- November 8, 2015 /
- PBN /
- By Jon Haver /
- 34 COMMENTS
In 2013 I created the ultimate guide to expired domains and since then have built over 2,000 PBN sites the right way!
This new and improved guide has everything you need to build a Private Blog Network in 2016 the right way!
This MASSIVE 9,000+ word guide provides you with everything you need to build a powerful PBN the right way easily and surprisingly cheaply!
This free guide is the result of years of experience, weeks of work, 2,000+ PBNs built, hundreds of customers, 230 comments on my last guide and dozens of people contributing questions.
Thank You to everyone who has helped make this guide the MONSTER it is!
I truly hope you enjoy and find a lot of value in this guide!
You will learn how to...
- Find premium expired domains that are powerful, relevant and free of SPAM
- Build an effective PBN with no footprint
- Use a PBN the "right way" to improve your rankings
- Use an exact repeatable process (with my procedures)
- Build a quality PBN at a remarkably low cost!
This guide has everything you need to build a powerful PBN by yourself but if you are tight on time and want to simply pay my team to build you your PBN right visit my service...
- The Best One Click - Done For You PBN Building Service
Jon HaverAuthorityWebsiteIncome.com & LightningRank.com
This Guide Works - Less than 10% of the 2,000+ PBN sites my team have created have ever been de-indexed!
90 %
% Sites Still Indexed
I have kept my original Ultimate Guide to Expired Domains post up to date but it covered a lot of different topics not just focused on building a PBN. This post is meant to be for the action orientated among you who want to build your own PBN!
Included in this post is all the newest tools you can leverage to build a PBN by yourself for less money than ever before!
This post will NOT show you ALL (some advanced/complex strategies I use are not shared) the different strategies I use in my done for you services but will provide you with everything you need to build a HIGHLY effective PBN for yourself as economically as possible!
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!
- 100% Done For You
- Indexation Guaranteed!
- Access to Better Domains & Hosting
- Remarkably cost competitive (often less expensive) compared to building it yourself
- 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
Everything You Need to Build Your Own Effective PBN As Easily and Cheaply as Possible!
This guide is free of fluff and as a result may gloss over some of the nuances. As a result there is a glossary and questions section at the bottom to try and fill in any gaps.
Finally... Enjoy & Good Luck Building!
How is This Ultimate Guide Organized?
Table of Contents
BUY HERE Option 1 - Done For You - Expired Domain Finding Service
If you are looking to purchase expired domains to use for your PBN my team has the following service
BUY HERE - Option 2 - PBNHQ Marketplace
For a great marketplace that offers Expired Domains at reasonable prices and domains that have been manually SPAM reviewed (very rare) I recommend checking out this marketplace...
Do It Yourself
To find domains yourself the best tool I have come across is PBN Lab developed by Scott Moran
Recommended Option – PBN Lab
Step 1 – Go to PBN Lab
I worked with Scott to come up with an exclusive offer just for this guide! For the 1st month you will get a 45day subscription! 45days following this guide should be enough time to find all the domains you would possibly need!
Step 2 – Sign Up for Tera account (majestic metrics required) (I personally pay for the EXA account)
Step 3 – Find Quality Expired Domains Using PBNLab
Original review and tutorial on how to find expired domains in 2015 posted here
Search Setup
Once you enter your login details, you will be brought to your dashboard. Here you can quickly check the different jobs you have going and view the domains in each job. In order to start a new job, you will need to go to the side panel and click on Add Job Wizard.
You will now be brought to the screen where all the magic happens. You will want to name your job. I usually name my job using the same keywords I am basing my search on, so for this search I will use basement renovation tips. What PBN Lab will do is for your keyword that you use, it will take the top 50 sites in Google for that specific keyword(s) and check its backlinks to see if any of those domains are available. If you choose Crawl Depth 2, it will even check those sites backlinks to see if any of those domains are available. There are a 2 cons with going 2 deep; takes longer to run (as there is many more sites to go through) and the domains become less relevant to your keyword(s) you are aiming for.
Next, you will be brought to the Crawl Source page. On this page, the first thing you have to do is choose where you want the domain crawler to crawl. You have 3 different options to choose from; search by keyword, manual list of seed URLs or parse google serps results. I would suggest sticking with searching by keyword as this will bring up more domains and will be more targeted to your niche, however if you have specific sites you want the bot to crawl through, you can input them using the manual list of seed URL option.
What I really like about this tool, is the fact that you can choose which country you would like the search results from. This is really handy if you are looking to target certain countries. This tool will bring up domains that are relative to the country you are searching in. For this search I will stick with United States.
Next you will input your keyword(s) you are hoping to search for as well as how far back in age you would like to go. If you are looking for newer domains, you can change this year, however I keep it at 1998 as it brings up the most domains for you to sort through.
On the next page, you will find a summary of the details of your search. This page will also show you the sites it will crawl to find your domains. If you do not like what you see, you can always go back a page and edit the information. Once you have all the details correct, you can go ahead and click finish.
