S89 Private BlogNetworks

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Nikolay Dimitrov
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Google is in the process of a massive penalty sweep targeting many Private Blog Networks (PBNs) where they have been applying penalties and deindexing sites that are utilizing PBNs.

Private blog networks (PBN) get their name because they are generally controlled by a single person or company and are supposedly harder to trace.  But with the demise of many link networks, more of these supposed “private” blog networks have popped up offering links from within these networks for sale – which people argue takes it from being a private network to a public one. But selling links also makes it much easier for Google to discover.

WHTPS will kill it W

Unlike many other networks, they generally try and keep their feeder sites limited to only a set number of outgoing links and sites.  This is one of the ways they tend to be harder to detect.  They also use a variety of ways to keep the sites seemingly controlled by a variety of different people by using different registrars, hosting companies, TLDs (ie. they won’t be all .com but also include some .net, .org, and country specific TLDs), different WordPress themes, author profiles, AdSense accounts, ad networks and unique quality content.

With Google’s assault on many public link and blog networks, private ones have become more popular this year.  But private blog networks being penalized isn’t new – but because they are controlled by one person or a small group of people, you don’t hear about it as often as when public blog networks or link networks get hit, when many different people are penalized.   However, this time Google seems to have targeted many different private blog networks at once in a massive crackdown, which makes sense given their increased popularity.

How did Google discover the private blog networks?  As we have seen with link networks who claim Google would never be able to find any footprints, it likely started with the investigation with one site that led to the unraveling of them all.  But people are speculating on several things that could have been seen as footprints:

What will we do:

• “Using CloudFlare to anonymize IP addresses across all the domains

We will use CloudFare, many sites use CloudFare. The IP comes from CloudFare.

• using the same registrar/hosting

We should use  different registrar from the “money site’

• same domain registration info;

We certainly use different people in registration.

• blocking third-party link analysis tools (such as Ahrefs and Majestic)

We block these tools.

• all use WordPress

Google cannot punish all WP sites

• all use the identical set of WordPress plugins without variation

How can Google find out which plugins are used, very difficult.

• powered by domains that have been purchased from auction sites

They do not come from auction sites.

• powered by expired domains

Does Google track expired domains and punishes them, because they expired?

• selling links within the PBN to any site, especially when they buy from multiple networks, not just “quality” ones

We do not the so-called link farms.

Then of course there is always the question of:

• using the same AdSense account

We do not use Adsense, we would tell them our identity. No Google Tools, not even Analytics.

• using Gmail addresses for anything related to PBNs

Why use a Gmail account for a site.

• using the same Analytics account

Dont use it.

• using the same Google Webmaster Tools account.

Dont use it.

• sites people include in disavow files that aren’t supposed to have any impact on the sites included, but many wonder when that data will be used.

Many of the sites hit were NOT penalized with unnatural link penalties however, which is what the natural assumption would be for anything resembling a private blog network.  They were hit with thin content penalties for having “thin content with little or no added value”.  However, many people involved in PBNs say that the content was actually well written unique content, and nothing that should be hit with the thin content penalty.

Matt Cutts tweeted about it as well, referring to PBNs as a “blackhat SEO fad”.

Will this be the last of PBNs?  Of course not.  Those who have been penalized are already rebuilding… but many likely won’t be so greedy to sell links without vetting them more carefully, as opposed to the “we will link to any crappy site” that many employ – and that puts it in danger.

(asource)

10 rules for building your network of private blogs/websites

1. Different Registrars: Try and buy domains through different registrars. You should have the Who Is Guard enabled on most domains. We do not suggest having fake details in the Who Is records. However, if you must, do this for domains that have not cost you a lot to aquire (since you run the risk of losing the domain). Also make sure to use the DNS of the individual registrar.
2. Different Hosting: Each website should be on a different Subnet IP address. If an IP address is represented as AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD, then the CCC and DDD should be unique for each of the websites in the network. Many web-hosts only get a small range of IP addresses that they can provide to a client. While the IP address might be different, you may get the same “AAA.BBB.CCC” – in this case, only hose one or two domains with this web-host.
3. Content: You should have unique and valuable content on each of the websites. There should be no spun content whatsoever. Treat the domains in your PBN with the same respect as you treat your money-site and invest in their quality.
4. Each domain will link out to any money site once only. No matter how tempting it is to link out to all your money-sites through a single domain, remember that this only increases the risk.
5. There should be no site-wide links – only links that are embedded in contextual text. We strongly believe that in the future all non-contextual links are going to be devalued.
6. Each page has a maximum of 2-5 outgoing links.  Some pages should also have no links at all. This is done to keep the link profile natural. All outbound links from a single page should go to authority sites that are relevant to your niche.  Linking out to other useful sites in your niche is very important.
7. Each domain should start to link out to your money site only after it has got a few pages created. The initial links should all be to other authoritative sites in your niche. Don’t simply link out to wikipedia, youtube and other big sites. Choose authoritative sites in your niche.
8. Use different anchor texts when linking to your money site. This will depend on your current link profile. If you have a diverse link profile, then its fine to use specific anchor texts to rank. However if your site is brand new, use a few naked url anchor texts as well.
9. Each website needs certain pages to pass manual review – about/contact/privacy policy.
10. Absolutely NO selling PBN links – and no sharing information with anyone about the domains you own

Above you can see a sample network architecture for a PBN with 3 domains. A mini pbn would have about 30 domains, whereas larger ones can easily grow to above 1000+ domains. Each domain also links out to other high authority sites in your niche.