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Private Blog Minimum Investment?

by Mercusio
23 replies
  • SEO
    • |
If I wanted to start a private blog network, nothing ridiculous, just enough to rank a few of my own private sites. What would be the minimum investment needed to start a network of any worth? Secondly could it be done incrementally and still be effective? ie. I invest a couple hundred a month into building it. Finally, Can ya drop a large amount and get near instant results? I'm sorry I'm asking a lot. I've read up on them a lot however I'm still unable to get a true idea straight up of what it'd cost to invest it and make it work. I don't wanna get half way and quit over wrong expectations.
#blog #investment #minimum #private
  • Profile picture of the author Dani16
    Investing on Private blog is really a good option, but on Godaddy if you go to buy some PR'ed domains(PR0-3 price varies from $50-100) or if you already own private blogs then you can rank and use it,

    But the main thing is you have to sustain your PR to make it more powerful, Not sure about the Google as they change the PR for every 3 months. Google may bring the site to the top or to the last So you have to go on do linkbuilding and promotion works, that will expend a lot
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  • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
    I'm also working on this. My plan is to start small and work in to it.

    1st thing I did is bought a couple of aged PR domain with backlinks ( .com -- I stay away from .info!)

    2nd - added domain privacy (don't want google or anyone else to see any connection to my money site)

    3rd - added them on cheap class-C hosting with unique different IPs.

    4th - upload wordpress software and basic SEO plugins needed to get the job done

    5th - write and add 100% unique content and include the link to my money site

    6th - bookmark the website and page of new content

    Rinse and repeat.

    When/if your blog network starts to get too big to manage individually, find software to mass maintain it. I use Magic Submitter currently.

    last piece of advice, something I haven't done yet, is to get ROI is find a few clients (10-20) to sell services to help pay for your costs, time and, perhaps, outsource SEO to help keep the blogs in your network alive and strong.

    The problem with HUGE (WSO found on this forum) blog networks, imo, is they oversell and have to many blogs in their network to properly maintain and SEO. I'm sure you can find 10 or so webmasters out there that would jump at the chance to be part of a high quality blog network that's well maintained and not oversold that uses crappy domains and spun content regurgitated and posted 300x per day on every blog.

    I'd rather have one PR6, two PR5s, four PR4s and 10 PR3s .com blogs in my network over 20,000 crappy PR0 .info blogs that probably wont ever get indexed.
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

      1st thing I did is bought a couple of aged PR domain with backlinks ( .com -- I stay away from .info!)
      There is no need to stay away from .info's. If they have PR, they work just as well for backlinks.

      Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

      I'd rather have one PR6, two PR5s, four PR4s and 10 PR3s .com blogs in my network over 20,000 crappy PR0 .info blogs that probably wont ever get indexed.
      Careful. You are going to upset someone. :rolleyes:
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      • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        Careful. You are going to upset someone. :rolleyes:
        I have a habit of doing that. Lol - not on purpose though.

        I was thinking about joining up to one of those "join my blog network for $99 one time fee, and I'll guarantee you 1st page on Google in 3 months..."

        After strong research I realized their network was basically 2000 crap blogs that are spammed 100 times a day with spun crappy articles with their clients anchor text/link.

        I found their footprint through one of their clients comments in the WSO thread and found how horrible idea this was.

        I like the idea of a blog network, I imagine since the Panda update these are the best links you can get (over Web2.0, Article Marketing, forum profile links -- which suck ass). It seems web2.0 campaigns are becoming useless (in my experience).

        So my thought pattern is building a high-quality blog network and NOT over selling. Post on 10 high-PR blogs (PR3-PR6) using unique hand written articles (of worthy quality that people might actually enjoy reading.

        My bet is posting good content on 10 pagerank blogs is 1000x better than posting spun content across 20,000 blogs in a poorly ran/maintained network.

        Not to mention it's easier and cheaper to maintain 10 blogs over x,xxx number blogs in a network.