Viewing Results
Depending on the amount of sites PBN Lab has to crawl and the depth of crawling, it could take anywhere from 5 mins to 2 hour. If you click on Dashboard on the left hand side, it will bring you back to the main page. Here it will show you if you have any jobs being crawled. If you do have jobs being crawled, it will tell you how many domains it’s gone through, how many domains left to crawl as well as the amount of time until the job is completed.
The main screen will also let you know how many jobs are running, queued, waiting or completed. Depending on what type of plan you have, you can either have 1 job running at a time or 2 jobs running. If you bought the plan that has 2 jobs running, it will be quicker at getting through the jobs then if you were to have the 1 job running at a time.
Once a job that you are waiting for is completed, you can click on Completed. This will then bring you to a page that has all of your completed jobs. This page will also tell you how many domains turned up in the search at a quick glance. For my search, 25 domains are available. On this page, you can also redo the search, re-fetch the metrics or delete the job easily. This is helpful if you have done a search a while ago and you would like to redo the same search to see if any new domains or new metrics have become available.
Sorting Through The Domains
If you click on the number of domains for the job you are looking at, it will bring up all of the domains available. For my job, it brings up 25 domains. Once you click on the number of domains, it will take you to a page where you can view all of the domains the bot found for you. You can now go ahead and sort the domains in ascending or descending order by any metric you would like. If you have a specific TLD your looking for you can also set the filter to show only those domains as well.
Another way you can filter through the domains is by expanding the filter settings. I usually set the filters to:
- PA > 20
- DA > 10
- CF > 10
- TF > 10 (if I filtered on only one metric it would be TF as very low TF usually means the domain has been abused with SPAM)
By filtering the domains, it narrows down your search even further. This narrowed down my search from 25 domains to 4 domains. This allows me to spend more time looking at domains with quality metrics rather than sorting through a bunch of domains with weak metrics.
Once you find a domain you are interested in, you can click on the domain and it will give you a brief overview of the domain. If you want to further analyze the domain, you can click on Action and it will drop down a variety of different tools for you to use such as Moz OSE, Ahrefs, MajesticSEO, Archive.org, Screenshots.com, NameCheap and Hostnine.
Metrics to Target
What metrics should we be targeting?
Here is the table I like to use for reference. Finding a clean good domain is difficult…finding a clean Amazing domain is incredibly hard!!
Metric
|
Good
|
Premium
|
Epic
|
|---|---|---|---|
CF (Citation Flow)
|
15
|
20
|
25
|
TF (Trust Flow)
|
15
|
20
|
25
|
PA (Page Authority
|
20
|
30
|
40
|
DA (Domain Authority)
|
15
|
20
|
30
|
NOTE - Good domains seem to provide the highest ROI. Meaning building out more relevant domains that have Good metrics is the most efficient way to improve your sites rankings. I target a site that hits 3/4 metrics to put it in each group . EPIC/Amazing domains are very rare and can cost thousands!
Importance of Relevancy
What should you emphasize more? Relevance or Authority? My preference is to consider both and get a natural mix. But having a relevant domain provides a few benefits…
- Relevancy is considered by Google (meaning a relevant but less powerful link improves your rankings as much as a more powerful but less relevant domain
- It is easier to appear natural. When you have a site MinnesotaHomeShow.com pointing to InkJetRefills.com or something similarly unrelated it screams of PBN.
However if you had MinnesotaPaperPrintShow.com linking to InkJetRefills.com it would make a lot more sense. (all sites in this example are 100% made up) - Creating content to be relevant is easier if the site is reasonably relevant. Natural content can be done in almost any combination but it is easier if the sites are relevant. I had a client in the Adult Diaper niche and we were able to generate links from sites in a bee keeping niche.
How to Check Expired Domains for SPAM
Checking a site to make sure it has a clean backlink profile is VERY hard and the step that most people screw up!
Originally this section of the article was posted at How to Analyze Backlinks
I use MajesticSEO(not an affiliate link) to analyze backlinks because of the graphic representation of the link profile which makes it incredibly easy to quickly see the quality of the backlink profile.
Anchor Text
Anchor Text manipulation is pretty easy to spot in Majestic SEO. Using the Anchor Text section there are 2 key things to look for..
- First unnatural anchor text density
- Secondly obvious SPAM in anchor text keywords (porn/poker/pharmaceutical or completely un-relevant keywords)
- Unnatural Anchor Text Density
- bedandbreakfastparksville.ca – Not as obvious an example but with the large number of links and only 3 different anchor texts this site shows clear signs of manipulation.
- naturesgoldspecialties.ca – This one is very obvious, 95% all with the same keyword – avoid!
- Obvious SPAM in Anchor Text
- classic-purse.com – This example is subtle! Often the spam is far more obvious with Porn/Pharmaceutical/Poker or other highly SPAMMED niches like PayDay loan anchor text. Whenever there are obvious signs of anchor text manipulation avoid it! In cases like the one below we need to ask ourselves if the anchor text could naturally occur in the way that it is being shown?
