PBN networks and drop domains: where, how, and why they are used
When creating a website for our business, we aim to make it profitable as quickly as possible. A website's rating is essential for its effectiveness, and the presence of backlinks is a significant factor in search engine rankings. Their quantity and quality determine a website's ranking in search engines. PBN provides the opportunity to quickly acquire high-quality backlinks and is used as a promotion method.
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What is PBN?
A PBN (Private Blog Network) is an SEO technique built on a network of subsidiary websites owned by a single owner. All of these sites have high search engine authority, are fully controlled, and are used to generate links for the owner's main website to improve its search rankings.
A target site, or as it's also called, a money site, is the primary site that needs to be promoted in search engines to generate profit. This method has long been used in the West, as there are far fewer opportunities to buy links there. Old domains—dropped ones—are better suited for this purpose than new ones.
Because they already have backlinks and are trusted by search engines, PBNs often use sites built on expired domains with strong backlink profiles. These domains link back to the main site and help it improve its search engine rankings.
PBNs are designed in such a way that all sites in the network appear independent of each other and therefore read as unique links.
Typical PBN structure:
The image shows several network sites that link to the client's main site.
Why do PBNs work?
The quantity and quality of backlinks are crucial for a website's search engine ranking. PBN is a quick way to acquire the necessary number of high-quality backlinks, allowing you to fully control the links your site receives because you own them. This allows you to choose the right content, the right anchor text, and the right link placement.
This strategy is effective because the sites that make up the network are considered authoritative by search engines – links from popular sites that have been rated positively by Google's algorithms.
Many SEOs have a network of 1,000 sites that they have built up over time.
When does it make sense to use PBN?
- if the cost of creating a PBN is lower than the cost of purchasing links in the niche you are promoting;
- if the thematic links you need are difficult to obtain in any other way;
- if you are better at building networks than getting links in other ways;
- If you understand that promotion through the use of well-indexed thematic domains will give you better results than links from exchanges or obtained through crowd marketing.
The effectiveness of a PBN depends on the domains on which the network is built.
Building a PBN on new domains doesn't make sense. Drop domains, which will provide a wealth of backlinks to your site, are ideal for building a network. A drop domain, or expired domain, is one that was previously used but whose owner chose not to renew it. After the lease expires, such domains are available for registration by other users. SEO specialists find them, determine their authority and trustworthiness, and then purchase them from a registrar to use for building the network.
What is important to consider when choosing domains for a PBN?
- total number of referring domains;
- total number of links to the domain;
- Is the domain still in the Google index?
- Does Google show this domain in search queries?
All information on domains can be seen on pageremote domainsfrom NIC.UA.
Websites are often restored from a web archive. This option is a gamble for the new owner, as the site may no longer be indexed, be filtered, or blacklisted by search engines.
It's much more reliable for the network to use sites sold by their owners. They're indexed, have a good history, and have traffic, meaning they're not subject to sanctions, and have backlinks, which indicates a higher-quality link base and, therefore, greater business benefits.
