What is a PBN?¶

A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a network of blogs and high authority websites owned by a single company that are used to increase the ranking of their target websites.

The ranking gain could be the main goal of the PBN or a side product of the PBN.

How Are Private Blogging Networks Made?¶

A PBN is usually made of many old domains that were purchased in aftermarket auctions or expired domains that were purchased by the PBN owner.

The PBN owner then rebuilds those websites with contents from their old archive or with completely brand new content. As all those domains already had their backlinks, the newly owned websites are already valuable and authoritative.

In the case of domains with old content, the process is just a legal transfer of domain ownership which becomes the property of the new owner and can be used in any way deemed profitable.

The responsibility of the SEO expert then would be to build an organic and zero-footprint backlink strategy for the target websites by adding more relevant content to PBN and a mix of follow and nofollow links to increase the ranking of the target websites.

Are Private Blog Networks Illegal?¶

Private blog networks are not illegal. There is no law in any jurisdiction in the world that prohibits the creation of private blog networks.

Google, on the other hand, does not approve of such services as it obviously provides an unfair advantage to the private blog network operators.

Do Private Blog Networks Work?¶

Without any doubt, they work. Although it is the responsibility of the maintainer of those websites to make sure their activities do not appear as SPAMing Google or Bing. Otherwise, they will have to face the risk of having their whole PBN discovered and banned by Google.

Considering the time and effort, and money invested in building a successful PBN over the years, it is of utmost importance that the maintainer of the PBN does not make any mistakes and keep their network not only in line with Google guidelines but with zero footprints and relation.