Link Metrics
- Large difference Trust Flow to Citation Flow – Links build naturally should be balanced between citation flow and trust flow (or for MOZ PA/DA should not show a large (~3x or more) difference between them)
- bushybride.ca – Here there is an obvious mis-match with Trust Flow = 2 and Citation Flow = 15. Ideally we want that ratio to be close to 1:1 but anywhere up to 1:3 can naturally occur but be cautious whenever you get below 1:2 Trust:Citation.
- Root to URL completely different – This one is often miss-understood. When there are good metrics for one domain and then none for another it often means that links were intentionally built to one URL and then none to another. This represents link manipulation!
- goteamintraining.com – Here the metrics on the Root Domain are ok but then the metrics at URL are non-existent!
VS…
- Concentration of Links on the TF vs CF Map – This is one of the reasons why Majestic is so great. A quick look at the TF vs CF graph can tell a lot about the backlink profile. The ideal graph is a series of domains spread along the line moving 1:1 from the origin. Two indications of a SPAMMY backlink profile is when there is an unreasonable concentration of links all in one location or when all the links are low trust. On the graph each dot represents a single link and the Trust and Citation score of that link.
- whoswhere.ca – In this example shown below there are 2 concentration and another grouping along the bottom representing Trust Flow on each of those links of ZERO. Typically what occurs is when a link building service is purchased a lot of the links will come from similar sites with the same CF/TF which results in concentrations on the TF vs CF graph.
- bedandbreakfastparksville.ca – Here there is one single high density concentration of links, there is a chance with this link profile that it could occur naturally but this is a warning flag. Whenever there is a single concentration of links on the TF vs CF graph there is a reasonable expectation that the links are artificially created.
Type of Links
- Non-Relevant Link Pages/Directories/Blog Network Pages
- legal-professionals.net (non-relevant links) – Non-relevant backlinks like the ones to this site provide no value.
- trendier-diaper-bags.com (directory) – Here is an example of a site that only uses directory links. Relevant human-reviewed directories are good but having only non-relevant free directories are bad!
- nadafhospitality.com (directory) – Here is another example of too many low value link/directory pages.
- howtotreatkidneystones.net (PBN & Hacked Sites) – Sometimes most metrics can look good but when you visit the pages linking to it it becomes obvious the links are all blog network links or sites that have been hacked.
- kitchenexhaust.info (SPAM sites) – When the sites linking to the URL are only SPAM sites then it is obvious the site provides no value and should be avoided.
- theweddingdiamonds.info (non-relevant directories) – Again relevant directories and link pages can be natural however, low value directories as shown by these links are bad.
- whoswhere.ca (Blog Network) – There is the famous quote from Judge Potter Stewartstating in regards to Porn vs art “I know it when I see it” and this applies to most of us who look at websites and can quickly determine if the site is built only for links or not. When the majority of the links pointing to a domain was clearly built for the purposes of providing a link, like in this example, we should avoid it.
- Blog Comment or Forum SPAM
- allhandbags.info (Forum) – Blog comments and forum SPAM are old low value black-hat tactics that still many domains have links from. In these cases it is important to look at the comment and forum post and just think if it is reasonable. Blog comments and forum links that are real are fine, blog comments and forum links that are only left for the purpose of the link are bad! Another fast way to tell is to see if there are A LOT of useless comments on the post…if that is the case then the site likely has auto-approve comments on and has been hammered by low-value black hat SEOs.
- Foreign Language Links
- fantastic-bags.com – Here is an example of english links on foreign language websites. This is almost always a sign of link manipulation and if spotted should be avoided.
13 Point Pre Purchase Checklist
Originally published here (Done for you PBN Service)
Relevance
- Highly or moderately relevant. Is it conceivable that this website would naturally link to your money site? If you think it would conceivably naturally link to your site than it is moderately relevant. If there is no way it would link to your site unless completely randomly I do not consider it relevant.
Metrics
- Page Authority (from OpenSiteExplorer.com I use DomainSpoon or my custom tool to check) 20+
- Domain Authority (from OpenSiteExplorer.com I use DomainSpoon or my custom tool to check) 15+
- Trust Flow (from MajesticSEO.com) 15+
- Citation Flow (from MajesticSEO.com) 15+
- Page Rank (higher is better) 0-3 typically n/a until update
Spam Check
- Check anchor text for Porn, Pharmaceuticals, Poker or foreign language anchor text in Majestic SEO – If any signs of this kind of anchor text do not buy!
- Natural Profile (no SEO) – Check backlinks for signs of blog network links, comment spam or directory spam – Use your discretion but if it looks like someone was doing low value SEO on the domain do not buy it!
- Does the exact match anchor text look natural? Below 15% at least – If no Do Not Buy
- Review website in Archive.org and see if the domain had content not related to the domain name – If the content does not make sense with the domain name it means it was already used as an expired domain (poorly used) – Do not buy it!
Redirection/Duplicate Check
- Check if the site was last redirected to a new site by checking the most recent page in Archive.org to see if it was being redirected to a new site. If it was redirected before expiring then most of the juice seems to stay with the redirection. Do not buy.
- Also check if all the old content has been moved to a new site – this may mean even though the redirection did not show up in Archive.org they did a 301 redirect on the old URL and Google has passed all the link juice to the new site. Usecopyscape.com or this free alternative for this.
