Do you want tremendous business growth, and are you willing to employ any  SEO (search engine optimization) strategy to get it?

Black hat and white hat SEO content-marketing experts frequently argue over the pros, cons, and ethics of using private blog network (PBN) links to increase brand relevance.

PBN links can propel your domain name to the top of the search engines, but they can also result in your domain's permanent banning from Google's ranking due to your disregard of Google's guidelines.

Explaining Black vs. White Hat SEO

Explaining Black vs. White Hat SEO

White hat marketers are your typical rule-followers in the SEO marketing world. They are Google-approved and -promoted for their squeaky-clean advertising efforts.

White hats often use outreach software to mass email other bloggers, asking for support through the means of guest posts.

Some sites even offer free content, so larger platforms will share it and get their sites' names known.

White hats also utilize what is known as an editorial link, meaning that they never disrupt Google rankings' authenticity by paying for a link.

On the other hand, black hat marketers do not operate within the confines of search engines. Black hats will learn how to build a PBN themselves. They subversively work to outsmart the system and subsequently benefit from the search engines' blind spots.

Black hats obsess over building link after link as a means to redirect traffic to their leading site and achieve maximum exposure.

Automated and impersonal software, such as mass link-manufacturing aids, is their primary ammunition.

You might be asking yourself: "Are the black hats using the right tactics? I want fast growth, and link-building seems to be the way to get there.

Is the risk of using PBN links worth the possible reward?"

To answer these questions, you first need to understand how a private blog network operates.

What Is a Private Blog Network?

What Is a Private Blog Network?

A private blog network is an online connected network of websites and blogs that share a joint owner.

Typically, the multiple blog sites do not create quality content for their audiences and instead function as a link-building strategy with some spun content thrown in for good measure.

PBN sites work by including a keyword that links back to your main webpage and increases your rankings on search engine sites.

You see, the more backlinks your domain has, the more potential traffic your main money site will receive.

Thus, using private blog networks (PBNs) is how black-hat marketers successfully link sites and collect visitors to achieve business growth.

Private blog network owners will also sell their backlinks to other domains and make an additional profit that way.

Users of private blog networks keep their sites a secret from the public because private blog networks come with the risk of a manual penalty by a human reviewer at Google.

If search engines discover you are using a PBN, your domains face penalization, and your rankings will drop in Google search.

When using a  PBN, you have to work to hide your digital footprint from search engines by differing your hosting provider for each of your domains.

How Does a PBN  Work?

To understand why some marketers choose to use the instant gratification of PBNs, take a look at these example equations:

  • If I purchase two domain sites and the sites each generate five links to my main websites, I have ten authority links that will help determine where I rank.
  • If I buy five domain sites and the sites each output five links to my main websites, then I have twenty-five authority links that will move my sites up in rank.

Building links on PBN domains can be perilous, but as they say: If you take no risks, you get no shot at glory!

Or is there a better and more organic way to go about promoting your website without losing Google's trust?

The Pros and Cons of Private Blog Networks

Pros and Cons of Private Blog Networks

Being a part of a PBN is similar to engaging in the follow-for-follow groups on Instagram or taking part in the giveaway TikTok schemes.

You might earn a few more followers, but in the long term, you could damage your credibility and alienate your audience.

White-hat SEO strategists preach that organic search rankings come from following the best practices, such as:

  • producing top-performing content
  • utilizing quality links
  • removing SEO mistakes such as irritatingly slow-loading pages and distracting pop-up pages that take up half the screen and are impossible to close

For white hat marketers, the risks of private blog networks outweigh the quicker results of PBN links.

However, to play devil's advocate, using PBNs is a short-term tactic that could help your website gain exponentially more customers without having to wait months or potentially years for results.

  • A PBN gives you the ability to boost the rankings of your site quickly.
  • You could see substantial SEO performance improvement with a PBN.
  • A PBN gives you access to a complex link profile that highlights your brand to potential clients.
  • You may enjoy a tangible, dramatic increase in brand relevance when you buy PBN links.
  • PBN links require less of a need for genuine relationship building or partnerships with other domains.
  • Link building gives you a sense of control over your page since you are the one approving the content and the links pointing back to your site.
  • Link building grants you the ability to leverage trends to your advantage by incorporating relevant anchor text links. Anchor text links are typically blue-highlighted texts that read "click here" or your company name.
  • Making new links becomes fast and cost-effective once your PBN site is up and running.
  • Having the option to buy or rent PBN links from PBN sites means that your website benefits without you having to put additional work into it.
  • When using a PBN, there is no need to engage in other organic marketing techniques, like email outreach, to promote your site.
  • PBN links can help your local relevance by focusing on your Google My Business listing.
  • PBN links optimize your guest posts.
  • You have to dedicate a lot of your time and resources to hiding your PBN posts from the search engines.
  • A PBN potentially costs a lot of money during the initial set-up.
  • Your link-building may cause spam detectors to flag your site.
  • Using PBN links can potentially result in weakened rankings, lost traffic, and a Google penalty. In the worst-case scenario, Google removes your site from the index entirely.
  • Your competitors may conceivably undermine your site by using SEO tools to investigate your backlinks and report suspicious PBN behavior.
  • Unprofessional PBN websites could forget to delete their digital footprint, leaving your site vulnerable to the search engines' discipline.
  • When you buy PBN backlinks, you are in direct violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines.
  • If you are selling PBN links, you have to be upfront with your client about the risks. Obscuring the fact that link building can result in the loss of your client's website ranking is unethical.
  • Your PBN is statistically more likely to face attacks by hackers.
  • Your content may be low quality since your primary focus is on link building.
  • Using PBNs may not be a sustainable commerce model for long-term growth.
  • Google may ignore your links entirely, making your PBN defunct and useless.

