Does everyone start off with PBN links?

gamma911

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Hey guys,

So I've used PBN's (High quality) for my first site which has just made over $500 this month and it got me thinking, would I have gotten here without the PBN's (9 months after launch) if I didn't use a PBN?

I'm now transitioning to white hat link building, guest posts, skyscraper etc to hopefully not need the PBN's in the future.

I've just started another site and obviously when something works, why change it - but it got me thinking if that's what everyone is doing to see success at the very early stages of a site?
 
What exactly are you asking?

No, don't start with PBN's. Start with natural links like social profiles and the likes.

You can mix in PBN's later when you already have a profile. That's what I do, and it works well.
 
Hey,

Not everyone does, no. I wouldn't even know how to build a PBN to be honest (it seems like a lot of work these days to do it well and safely...) so I always just start with content+promotion. I've got three sites that my team are working on for me currently with that approach. Having said that some people here have had pretty significant success starting that way:

https://www.buildersociety.com/thre...690-000-in-under-2-years-ask-us-anything.2452

You can also 'derisk' a site while continuing growth. I had a client a few years ago that started out pretty 'aggressively' before they came to me to 'fix things up' and wanted to go clean so I had them remove 1 'bad' for every 2 'good' that they achieved and we managed to keep some growth going while ending up clean.

Hope that helps with some ideas.

Steve
 
I've got several sites but I have a new one - it is 5 months old and this month should make over £500.

I have never used PBNs. This is from content and guest posting mainly.


I think you could have gotten to the same income without the PBNs - it just may have required more effort.

Did you buy the links on the PBNs or make your own?
 
Thanks for the replies all - I'm renting a few links from 1 source, and I've started my own network, but not sure how sustainable my own network is. It's small - only about 15 sites right now. The issue with my own network is that I can only really link to 1 month site per pbn domain, so considering the domain cost, the hosting, the setup, it's quite expensive for what you get. I'm likely going to move away from it and stick with renting, and whitehat.
 
gamma911 said:
I can only really link to 1 month site per pbn domain
Click to expand...

I am assuming you mean 'money site' and that was a typo...if so, this isn't the case. You can link to as many money sites are you wish, you will simply get diminishing returns.

As long as all of your money sites are NOT on the same webmaster tools account then I would consider it ok to link to 2, 5 even 10 of your money sites as long as the content is good, you are linking to other sources and you mix up the link types and anchor text. (think image links, naked URL's etc)

It only becomes a problem if you have 10 PBN sites and all of them link to the same 10 money site for example. That would be a footprint.

Ultimately if your PBN sites are good, with quality backlinks and you link from them like someone would when guest posting, for example, you should be fine.
 
PBNs still work for now, but I'd start/grow an authority site solely based on white hat link building. It might be slower, but in the longer run it takes you further.

The guys at AuthorityHacker.com are teaching this white hat model. Check out their perspective on the pros and cons of building an authority site, the white hat way: authorityhacker.com/what-is-an-authority-site/

Cheers!
Eugene
 
For me, if you're building a precious site you intend to last forever, simply don't use PBN's at all. The entire internet is your PBN. It's a million times easier to acquire a link than it is to set up and maintain a PBN and deal with footprints and think you're going to survive.

Even in the case of using a PBN, you're better off using them to support your clean Tier 1 links and keeping them away from your own site. This way you can also blur the footprint a lot more and use the same sets of sites more than you normally would since your targets are all on different domains.

If you're churning and burning, go for it. Fire right at the site.

Of course you can get into the game of trying to have enough trust and other links to make the number of PBN links a fractional value of your overall backlink profile. But at that point, I still don't see the point if its such a small percentage. We can't really quantify the risk, we can only guess. So it's a gamble for a precious site any way you chop it up.
 
When I first started off I was terrified of PBNs because of what Google has said about them. So I dove deep into white hat link building where I learned the ways of the trade from people such as Neil Patel, Brian Dean, etc.

As i've furthered into the industry, I have started to get my toes wet into PBNs, primarily while connecting with those that have been around for 10+ years and have safe networks that are very difficult to be a part of.

Do you guys ever see legitimate PBNs ever getting caught or penalized?
 
Well the answer is both YES and NO.

There are many who have created their own PBN and have used it for their site exclusively, which is a great move to begin with, but a big DO NOT DO IT advice if you are buying from the same.

Do start with natural links like Guest Posts and Social Links and make it as a practise to grow more with the same startegy. Google with recent Penguin update which had been made real time is penalizing sites who bought links from various PBN service providers recently as they had been widely selling links which had literally broke in the key rule of why a PBN is built.

UWE said:
Do you guys ever see legitimate PBNs ever getting caught or penalized?
Click to expand...

Agreed :smile:
 
Depends on how highly you value your site. If it is a starter site and you are not sitting behind a blog for which you invested a vast amount of money, I would always recommend going with a PBN for a start.

I believe that PBNs still offer the highest ROI and decent risk/reward ratio. Once your site really takes off and you decide you want to invest a lot more money in content and "white hat" links, you can start slowly removing your pbn links.

If you build your own PBN and build it in a semi-decent way, the chance for deindexation drops drastically. The most important thing that you want to consider is the hosting. PBNs are still the fastest way to position yourself as an owner of a $xxxx/month website.
 
A lot of my clients do not use PBNs, though many do. Building links through guest posting, meaningful blog commenting and similar methods takes more time and effort, but it often pays off more over the long term.

I agree with everyone here who says you need to consider the methods you are using in context. You need to ask yourself what you are willing to put into the site and whether this is a long- or short-term project first.
 
Ryuzaki said:
For me, if you're building a precious site you intend to last forever, simply don't use PBN's at all. The entire internet is your PBN. It's a million times easier to acquire a link than it is to set up and maintain a PBN and deal with footprints and think you're going to survive.

Even in the case of using a PBN, you're better off using them to support your clean Tier 1 links and keeping them away from your own site. This way you can also blur the footprint a lot more and use the same sets of sites more than you normally would since your targets are all on different domains.

If you're churning and burning, go for it. Fire right at the site.

Of course you can get into the game of trying to have enough trust and other links to make the number of PBN links a fractional value of your overall backlink profile. But at that point, I still don't see the point if its such a small percentage. We can't really quantify the risk, we can only guess. So it's a gamble for a precious site any way you chop it up.
Click to expand...

Well put and 100% agree!
 
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