Registrar History
- Check the registrar history if it has been registered and dropped multiple times you need to be confident it was not abused by checking it in Archive.org. You can check the number of times a site has been registered by visiting –http://whois.domaintools.com
Register Domain
Registering the domain is a relatively easy process but there are a few critical things you need to do to make sure you don’t either lose your domains or expose your network…
7 Steps To Successfully Buying and Registering a PBN Domain
- Use FakeWhois ideally or PrivacyProtection if you prefer
- Use a “Real” email – buying 10 phone verified emails for Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail on Market.Source-Wave.com is an efficient option and be sure to verify each domain by emaila. Gmail – 10 phone verified accounts for $5b. Yahoo – 10 phone verified accounts for $5
- Don’t register all your domains at one registrar (GoDaddy, Name.com & NameCheap are all very popular)
- Don’t registrar all your domains at the same time (spread out over a couple days)
- Mix up the TLDs don’t use all .info, .org, .com, .net, .co, .ca etc
- Create one master email to forward all your free emails too so that you can keep track of the confirmation
- BONUS TIP - For additional benefit us the same Alias information on the WhoIs data on the About/Contact page
We register domains at different registrars, This guide will go through GoDaddy and NameCheap registration for example. other registrars have some differences.
How to Get Fake WhoIs Data
- 1. Buy an inventory of Phone Verified free email accounts
- a. Gmail – 10 phone verified accounts for $5
- b. Yahoo – 10 phone verified accounts for $5
- 2. Forward those emails to a central email for managing your PBN domains
- 3. Generate Fake WhoIs namea. http://www.fakenamegenerator.com/
- 4. Correct the Address to ensure it shows up as a real address
- a. To find a correct address and other contact information we use search from any American or Canadian fast food locator website for examplehttp://www.fastfoodmaps.com
- b. Advanced Option - There is another method using Google map
- i. go to google maps and search for any city. It will usually take you to what it considers the city center. There look for a 3 way intersection. Since it's a 3 way intersection, one road will end in dead end. Click on the beginning of road and see what address does google display.
- ii. It could be something like 200 blahblah street. As you keep moving up the street, it most likely will increase like 240 blahblah, 260 blahblah. You get the point. Then you enter 180 blahblah street in search box. Even though it doesn't exist, google will most likely still show this address.
- c. BONUS – Reflect the WhoIs alias on the About/Contact and even homepage
- d. BONUS – If this is for local SEO use an alias/address from the local area you are looking to rank for
How to Buy and Register a PBN Domain Correctly
GoDaddy
- login to the registrar account.
- find the search box and enter the domain name. click search
- When you get the domain available, click “continue to cart”
- Leave “Keep my personal info public” selected and click “proceed to checkout”
- Click “Use alternate domain registrant contact information”
- 6. You will have this popup, fill it as you can see
at the second section in this guide. Important! Make sure that you checked “Apply this contact information to all 4 contact tabs for all domains.” down of the form. and remove all existing information.
NameCheap
- After login to the account and chose the new domain, you should change auto-renew option to on and delete WhoisGaurd. Then Click to “Confirm Order”
- Click to “Review domain configuration”
- Select “Add New Contact” from Registrant Contact dropbox
Hosting PBN sites is not easy but this section will help you cut through the crap and provide you with a very practical solution!
5 Requirements to Host Your PBN Sites:
- Each site must be on a unique or shared class A IP with a lot of other “real” sites.
- The servers must be geographically spread out. All PBN sites hosted in the same data-center would be an easy footprint for Google to spot.
- The host must not send me a “to much bandwidth” email after 10 visitors and try to force me to upgrade to a more expensive package. This can be very frustrating when my team has set up sites only to have to move them because the hosting company tries to force me to upgrade even though I know my sites are not pulling much bandwidth.
- The uptime and speed of the host must be acceptable. I don’t expect extremely high numbers here but to expect average up time. Several hosts (fatCow in particular) I have had problems with uptime.
- Ease of use of the host must be such that my VA can easily build the PBN site (sorry IXWebHosting but you take too much work to set up WordPress!)
Done for You Option
As you will find out properly hosting PBN sites can be a massive pain! Even with quality shared hosts there is a lot of effort that needs to go into keeping sites up and running.
My team can take care of this headache with our Done For You PBN Creation and Management.
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!
- 100% Done For You
- Indexation Guaranteed!
- Access to Better Domains & Hosting
- Remarkably cost competitive compared to building it yourself
- 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
Easiest Option - New Generation of Class A Diversity Hosting
Although this isn’t the best PBN hosting option (multiple shared hosts is the best PBN hosting option) for the purposes of this post it is the best option for someone looking to build and manage a PBN on their own efficiently.
EBN – Currently the best push button PBN hosting option!
EBN takes the concept of of a centralized dashboard connecting multiple popular hosting accounts and connects them seamlessly!
