Thoughts on PBN. Is it worth it in 2020?

CashCowAdv

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It's 2020. There's a ton of reasons why PBNs are more expensive to operate and manage than before.

What are your thoughts on PBN links, and why?

What are your thoughts on building a PBN, and why?
 
If you operate in a niche where you can't build natural links, then I don't know any other unnatural link building method other than hacked links.

You just need to be extra careful and I am not sure if it is worth the effort.

But a PBN is just like any other link. It is just that you own it, As long as you can hide the footprint, they still yummy
 
It's just one of the backlinking methods. As Bopeep mentioned, there are some niches where backlinking opportunities are very scarce.

Prices of building a decent PBN are getting higher and higher. The auction domain prices are growing exponentially. They are probably at 3x what they used to be 2 - 3 years back and people are still buying like crazy, so the method itself is as strong as ever, if this can be considered an indicator.

However, it's brutally expensive to build it and maintain it properly, so it doesn't get caught and deindexed. But this is the trend you can see with SEO in general. Everything is getting expensive, SEO is for big boys only and kids with a couple hundred bucks budget will never make a mark. It's still doable, but I wouldn't bother if I were just starting out. And it will most likely get even worse, as there's more and more emphasis being put on authority sites by Google.
 
I could write a novel about this but your chances of having it be fruitful are astronomically higher if you make sure it remains a private network and not a public network. There will be the temptation to offset costs by selling links to other webmasters. Just Say No! Those other webmasters will be doing things that will draw attention to your network and before you know it, it's deindexed.

But if you truly keep it private, it can be safe, especially if you can root out as many footprints as possible while blurring others. That's another novel, too.

The question then becomes whether or not you can offset the costs by the revenue it brings to your main site. Another thing you can consider is monetizing the PBN sites themselves and continue to grow them so they start to resemble real sites more and more. Ultimately they become real sites.

But then that begs the question of why you would build a PBN network in the first place. The internet can be your PBN. When you build a PBN, all you're looking for is contextual links back to your site. You can have that without having to procure the domains, pay for hosting accounts, etc.

Yes, like the lawyer niches you're working in, some industries are super competitive and loaded with spammers and unbelievable PBNs. I once saw a PBN that must have numbered in the 100's of sites that worked in tiers. I mapped out as much of it as I could and it was beautiful pyramid that must have been a nightmare to operate but probably made gobs of money.

The point is, there are some industries where you can't compete if you aren't doing the same things as the competitors, and some of that is churning and burning PBN sites. The profit margins are so high that it can be done.

I'd get real honest with myself about whether or not I'm in one of those industries. Because if you're not, PBNs are a huge distraction and black hole that will suck you up and waste a couple years of your progress, as will mass spam.
 
“You can lead a horse to water, but somehow if it is determined to it will shoot itself in the foot, twice.” - CCarter
 
To me it's simple.

The old phrase 'you get what you pay for' has not lost yet.

When you pay for links on sites where the content is maintained with real content , you get get better results.

Or in layman's , when the blogger has their livelihood depedent on maintaining a blog with fresh content and has a reader base, your results will be far greater than a PBN; especially with those non-native to the language it's written in.
 
PBN still definitely work, for those who know how to do it right. I know it for sure because i have few clients who have been buying few domains for their networks from me every months, for years. God, what industries they are working in, and what powerful but stealth networks they build!
 
Honestly I'm with RYU on this one about four years ago I spent a massive budget on PBN's buying up as many auction domains as I could for thousands upon thousands of dollars.

I bought a couple of courses on how to make these private blog networks and I spent hours upon hours reading on how to have absolutely no signals and following experts on the topic including discussions with some of the biggest sellers out there.

I built my PBN with as little signals as possible with absolute paranoia think different ips just to log into a account, different shared hosting accounts for each pbn, over 100 list of signals i had to make sure weren't crossed over. The site that I was trying to rank actually did incredibly well I was number one for all of the money terms that mattered for a sports niche that anyone would recognize. I made a lot of money and probably offset the cost of the PBN with the cash that I made but then lo and behold Google found the PBN somehow and penalized the website. Only some of my pbn was found but the damage was done. I had the sites penalty removed after cleanup but it never got back to glory no matter how much more white hat links I would bring to it almost as if Google had said this site will never get to #1 but well let it compete a bit.

The amount of time I dedicated to PBN's and actually bringing the sites up myself was insane. If I were to go back I would immediately tell myself stay far far away you don't need the pain and stress of this. If you want to do black hat PBN builds either finds an incredibly reputable expert to buy links off of that vets its buyers heavily or just stay away from them altogether.

I think I lost a year of my life I'll never get back from PBN's.
 
PBNs are a complete waste of time for most people. A constant shit shoveling contest, as to who can mass produce the most helplessly bad spam content across the web. What do you learn by having PBNs? You learn to spam and pollute the web. Not marketable skills.

It sucks up all your creative energy that should be spent on your site. It's why most link spammers do not have websites, except in spammy niches, where they can leverage quick gains. Yes, you can do that and some people do that, we all know it can work short time.

PBNs also don't last, the effect is short lived. It's so common to see sites ranking worse than you and check their backlinks and it has hundreds of seasoned PBN links. If PBNs worked, those links would increase with time, not decrease.

Advertorials or buying from established sites, niche edits, or whatever, those work, also long term, but they're also a massive cost, at $200-$500 a piece, which is quite a lot money you can't spend on content and design.

I've dabbled a bit in link buying recently, but mostly feel it is not worth the time.

Let me tell you what I do instead.

I buy expired domains from link sellers, then I build them into some sort of gimmicky site, such as a calculator or aggregator or something else that's actually useful. I use them as projects to improve my coding skills. Then I have sites that rank and earn some income, if only to pay for themselves and their dev time. I can then link to my own sites from here, but also swap links with webmasters from them.
 
I don’t use PBNs myself, but know of people who do and they’ve been doing it for 6 years strong now just dominating the top ten for very lucrative keywords.

So can it be done, yes. Is it worth it? If you do it right, and it fits your personality, it certainly is. Depends on you. Personally, I don’t want to have to deal with all that goes with it. And the potential to so easily lose it all so suddenly if caught.
 
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