If you’ve been reading any kind of online marketing forum or blog, you have already probably come across the term PBN. PBN stands for Private Blog Network, these are website networks that have been set up specifically for SEO purposes. The whole point behind these networks is to build on the backlinks generated by dead websites. To build a website, we have to first register a domain name, then create a website.
Throughout the life of a website, provided that it is active, it can earn backlinks from the rest of the Internet. Due to a variety of reasons, a large number of domains expire every year. A significant chunk of these domains were associated with actual live websites. These websites have a backlink footprint. When the domains die, you can no longer access the website because the domain is dead. By buying expired domains, you can resurrect the backlink footprint of the old website associated with the expired domain.
When you build a network of websites using expired domains, you have yourself a PBN. Of course this is not the only definition of PBN. There are PBN’s that use fresh domain registrations and are built and grown organically. There are also PBN’s that use Web 2.0 websites. The reason why people use expired domains for PBN’s is because you get a massive head start. Instead of having to wait months if not years to build search traffic and highly competitive niches, you can rank fairly quickly using expired domains. Sounds good so far, right?
There is a lot to get excited about
Make no mistake about it, when it comes to SEO there’s a lot to recommend PBN’s. So far, Google has not banned this practice. In fact, if done properly, Google will be completely blind to private blog networks because a really well put together and managed PBN’s look completely natural. They’re not much different from totally natural blogs out there on the Internet.
However, unbeknownst to Google, these networks are linking strategically to promote one central target site. This central site is called your “money” site. You make your money through the high rankings and subsequent higher search engine traffic levels of that particular target site. You get a tremendous competitive advantage compared to doing things naturally. In fact, if you think about it strategically, you are to spend less money on PBN’s because you are spending less time setting up your blog. The more time you spend doing something, the less time you have for other things that may make you more money. Do you see how this opportunity cause play in?
If done properly, PBN’s enable you to do SEO in a more cost effective way. Also, you get faster results. You’re going to be waiting less because you are already leveraging on existing backlink footprint. You just recycle the existing link equity of the expired domains that you are using for your PBN. Finally, another great advantage to PBN is the fact that domains drop all the time. This can happen for a wide variety of reasons. The number one reason of course is that people simply lose motivation to continue blogging. Hey, this can happen to the best of us. Nothing is more discouraging than blogging for a long time, putting in all this work, only to see very little money for all the time and effort.
Not surprisingly, according to the New York Times, almost 90% of blogs fail. Of course, the New York Times uses a specific definition of failure. According to the New York Times, a blog fails when it is no longer being updated. Still it doesn’t take much time for a blogger to eventually give up on his or her blog because they have stopped updating or they are not making money. The reason for that of course is because they are not getting the kind of rewards they are looking for. Due to this reality, there is a great inventory of expired domains. While a large chunk of them have low value in terms of backlinks, there are enough gems among the expiring domains in any given month. These gems have high value backlinks and even get live traffic if you reactivate the website.
The bad news about PBN’s
If you buy domain names from domain auctions, you are going to be in over your head. You have to understand that you are not the only online marketer who appreciates and understands the traffic value of PBNs built from expired domains. There is no shortage of marketers looking for the same high value expired domains with tons of backlinks. The end result is that you might end up paying a lot of money for expired domains if you buy them at an auction.
The good news is that you don’t have to build PBN by paying an arm and a leg. There is a way to build your Private Blog Network using expired domains without breaking the bank. The best way to do this is to use highly powerful specialized software like Domain Hunter Gatherer to scour expired domain databases for backlinks that are in your niche. This is crucial because the more niche-specific your domains, the better they are for SEO. Assuming that everything is equal, assuming that it also has a great backlink equity, assuming that it has content relevance – the domains you find using Domain Hunter Gatherer and similar tools can provide a tremendous amount of link value without driving you to the poor house.
You have to understand that the reason why a lot of marketers pay top dollar for expired domains is not because they want to, it’s because they were forced thanks to an auction platform. Whenever you are bidding on anything on domains with other marketers, there is tendency to bid up the price if the backlink equity is high enough.
The good news is that by looking at mixed targeted domains with decent backlink footprints using Domain Hunter Gatherer, you can get a leg up on the competition. The domains that you are choosing don’t have spectacular backlink footprint, so this enables you to fly under the radar as far as your competition is concerned. You would be able to snap up these domains at registration rates. The key here is to look at your target domain’s general niche and look for related sub-niches and see if there are drop domains in those related areas.
You can read more about this in our amazing eBook “Building a Sustainable PBN The Smart Way” that is an included bonus for all Domain Hunter Gatherer Pro users