalise on your money site with PBN
Are you thinking of reselling your sites? Just as a baker sells his shop with a business, you can add value to your site pool with your PBN. Your business will be upgraded and sold with your network of sites. This way, the new owner will be sure to acquire a ranking base for life!
Generate additional income with your PBN's satellites
What if the websites on your Private Blog Network also made you money? You can supplement your money site's income by selling netlinking links or membership in affiliate programmes. Be careful to limit yourself in this secondary activity. You could ruin all your PageRank Sculpting efforts by leaking more "juice" to other sites.
Protect yourself from competition with your PBN
Competitors are always on the lookout for your activities and your netlinking strategy. To prevent these intrusions, you are free to prohibit the robotic crawling of pages in your network of sites. This way, tools such as SemRush or Ahrefs will not detect them in the analysis of your website and will confuse your competitors. This is a real advantage as the competition will probably underestimate the level of SEO difficulty your site presents.
What is classic netlinking and why does it hurt your SEO strategy?
You are free to adopt an SEO strategy supported by classic netlinking. There are two solutions: the first is to explore the web for sites similar to yours whose webmasters would be willing to negotiate a link purchase. The second solution is to go to dedicated platforms such as NextLevel, RocketLinks and place an order for quality links according to your content criteria.
Global semantics out of your control
You can write a brief or even an article for the editor to publish on his site... But the semantics carefully developed for SEO will be strictly limited to this article and not to the whole site.
The power of links diluted over time
If you buy a link, it will be integrated into a recent article on the first page of the blog. However, if the publisher sells several articles after yours, you will lose this visibility on the first page and the search engines will mechanically have more difficulty finding your link.
The power (and value) of your link will therefore be diluted over time, unless the publisher thinks about organising an effective internal linkage as you go along.
The lifespan of the links is uncertain
The control of the purchased link is limited... to the purchase. You have no guarantee that the publisher's site will not be sold in the months or years to come. The new owner of the site may adopt a different SEO strategy in terms of netlinking. In this case, what will happen to your links?
Visibility on the crawl of inaccessible sites
During an automated analysis on the publisher's site, your links will be revealed to your competitors. This exposes your strategy to counter-attacks that are difficult to counter.
Stop throwing your money away: start your PBN today
As you can see, all the disadvantages of a classic netlinking campaign are actually advantages of your Private Blog Network. To boost the SEO of your money site, you need to budget a bit more to build your own backlinks. Indeed, buying links does not offer you any guarantee. Economically speaking, it is better to keep control of an effective SEO strategy in the long term by spending a little more on building your PBN.
Steps to follow to create a PBN and make it profitable
Now that you know all the benefits of a Private Blog Network for your SEO strategy, let's look at how to build it.
Define the pages to be popularised
The first step is to define the content to push on your money site. Which major pages need to be enhanced by backlinks?
Choose the domain names to include in your PBN
You then need to buy the domain names of the satellite sites. Here are two different solutions.
New domain name
If you buy a completely blank domain name, you start with zero content and as much authority. You'll have to go all out and buy links to push this little site or adopt an aggressive backlink strategy: the link ninja, which consists of placing your own links on other sites (hoping that they are not no-follow or simply filtered by plugins).
Expired domain name
By selecting an expired domain name, you save time in the progression of your ranking. This is because, find your expired domain name The use of an expired domain name in an auction or by scraping the web is a winning strategy for the SEO of your satellite site, and therefore virtuous for the SEO strategy of your money site!
Define a coherent and effective linking strategy
Which sites will push which pages of your main site? To better visualise your work, consider organising your ideas into mind maps.
Build logical content to integrate into your PBN's satellite sites
Obviously, creating a PBN requires content creation. This content must be perfectly coherent and in line with the content you want to push on your money site. For example, you have identified your e-commerce niche in summer dresses for your money site? Select a blog and write quality content on travel or fashion. The link should be as natural as possible.
When should you start linking your money site and its satellites?
Don't start linking your PBN to your money site as soon as you buy the domain names! Instead, wait until several of the sites in your Private Blog Network have gained a few top positions. After two or three months of ranking, space out the link placement by a few days so that the search engines see it as a completely natural listing.
The pro tip for maximising the potential of PBNs
To multiply the full power of your network of sites, create other PBNs around your main network. In clusters, all these sites will boost the popularity of your money site.
Pitfalls to avoid when building your Private Blog Network
To ensure the success of your PBN netlinking strategy, keep these tips in mind.
Don't leave footprintsbehind
Despite the opacity of the Google algorithm, it is fairly well accepted that search engines do not value link buying and may penalise the use of PBNs. The idea is therefore to protect your work by respecting some basic rules of discretion:
- Spread the purchase of your links over several days or even weeks;
- publish your content in a totally random way on your sites. Avoid synchronising your publications;
- Despite the temptation, do not register your entire network of sites in the same Search Console;
- diversify the information on all sites. Contact information or other similarities will be easily identified by search engines.
In a word, imitate the rules of natural referencing!
Do not link PBN satellite sites to each other
If we advise you not to have similar activity at the same time on the sites of your PBN, it goes without saying that you should never link your satellite sites together... Otherwise, Google can easily penalise all your sites if it decides to sanction one of them. Your network must remain compartmentalised and watertight.
Conclusion: should we completely forget classic netlinking in favour of PBN?
Build your Private Blog Network today! Its only drawback is that it is a bit more expensive to start with, but this investment pays for itself much faster than a classic netlinking strategy. The PBN allows you to :
- control your SEO strategy from A to Z;
- to keep the power of all your links over time;
- capitalise on your network of sites;
- to remain secret from your competitors;
- to provide you with a possible additional income.
To build your network of websites:
- Make a mind map between the pages to be pushed and the links on your PBN;
- choose expired domain names to save time and power from the moment of purchase ;
- publish quality content at different intervals after two to three months of "passive" ranking on your satellite sites.
The whole process is time consuming and more expensive up front. However, in the long run, you will find that the search engines will reward you and make your initial investment more than worthwhile!
Need help building your PBN? Contact us quickly, we will get back to you as soon as possible.
