Most PBN hosting guides will talk about the different providers, put their affiliate links in and call it a day. This won’t be that kind of guide. Sit back, grab a cuppa of your favourite hot drink (or cold drink, I won’t judge) and let time drift away as I waste your time guide you through all of the things to look for in a Web Host for your PBN and what to avoid when building your PBN.
You may or may not know what a PBN is and why people consider them to be the most powerful tool for any SEO. A PBN can be used to boost your money website’s rankings, drive traffic and even turn a profit whilst doing the other two at the same time.
You like profit, right? Ya know, like, money.
Expired and dropped domains are a great way of getting ahead online but turning a bunch of expired domains into your own network of power sites is the next-level technique that will give you the upper hand on most of your competition.
Read on to see what you should consider when choosing the right web host to build your private blog network on
What the hell is a PBN?
Alright, calm down.
A PBN is a group of websites that are owned or controlled by you. The idea being; the bedrock of SEO is content and links. Content is easy, you write it and post it, you have full control over it and can use your own keywords. However, you don’t control other websites linking to your website and this is where most SEOs and website owners will struggle.
A good PBN will be built across multiple strong domains or at least domains with a clean history
Getting good links to improve your search rankings is one of the toughest jobs for SEOs and Internet Marketers. With a PBN, you will be able to use your network of relevant websites to create backlinks to your money making websites showing Google that your website is of importance.
The setup of your PBN requires, by definition, to be built across multiple domains so there are real world costs involved in running your own true PBN compared to a network consisting of free web properties on blog sites such as WordPress, Wix or Weebly.
What are PBNs Used For?
A PBN is just a bunch of websites that you control, so, essentially you can do whatever you want with them. We’ll talk about some limiting considerations for PBNs in a later section of this guide.
One of the most common uses for a PBN is to improve the SEO of other websites, be it your money making website or selling guest posts to improve the SEO of other’s websites.
There are multiple ways to build and use your PBN such as:
- Boost SEO Rankings
Pointing anchored backlinks from your PBN to your more important websites is probably the easiest way to improve your search rankings - Selling Guest Posts
Guest posting has become a huge market with publishers selling guest posts for anywhere from $50 into the hundreds. A lot of aged domains from auctions are used for this and the huge increase in guest post marketplace shows that this is a very viable option for all PBNs to turn a profit. - Local SEO Enhancement
Much like with the first point; if you have local websites as part of your PBN, sending backlinks to your local business is sure to get you ranking higher - Affiliate Marketing
Having control over multiple websites in a given niche will really help to take over a niche. Buyers will usually read / watch more than one review before making a purchase, having more of these sites increases the odds they buy under your affiliate ID. - Lead Generation
Much like with affiliate marketing, a PBN gives you many web properties that can be used for landing pages in lead generation. These leads can then be promoted to by yourself or sold on. - Reputation Management
Want to hide something embarrassing? Having a large network of powerful websites at your disposal sure would make burying specific webpages and content fairly trivial - Content Distribution
Content marketers will utilise PBNs to get their advertorial and similar content in front of viewers. - Balancing Anchor Text Diversity
Sometimes an SEO will find a backlink profile they are creating is too targeted to their keywords. Genuine backlink profiles will often be scattered with generic anchors such as website, click here, brand name or something similar. Again, having access to a PBN of sites makes this a trivial task. - Traffic Redirection
Less white hat tactics can take the traffic coming to the websites in a PBN and send it out to other websites to boost traffic figures. This isn’t really advised as it is against most ToS but there may be legitimate reasons to want to do this. - Testing SEO Strategies
You may not want to test out the latest SEO techniques on your money website so using them on a PBN is a great way of abstracting the danger away to a less valuable property.
So that is what a PBN is and what the uses for a PBN is. Now, let’s get on to what PBN Hosting actually is and why it is important to choose the right web host for your needs.