Benefits of EasyBlogNetworks Hosting
- Popular hosting providers used (rackspace, Amazon Web Services, Media Temple, Digital Ocean etc)
- One click wordpress setup
- Automatic updates
- Uptime monitoring
- Network organizing for larger PBNs
- Ongoing Indexation Check
- Ongoing Metric Checks
All in one dashboard…
Easy Blog Networks Tutorial
- Signup at EBN – Here
- Click “New” and enter blog details
- Go to your registrar and change your DNS as instructed.
- Login directly with one click from your dashboard and complete the customization of your site. This hosting option is not quite as good as having your own shared hosting accounts to spread your sites across but it is a very close second!
Done for You Service
Again my team produces some pretty incredible sites and would be happy to produce sites for you.
If you are interested in a complete done for you solution from start to finish for a PBN then have a look at my offer here.
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!
- 100% Done For You
- Indexation Guaranteed!
- Access to Better Domains & Hosting
- Remarkably cost competitive compared to building it yourself
- 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
Create Decent Quality Content Inexpensively
One of the most difficult parts about building a PBN site is getting quality articles created inexpensively.
This process is NOT easy and as you scale it is one of the most difficult things to do at scale.
Right not my business can be producing as many as 700 articles! Continuing to deliver quality at this scale is very difficult.
We refuse to use spun articles and try to strike a balance between quality, cost and quantity.
Here is the strategy I first shared in my Quality Cheap Articles post that still remains valid.
This strategy hadnever been shared before and I had reservations about revealing this part of my process for getting articles written since I know it will likely be copied. But, I made a commitment with this site that I would be 100% transparent so in the name of that here is my step by step process for creating quality articles.
I use UpWork for almost all my hiring needs. The benefit of UpWork that I love is that you can easily assign a team manager to take care of hiring/firing/supervising tasks. I simply set up a process, teach a team manager it and then let them run with it while I monitor.
Over the last 8 years me and my team managers have paid for over 66,000 hours of work and worked with 1,404 contractors!
Every time I check these numbers scare me! Huge!
Only $50k (I Wish!)
In UpWork I have a team created called my “Content Creation” team and it is managed by one of my project managers.
The system works like this…
Identify Articles to Be Created
I have a few different simple Google Document spreadsheets for my various projects with a typical list of…
- Website
- Title(target keyword)
- Type of content (500, 750 or 1,000 word blog posts)
- Link to eventual Google document of the article (for when the article is created)
- Link to published URL (either on my site or another page online)
These details are all added directly into my
Post a Job on ODesk
The job on ODesk doesn’t have to be anything special. The key to hiring good writers is understanding what they are looking for and providing it. My ideal writer is looking for an opportunity to get 5* feedback and steady work. I am looking for someone who is…
- A Native English Speaker (USA, Canada, Great Britain, Australia)
- Has writing experience
- College educated
- Newer to UPWork and looking for experience/exposure•
- Returning to the workforce and hungry to prove themselves
These qualities typically reflect themselves in a stay at home mom returning to the workforce or recent college graduates who is looking to get experience.
Here is my article writing job posting I like to use…
I have a quick 10 article writing job if you are interested in getting some 5* feedback on your ODesk profile and potential long term work.
I will provide you with the article titles and would like you to research them and then write 500 word articles
Required:
– Native English
– Interested in completing this job quickly for the fixed bid amount and receiving 5* feedback
– interested in potential longer term writing assignment after the successful completion of this job
– Bid at or below the $30 for 10 articles
– Native English
– Interested in completing this job quickly for the fixed bid amount and receiving 5* feedback
– interested in potential longer term writing assignment after the successful completion of this job
– Bid at or below the $30 for 10 articles
Hire 2 Writers for Each Group of Keywords
No need to interview since there is very little you can learn to better inform your decision. By not interviewing you take on 2 risks…
- Writer is not serious and does not complete the work – However, I don’t believe interviewing would reduce this risk and the consequence of not getting your articles is minor since you are hiring 2 writers for each group of keywords.
- You receive of sub-par quality content – Again, this risk is minor since you have 2 writers working for each group of articles and if the content is decent(which it almost always is)
Many people will disagree with me on this but hiring them right away without an interview saves me and my team a lot of time!
My 2 Reasons for Hiring 2 Writers for Each Group of Keywords:
- Timing – Some percentage (around 25%) of writers will not follow through on the contract so by having 2 writers I will have a high chance that articles will be ready for the site when I am ready for them.
- Quality – Sometimes even when I hire my ideal candidate the quality of content is lower than I want on my main site. So by having 2 writers I have 2 articles to choose from on what to post.
Since my PBNs I am creating are relevant PBNs if I end up with too many articles I can easily use the articles on another site with an adjusted title.
Send Them a Message with Instructions
Here are the instructions I send via UPWorkas soon as my team manager hires them, this email is nothing special but lays out what deliverables are expected and when they are expected. A great podcast if you are interested in running an efficient team is Manager Tools who teach the basic principle of project management is defining “who is doing what by when”.
One change I made to this template that improved the number of writers that completed their articles was asking for a small action right away “email me confirming you have received and understand these instructions”.
Welcome to the team. I really look forward to working with you!
My name is _____ and I am the team lead here, please email at _______ to confirm you have received this email right away.