        Google ain't dumb. They are going to catch on to these networks like they caught on to all the other shady SEO tactics performed in the past. They are going to squash this system and 1,000s to 10s of thousands of webmasters are going to standing their scratching their head and crying they were sandboxed or lost their SERPs after paying hundreds to thousands of dollars getting to that position.

        My suggestion is build a personal blog network to use and sell to a few clients to help pay for it. Re-invest that money into properly SEO'ing the blogs on the network.

        Or

        Find someone who has a high quality blog network and paying them to post hand written content with a contextual link to their network 'x' times per month.

        Bottom line, those crappy blog networks will all be gone in a year because Google will figure them out and block them.
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        • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
          Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

          I have a habit of doing that. Lol - not on purpose though.

          I was thinking about joining up to one of those "join my blog network for $99 one time fee, and I'll guarantee you 1st page on Google in 3 months..."

          After strong research I realized their network was basically 2000 crap blogs that are spammed 100 times a day with spun crappy articles with their clients anchor text/link.
          and you are going to make them angrier still

          Bottom line, those crappy blog networks will all be gone in a year because Google will figure them out and block them.
          I'd imagine the really bad ones are getting deleted by the bucket load every month
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          @gearmonkey

          Sounds like you have actually done your homework. Yep, you are on the right path.

          A personal network + normal quality link building and you will be fine.
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          • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            @gearmonkey

            Sounds like you have actually done your homework. Yep, you are on the right path.

            A personal network + normal quality link building and you will be fine.
            Yes I have been putting a lot of research into this. I have checked out various WSO blog networks (who will remain nameless). It's easy to find their footprint, like kindergarten easy.

            They post 35 to 100 horrible spun content to each of their blogs on their network that would make your head explode (and sentences still show duplicate, despite being spun to death).

            Check the backlinks on various blogs in their network = 0

            Check pages getting indexed by google on their network = 0

            I'd be surprised if 5% of the blogs on their network ever get indexed. If they are, in fact, link building their blogs on their network like they claim, they are doing a HORRIBLE job.

            These blog farms have "Google Slap" written all over them. I give it 3 to 6 months before Google puts the ban hammer down on anyone who uses such a shady method.

            Personally, I would avoid using these WSOs at all costs! If you are getting results now, it won't last. Google will sandbox these sites using such traceable/low quality blog networks.

            At the end of the day, the cheap comes out expensive.

            I'll repeat what I said before, a private blog network of only 10 blogs with PR is superior to 20,000 blogs with PR-na and PR-0 that gets 50 posts a day to each blog.

            Create a blog network of 10 with some PR, only use hand written quality content, and only post one article a day at MOST per blog. If you want to use spun content, that should be fine as long as the original is exclusive to you and the spun is spun to be perfectly readable by human and 80% unique. Personally, I think it would be easy to just hand write each article (or outsource) because it's only 10 articles per week.

            Again, I'd rather have 8 PR1 and 2 PR2 blogs = 10 blogs / over 20,000 PR0 blogs that are oversold and spammed to death.
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            • Profile picture of the author swords
              For the most part gearmonkey, I'd probably agree with you (to an extent). However, rationally speaking, if you are targeting a harder keyword, a few high PR blogs might not do the trick. What are the odds that you will: A. Outrank a high competitive keyword with only 10 PR blogs... B. Google not take notice because lack of link diversity.

              I know I know, you CAN rank a website using only a couple of high PR blogs, but I think it all comes back to the basics for optimal results - which is link diversity. Don't COMPLETELY rid forum profiles, web2.0's, and the such, even if they are next to useless. It's the sheer fact that Google SEES them and thinks you are natural because of the diversity.

              Just my opinion anyways *prepares for flame*.
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              • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
                Originally Posted by swords View Post

                For the most part gearmonkey, I'd probably agree with you (to an extent). However, rationally speaking, if you are targeting a harder keyword, a few high PR blogs might not do the trick. What are the odds that you will: A. Outrank a high competitive keyword with only 10 PR blogs... B. Google not take notice because lack of link diversity.