We also have a guide on how to make money with expired domains on this blog, so that is a great starting point if you already have the domains and don’t know how to monetise them yet.
What is PBN Hosting?
PBN Hosting is a specific platform that allows you to setup your domains in one platform but to spread the websites across different web hosting platforms. This allows you to keep your website admin in a single panel whilst making use of different web hosts IPs and settings.
Specialist PBN Hosting can be really handy for keeping the upkeep time for your PBN to a minimum and to get your websites up and running as quickly as possible. Time is money, after all, and saving time on your time to live and your upkeep will pay dividends in future.
Obviously, a PBN doesn’t have to be hosted at a PBN hosting company. You can host all of your websites across multiple different hosts and you will get the same benefit of keeping their true ownership a secret from the search engines but perhaps without the benefit of having all websites controlled from a single admin panel.
Keep your PBN Unique
The kryptonite of any PBN is a footprint. A footprint is something that can be used to link all of the websites in your network. You must do everything you can to eliminate any footprints so each site exists as it’s own, entirely, isolated property from each other property.
You should never interlink between your PBN websites as that is an obvious link between two websites. If you are selling guest posts on your sites, make sure to vary up which sites you link from so you don’t have a situation where every website links out to the same websites.
The list of things that need to be unique in each of your PBN websites is vast and is essentially every part of each website needs to be it’s own considered option.
The obvious things to switch up for every site is the web host, the website template used, colours, logo and layout but it must also go beyond that. For example, you must not use the same advertising / affiliate code on multiple sites as that will instantly link them.
Unfortunately, this will also mean that you will need multiple web hosts and multiple domain registrars for your domains. With regards to registrar; most domains are registered at the bigger domain registrars such as godaddy, namecheap, or 123 reg so you can be a bit more relaxed with this but hosting is a different situation altogether.
When setting up your PBN Host you must remember these 5 important words:
Always use a different PBN Host
Use a different web host for every single one of your websites. This can be a pain in the butt but it will prevent the easiest footprint to spot
Types of PBN Host
So we know we are going to need a bunch of different hosts, what are the types of host to choose from:
- Shared Hosting
Shared Hosting provides a set amount of resources and is set in a big server shared by many users. You usually have limited access to the server, if any, but they tend to be cheaper and ideal for smaller PBN style websites.
Shared Web Hosts: OVHcloud | Namecheap Shared | 123-reg | Easyspace | HostGator - VPS Hosting
Like with Shared Hosting, a VPS is a section of a shared server but generally with dedicated resources shared amongst less users. Often a VPS will give more access to the inner workings of a server which could be a good or a bad thing, if you don’t require deeper access to how the server runs. Often this greater access is not required in a PBN website
VPS Web Hosts: Namecheap VPS | Interserver | Liquid Web - Reseller Hosting
Again, this is similar to Shared Hosting, except it usually gives enough resources for multiple websites. When creating huge amounts of websites you can begin to overlap some hosts and Reseller hosting may become an option. Generally, especially when starting out, the cheaper Shared Hosting options will likely be more appropriate for a PBN.
Reseller Web Hosts: HostGator | - Cloud Hosting
Cloud Hosting is a fancy pants name for Shared Hosting / VPS that, generally, can have it’s resources extended and reduced depending on load. In theory it is possible to save money with a cloud based option. This could be an option if you can find a good deal but most of the big Cloud Hosting operators tend to know how to turn the screws if your usage increases so keep this in mind in case your PBN receives lots of traffic
Cloud Web Hosting: OVHcloud | Liquid Web - Dedicated Server Hosting
A Dedicated Server Hosting company such as OVH will offer maximum features and performance for a full server for your website. If you are receiving huge levels of traffic this may be an option but for most of us living in the real world this likely won’t be necessary.