If you ever have any questions or concerns you can get in touch with Jon the owner at _______
Here are the 10 articles each article needs to be 500+ words and 100% unique…
Title 1
Title 2
…
Title 10
Following the general instructions provided at the link below (specifically section 4)
Please send all articles in individual .doc form to the emails above.
Hopefully you can complete all 10 in 1 week, 5* feedback and more work will follow.
If you have any questions please contact me.
Thanks and I look forward to speaking with you more.
_______ (Team Lead)
Receive, Review & Upload Articles
Once the articles have been received they should be checked for the following…
- Plagiarism – Free checker or CopyScape
- Quality – Review the article to see if it is good enough to go onto the PBN. A tool that can quickly help improve the quality of an article is Grammarly.
My Content Creation Manager then uploads each article once it has been improved with Grammarly to a dropbox folder for my website creation team to pick up and publish.
In addition to uploading to the dropbox folder my Content Creation Manager updates the .
How many Articles? This question has no perfect answer but my belief is that a site with less than 5 articles looks suspicious. For that reason and with unfortunately very little data to back it up I have decided that each site will have around 4-7 articles and we vary this for each client with our Done For You Service.
Build a Great Looking PBN Site That Can Pass a Manual Review!
Question 1 – Do I use WordPress for all my PBN sites? My golden rule is whenever faced with a question ask myself if I believe this setup would be naturally occurring in Google and therefore nothing statistically significant sticking out. Based on asking this question do I think it is reasonable that another 5, 10 or 20 sites all running wordpress could link to the target Money Site? My believe is that yes as long as there is some other form of promotion occurring than having all the PBN sites be running wordpress is very low risk.
Question 2 – Do I block backlink Spiders to hide the PBN? I strongly disagree with a lot of people online about this one! My argument is simple, lets run through a simple mental experiment…
- Q - What type of sites install lines of code that tell Backlink Crawlers(Like Moz, AHrefs, Majestic) to not index their sites and their links?
- A – PBN sites or other shadier sites that all have something to hide from someone including Google.
- Q – Is the code that was entered to tell the crawlers not to index the links visible to Google?
- A – Yes
- Q – Given that only shady sites enter a few specific lines of code visible to Google does it make sense that Google could look for this code as an initial indication of a potentially suspicious site?
- A – Absolutely! And the reason I recommend against it in 95% of the situations.
There are a few exceptions… when the risk of being detected by competitors is higher than the risk of being detected by Google it makes sense to use these plugins.
To keep it simple if you believe there is a higher than 10% chance that one of your competitors is cut-throat enough they will be reverse engineering your link profile and reporting you than you should consider hiding your network.
SetupWordPress
This entire setup process is made easier with EasyBlogNetworks but has remained very similar over the years and proven itself with my de-indexation rate of under 10% ever!
Some of these plugins are now defunct but there are many similar options.
Change general settings
- Title, tagline and description similar to old site but should not be the exact same (we dont want to be mistaken as the same as the old website (archive.org) (WayBack Machine Alternative)
Change Permalinks
- Vary which setting you choose and sometimes use the custom structure /%postname%/ or other variation you choose. NEVER use the default
Discussion
- Unselect the email me when someone leaves a comment option
Install Theme
- Install a different free good looking theme everytime and make changes to them options as required. Pick a theme that doesn’t require a lot of modifications.
AntiSpam Plugin
- Vary which plugin is installed on each site, use one of the following
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/cookies-for-comments/
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/defensio-anti-spam/
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/growmap-anti-spambot-plugin/
- http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/bad-behavior/
Install a Sitemap Plugin
- Vary which sitemap you install
SEO Plugin
- Use an SEO plugin and configure
Link Checker
No Follow No Index
Create Email & Forward to _____@gmail.com
- Vary – Info, admin, administrator, webmaster @domainname.com
- Following the Domain Registration process above you can use the same email as the WhoIs for a perfect setup.
Create a Contact Form (no follow & no index it)
Privacy Policy Page (no follow & no index it)
- Create a “privacy policy” page. Set it to NOFOLLOW, NOINDEX
- http://www.generateprivacypolicy.com/ (make sure to spin it if you use the same one everytime)
- http://www.serprank.com/privacy-policy-generator/index.php
- Use others from other sites and Ctrl-F and replace the necessary parts
Install a related post plugin
Install a Social Share Button/Bar etc
Install one social sharing button plugin
Interlinking
- To help with internal linking please set up one of these plugins and link to the original articles that have been made with some generic terms like home, about, contact, visit to ensure some interlinking will occur. 3 links per page max
Speed Up Website
- Limiting the draw on the server is important when building out these sites. Install one of these plugins to help speed up the website. Make sure you select the option that DOES NOT cache for signed in users(if its available)
Redirects
- It is important that you identify the old URLs from archive.org and do 301 redirects from the old URL to the new URL. If you are unable to get content to create a new page do a 301 redirect to the homepage.