Why Do Google's Rankings Discourage Using a PBN?

When it comes to marketing your site, search engines praise white-hat techniques and authentic authority over PBN links and those who resort to doing anything to get ahead.

Embedding quality links is a way one site vouches for another site's content or services.

Think of it this way - if a friend with a stellar haircut refers you to their stylist's site, you are more likely to give that stylist a chance and check out their page.

But what if a group of friends told you that a different stylist was worth the risk? Which stylist do you think is going to receive more foot traffic to their barber chair?

Quality backlinks function like glowing recommendations for a website's content or services, the same way your friends' raving about their new highlights make you want a color refresh.

Imagine this scenario. Your group of friends has started selling their compliments indiscriminately to high-quality and low-quality hairdressers alike.

Suddenly, you find yourself walking out of the salon as the not-so-proud owner of uneven bangs and visible roots.

If positive recommendations sell at random for a paycheck, then in actuality, they provide no real value to the consumer.

Trustworthiness is the hallmark of all good economics, including Google AI's commerce model.

Keeping the market honest allows even a startup website to thrive if it has quality content and products.

Paying for your ranking is a form of cheating the system, and it would render Google Ads defunct, losing the company money.

Backlinks vouching for your site's authority increase its ranking, which is why subverting the system by link building with PBNs leads to the severe penalization of your site.

How To Recover After Receiving a Manual Action From Google

Let's say you just got busted for using a PBN. Google caught your site red-handed, and now you have to try to save your site from the adverse effects of manual action and possible total removal from the index.

Follow these steps to recover your site:

  • proffer a disavow file
  • immediately remove all of your PBN links
  • put forth a reconsideration request

Even after taking action and asking for an appeal, the damage to your sire is practically irreparable.

Your rankings will most likely remain tarnished due to an algorithmic adjustment that automatically occurs after PBN links have been detected.

There is no use in beating a dead horse. You are better off abandoning your previous sites and moving in a different advertising direction.

How To Build a PBN

Perhaps you are still committing to building PBNs and using links to boost the visibility of your site.

After all, PBN links can be a good business technique for short-term seasonal sites. To manually create PBNs, start by purchasing expired domains.

Domains with age authority and zero spam are your best bet when you want to create PBNs.

SpamZilla has the tools you need to find existing domain sites. We analyze our domains with the best SEO metrics and score the sites based on their cleanliness and projected efficacy.

SpamZilla provides excellent sites for your link profile through our expert spam detection, powerful backlinks, and domain age filtering system.

We are a highly efficient and cost-effective way to locate superior legal domain sites.

Once you obtain your multiple sites, be sure to include seamless links within your content that effortlessly blend and add value for your readers.  

Your content should be original and well-written enough not to draw attention from the search engines.

The placement of your inbound links should also be purposeful and not too distractive.

All of your hyperlinks should link back to your main website, thus sending traffic flowing towards your money-making site.

However tempting it is to batch-create your links, you need to exercise firm control when attaching them to your website.

If you do not spread out attaching your links by at least a couple of days, the gateway sites will more easily pick up on the fact that you are establishing a PBN.

Building a PBN is more than writing up some gobbledygook, plastering it on the internet, and including links all willy-nilly.

PBNs require talented writers and continuous maintenance for the websites to thrive under the radar.

Are these numerous hassles, not to mention the risk of losing everything you built, worth the sudden spike of traffic to your page?

PBN chains exist because the process of adequately maintaining PBNs is so exhausting time-wise and budget-wise.

Purchasing links from a pre-established network sounds like a practical alternative, but it could spell disaster for your domain.

Network owners might charge an exorbitant fee, promising your site's protection from penalization with their organic-resembling backlinks.

Still, the truth remains that network owners cannot ever wholly guarantee their websites' safety.

If, for some reason, Google ever bent on its policies and recognized PBN as a legitimate marketing plan, PBNs would then be rendered useless as an over-saturated method.

Ultimately risking to use PBNs is the only way to see its rewards.

Have you decided that incorporating PBN links is not the ideal growth strategy for your site?

SpamZilla can help you search your site for any attached PBN links that are disguising themselves as good quality backlinks. Our Backlinks Miner allows you to:

  • analyze over 100 backlinks per domain
  • review anchor language, outbound links, and anchor text
  • utilize the backlinks to review their websites

Do you want high-performing backlinks that do not link to multiple sites? Filter out overused backlinks with SpamZilla's advanced filtering system.

Browse your domain's SEO metrics to find high-caliber backlinks, then save your customized filters to make locating similar domains a snap!

At SpamZilla, we understand that the ability to control the rank of your page can be enticing.

After all, your competitors could be using the same PBN tactics to get ahead, and how will you ever surpass them if you are not even playing on the same field?

However, we recommend proceeding with caution and thoroughly researching PBN links before making your purchase and building links.

How To Recognize Sites That Use PBNs

Accurately identify PBNs by cataloging these warning signs:

  • Sites with multiple identical backlinks are most likely a part of one link profile inside a private blog network.
  • Sites that all link to one IP address practically scream out "Warning! Warning! Giant red flag!"
  • The sites are not aesthetically designed or creatively enhanced because the owners' only focus is on building links.
  • The sites do not have new or quality content and only offer regurgitated articles with spammy backlinks.
  • When using the WHOIS lookup tools, can you find the owner's contact information to see if the sites are connected? If you discover that the sites all have a joint owner, they are probably being used to build links.

If you would like to scan for a PBN backlink or grow the number of websites your company manages, check out SpamZilla for expired domains.

Our websites do not include links that have a history of illegal usage.

Instead, our high-quality domains and strong backlinks can help your site's rank to increase, propelling your site to the top of the explore page.

Visit spamzilla.io to view our extensive index of expired domains today!