Dedicated Server Web Hosting: OVHCloud | Easyspace - PBN Hosting
PBN Hosting is setup specifically to host your domains at multiple different hosts with different details. These hosts will let you host across different hosts but from a single panel. These services will often host at popular hosting companies that lots of regular websites use. If you don’t have a system setup to track your domains, and their hosts, along with login details etc, then this could be the best option as it will simplify things greatly when starting out
PBN Web Hosts: PBN Hosting | Easy Blog Networks - CMS Based Hosting
A great option for hosting a PBN site is a CMS platform based such as WordPress. The benefits here, generally, are the low price and the fact that the whole website can be setup really quickly with pre-built plugins and themes. Unfortunately each platform is different so there isn’t a simple way to automate a lot of the setup. These are really good for those just starting their PBN. Most web hosts make it easy to have a CMS installed automatically through something like cPanel but these are specific to the CMS they are based on.
CMS Based Web Hosts: WordPress.com | Wix | Squarespace
So which one to choose?
A few of the options mentioned above are not well suited to most PBN website hosting. For example, most users will find a dedicated server too costly and a VPS likely provides more tools that will simply complicate the setup process.
Generally PBNs are setup across multiple shared web hosts or on PBN Hosts. This is an ideal setup for keeping your PBN Hosting footprints at a minimum.
Use a Different PBN Host
I cannot stress this enough; Use a different PBN Host per new website you build for your PBN.
There is no point spending money on domains and hosting, build a website around it, with content and design costs associated, only to announce to the world what your game is through your hosting footprints.
If you choose to go the manual route and have accounts at different web hosts you will need to be using the most cost effective hosting available. We have a great section listing the cheapest web hosts ideal that are ideal for setting up a PBN. I would advise to check those providers for the best deal across multiple hosts.
Most PBN websites will be small with limited traffic so, often, the cheapest hosting is all that is required.
Create a new account at a new web host for each account or use a specialist PBN Web Host
Who are the PBN Web Hosts
So you’ve looked at the options and, likely, come to the conclusion that it would be easier, and likely cheaper, to just go with a dedicated PBN web host. This is usually the easiest option and can save a lot of hassle, especially if you are not too confident with setting up lots of hostings.
You will likely get slightly less control than you would with direct accounts with each host but this comes with better ease of use and less time getting your websites up and running.
Check out these hosts below to get an idea of costs and features that are offered.
Easy Blog Networks (click)
EBN will spread your websites across some of the most prominent web hosts that will look as natural as possible. They use Amazon, GoDaddy, Digital Ocean and more just as an example of the big names they host with. EBN have been doing this for years.
PBN.Hosting (click)
They have a great, easy to use platform and similarly host on big platforms but don’t have quite the large spread of hosts to hide amongst in the way EBN does. Great for starting out though, easy to use means less time faffing around and more time being productive.
Don’t be taken in with cheap short term deals
Most web hosts will offer a cheap few months or even first year but you should be thinking long term, try to consider the cost over the first 5 years rather than the first year as that will give a better idea of long term running costs for each website.
The web hosts in our cheap web hosting guide all have their costs considered per year. There may be some discrepancy in current pricing but you can shop around those hosts.
Are PBN Website Hosts Reliable?
Most of the larger PBN hosts will be basing their service on the biggest web hosts online ensuring that your website sit amongst a large portion of regular websites.
The types of hosts these services are based on are as reliable as they come.
How to Find Expired Domains for your PBN
Finding domains via the usual methods of using a crawler, a domain availability checker and then getting the domain stats and checking their backlinks etc, can be a very time consuming and daunting task.
This is why we built Domain Hunter Gatherer Pro!
Domain Hunter Gatherer Pro is the fastest expired domain crawler and domain availability checker built in. DHG Pro gives so many tools and simplifies the whole process you won’t believe you ever did it manually.
There are no limits to how much you can search or crawl, no limits to how many domains you check for availability and you can use the software as much as you want. It really is a one of a kind super powerful domaining tool that is essential for all serious domainers, SEOs and Internet Marketers.