404 to 301 redirects
- There will be some pages that you will not be able to find and 301 redirect to the correct page so this plugin will allow us to 301 redirect all broken links to our website to the homepage
Remove Old Content
- Remove hello world and sample page
Add Content
- From follow the link to the created content in the dropbox folder
- Publish 5 articles immediately
- Confirm title is relevant
- Include the more tag around ~75% of the time
- Include an image (~25%-~75% of the time)
- Include a video from YouTube (~25%-~75% of the time)
- Ensure there are subheadings
- Ensure there are bullet points
- Ensure tags are used – vary the number
- Select 1 category
- Complete SEO plugin settings
- Link to 1 or more posts on the site
- Link to 1 or more relevant authority sites
- Do not link to money site in the first articles Schedule the remaining articles at 1 month intervals
- Follow the above checklist
- Link to the money site on the specified articles based on the – include the link above the more tag ~50% of the time
Finish the Layout
Modify Graphics
- Make sure any graphics on the page (slider) etc are relevant
- Include a custom logo on the sites
Widget Area – HomePage Description
- Ensure somewhere in the sidebar there is text with a description of the site that is similar (BUT NOT THE SAME) as the original site
Mirror the original layout
- If the original layout had a left or right sidebar match it
Widget Area (vary the layout with each site)
- Links widget to relevant authority sites (not the money site)!
- Video Widget – relevant video
- News RSS widget
- Custom Menu
- Blogroll – link to other similar blogs if applicable
- Ad – include the image of a relevant Ad and link to the home site – do not monetize with my affiliate links
Final Review – Does the site look/feel “real”? – If Yes done
Here is the exact training I originally created to train my team on how to make the most of the PBNs for our clients!
How do you get the most out of a Private Blog Network while at the same time minimizing your risk of Google penalizing you?
This section outlines the strategies I recommend when using your own PBN.
First let me share my general philosophy:
I would rather have a simple to follow safe strategy then a perfectly optimized strategy”
Jon Haver
With that in mind here are the guidelines my team follows when building PBNs for me or clients and how I recommend people use their own PBN.
This is not the only way but it is what I have found is the right balance of easy to understand and effective!
Overview of Part 4 – How to Most Effectively use a PBN
Here is a super short summary of the guidelines in this section of the guide.
- All Links Must Be As Natural As Possible!
- Articles
- Frequency – 1 article per week is ideal, 1 per month per site is great and 1 per site every 5 months is the minimum to keep your site fresh
- Quality – Articles must be of reasonable quality (can’t be spun and I recommend native English writers)
- Length – Article length should vary from 500 words to 1000 words
- Relevancy – Articles should be relevant to both the PBN site and the money site
- Rich Media in Articles – Include both images and video in posts in varying quantities
- System I use to get inexpensive
high quality articles created – here (and shared above in this Ultimate Guide to Building a PBN)
- Number and Location of Links
- Number of Links – 10 links max per site if the PBN site IS relevant and 1-2 links max if the site IS NOT relevant
- Location of Links – Links should be in the body of the article with the best location being in the first couple of paragraphs (but don’t have it in the same spot on all articles)
- Number of Money Site Links per PBN Post – Only 1 link to a money site from one PBN post is what I recommend
- Other Authority Links – 1-3 links to authoritative non-competing pages such as news stories relevant to the article.
- Anchor Text and Destination
- Anchor Text
- 1/3 – General or Name
- 1/3 – URL Only
- 1/3 – Phrase Match or Title of Site
- Don’t use exact match at all! (play it safe)
- Destination of Links
- 50% homepage
- 50% to a sub-page or post
- All Links Must Be As Natural As Possible!
Articles
The first step of building links to your money site from your PBN is to get articles created.
NOTE – For customers of my done for you service I build 1 article per month per 5 site network but more articles can be added as customers see fit.
Frequency – In an ideal world each PBN site would get 1 new article per week but that isn’t practical so I suggest 1 per month or as a minimum 1 new article every 5 months to keep the site fresh in Googles eyes.
Quality – The articles must be of good quality as Google continues to get better at determining quality this will continue to be more and more important. Spun articles are not recommended and I am yet to hire a non native English speaker who can produce articles that meet my quality standard.
Length – Article length should vary from 500 words to 1000 words
Relevancy – My theory from the start with PBNs is that relevancy can not only overcome weaker metrics but also provides a safer link in terms of exposure to a Google penalty. Getting a link to an appliance repair website in Tulsa from the former website of a church in Alaska is tough to pull off. However, it is definitely possible I like to use the image below to picture what the title of an article should be…
The articles should be relevant to the website you are posting on, it should be relevant to the target domain and target niche. Let me show you what I mean with an example using “appliance repair in Tulsa” at “jimsappliance.com” (not a real site) being linked to from an Alaskan church website within a PBN…
The title should be relevant to the website it is being posted on, it should be relevant to the target niche and also the target domain…
How to Keep Your Congregation Warm in Winter – Expert Jim Shares His Heating Tips
Where to Get Articles – Getting quality articles created from native English speakers is a challenge! The best way I have found is using the system I outline here and hiring a content manager to manage the whole process including title creation.
Rich Media in Articles – Including images and video in varying quantities is easy to do and really helps make a webpage look natural. One image after the second paragraph in every post is NOT what we are after. We want a nice spread of both embedded, relevant YouTube videos and from 0-3 relevant images.
Number and Location of Links
Number of Links – The maximum number of links back to your main money site from one private blog network site is often asked. Lots of people believe that 1 link per site is best…I take a different approach to this question.
If the PBN site is relevant to the money site than as a rule of thumb I say no more than 10 links. People may think 10 links per site is crazy but here is my logic…if there is an authoritative site in a given niche it only makes sense that you link to it from your site in that same niche several times.
For example from this website (authoritywebsiteincome.com) I link to a few sites regularly including SEOMoz.com and NichePursuits.com. Both of which I have probably linked to more than 10 times over the last year from this site naturally.
So if your PBN site is relevant to your money site then I would suggest thinking about using a limit of 10 links from it to one of your money sites.
Now there is a diminishing rate of return with links from sites…everything else being equal it is better to have a link from a different URL/IP then another from a site you already have a link from.
If the site isn’t relevant then I would suggest sticking with only 1-2 links from the PBN site to your money site.
Location of Links – The best location for a link is in the first couple of paragraphs of an article and naturally inserted into the middle of the text to be as natural as possible.
However, every link should not show up in the exact same location…they should vary from the top of the article to the bottom.
One place I DO NOT recommend the link going is at the very bottom of the article. The reason for this is that it could easily be mistaken for a lower value guest post which Google is cracking down on.
Contextual links higher up the article is the best place for a link.
Number of Money Site Links per Post – Limit to 1 link from an article to your money site, again people may disagree with this but it is the safest approach.
Other Authority Links – Nothing screams a PBN post like one link to one site, what I recommend is 1-3 other natural links to relevant authoritative sites. Wikipedia is the often recommended link destination but my preference is relevant news stories from any media outlet. HuffingtonPost or similar news outlets are great. Other great authoritative links are any niche organization. Try and avoid linking to competitors!
Anchor Text & Destination
Anchor text is where I believe most people go wrong and is the question I get the most.
After looking at literally THOUSANDS of expired domains on MajesticSEO.com I have both data and an intuition for what a natural backlink profile looks like.
Here are the guidelines I recommend to follow to keep your backlink profile looking clean while at the same time making sure to communicate to Google what your website should be ranking for.
Anchor text ratios I recommend…
- 1/3 – General or Name
- General are keywords such as (source, website, link, click here, visit us) a quick google search will provide you with lots of lists of generic keywords to use
- Another great anchor text to use that I group into the general 1/3 is name based anchor text such as (Jim, Jim Smith, Jim @ website name). I recommend if your money site has a name/alias attached to it to use it in your anchor text as well.
- 1/3 – URL Only
- This is simple but 1/3 of all your anchor text should be only the URL
- Tip – Don’t just link to the www or just the non www version. Make sure to link to both, one of the easiest ways to spot artificially built links is if the www has lots of links and the non www has zero links.
- 1/3 – Phrase Match or Title of Site
- Here is where people over do it all the time. Keep this group of keywords to 1/3 of all links to your money site.
- The keywords in this group should be related to your target keyword but not an exact match of your target KW.
- In this 1/3 of the links I also recommend using the exact title of your website
Note – if your title is your exact match I would still play it safe and modify the title slightly in the anchor text.
TIP – Play it Safe – Don’t use exact match.
The general consensus right now is to keep exact match anchor text to below 5% to avoid an off page over optimization penalty. In my mind it is simply safer and the results are still working if you simply don’t use your exact match anchor text at all. This keeps tracking easy and I never worry “oh crap will this push me to 5.5% exact match” which I think is a waste of time to have to think about.
Destination of Links – Where should your links be pointing? Well like everything I will take simplicity and safety over perfect optimization so my guidelines are simple…
- 50% Homepage
- 50% to different sub-pages or posts
With this case study I will build a HVAC $ Website and use both my 301 building block (Part 1&Part 2) strategy and a 5 site PBN to demonstrate how it works.
I obviously expect that this site will be reported and will be de-indexed eventually but I accept that and will use it simply as a demonstration PBN.
Final Result – PBN Example
This PBN example would be perfect for a HVAC small business or Amazon Affiliate Site promoting HVAC or Furnace Products.
How Much Did This Cost?
Building a quality PBN is not easy! However following this guide will result in a quality PBN being built.
$532.95Initial Cost to Build a 5 Site PBN
$37.75Monthly Cost of a 5 Site PBN
Want My Team to Build You A PBN?
Although I provide everything you need to build your own PBN in this detailed guide I know some of you will be looking for a more efficient use of your time!
- 100% Done For You
- Indexation Guaranteed!
- Access to Better Domains & Hosting
- Remarkably cost competitive compared to building it yourself
- 75% of Customers see a 40% ranking improvement in month 1!
Glossary
- Page Authority (PA)
- Domain Authority (DA)
- Citation Flow (CF)
- Trust Flow (TF)
- Linking Root Domains (LRD)
- Page Rank (PR)
- MozRank
- Private Blog Network (PBN)
- Expired Domains
- TLD
- 301 Redirect
- Class A vs B vs C IP Address
- Outbound Links (OBL)
- Network Saturation
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