                I know I know, you CAN rank a website using only a couple of high PR blogs, but I think it all comes back to the basics for optimal results - which is link diversity. Don't COMPLETELY rid forum profiles, web2.0's, and the such, even if they are next to useless. It's the sheer fact that Google SEES them and thinks you are natural because of the diversity.

                Just my opinion anyways *prepares for flame*.
                This thread is about Private Blog Network Investment. Link diversity is an entirely different subject.
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              • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                Originally Posted by swords View Post

                For the most part gearmonkey, I'd probably agree with you (to an extent). However, rationally speaking, if you are targeting a harder keyword, a few high PR blogs might not do the trick. What are the odds that you will: A. Outrank a high competitive keyword with only 10 PR blogs... B. Google not take notice because lack of link diversity.
                IP Popularity is a factor but a network can give you that too with the juice. Go low outbound link on say a PR4 put some of your free blogs, press releases etc in the blog roll and give them juice then point back to your money site. Mucho ip diversity and a little link juice.

                Don't COMPLETELY rid forum profiles, web2.0's, and the such, even if they are next to useless. It's the sheer fact that Google SEES them and thinks you are natural because of the diversity.

                Just my opinion anyways *prepares for flame*.
                Not going to flame you because you seem like a decent thinking guy but thats just wrong and something I see link sellers trying to push so people get swept into it. Think about it - forum links in profiles are what google would call spammy. Does it really make even an ounce of sense that their algo is designed to give you credit for having those links as opposed to contextual links they love.

                Yes Google no doubt counts IP diverity but as I noted in the previous paragraph you can get that and get contextual links at the same time. There are thousands of serps where you will not find company SEOs messing around with forum links at all.
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              • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
                Originally Posted by swords View Post

                For the most part gearmonkey, I'd probably agree with you (to an extent). However, rationally speaking, if you are targeting a harder keyword, a few high PR blogs might not do the trick. What are the odds that you will: A. Outrank a high competitive keyword with only 10 PR blogs... B. Google not take notice because lack of link diversity.
                A) A lot better than with 10,000 crappy PR 0 links or forum profile links.

                B) I have yet to hear of anyone getting punished for having too few links.

                Originally Posted by swords View Post

                I know I know, you CAN rank a website using only a couple of high PR blogs, but I think it all comes back to the basics for optimal results - which is link diversity. Don't COMPLETELY rid forum profiles, web2.0's, and the such, even if they are next to useless. It's the sheer fact that Google SEES them and thinks you are natural because of the diversity.
                I know you have a WSO selling forum profile links, so you have vested interest in people believing that these links hold some value. The truth is they are the absolute lowest quality of links you can find. They add nothing to making a backlink profile look natural either. It is not at all natural for someone to join 500 forums and then setup anchor text links in their profile all pointing to the same page.
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            • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
              Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

              Yes I have been putting a lot of research into this. I have checked out various WSO blog networks (who will remain nameless). It's easy to find their footprint, like kindergarten easy.
              yep

              Create a blog network of 10 with some PR, only use hand written quality content, and only post one article a day at MOST per blog..
              Frankly I have Domains I don't touch except to add a link. Seriously, think about organic natural backlinks that Google wants and loves. A guy writes an article about a product and puts it on a permalink or page. People link to it and it becomes say a PR3. If it sits there for another year is the writer going to go back to that page and change it? Is it no longer a good link? Some government pages NEVER change FOR YEARS. Wikipedia has articles that no editor is even active on.

              Ranked a guy on here number one for his term. took me a couple weeks (he was stuck on a lower position for a long time). Well he flakes out (which is why I don't take customers here often) and rather than yank his links I leave them. Several months have gone by and he is still sitting there even though the pages I left him on have not changed a bit.

              Optimally I like to change things though to keep the search engines coming back (more times they find the same stuff the slower they are to recrawl your sites) but this once a day and several times isn;t somethng tht needs to be done for a network site so half the time all the spinning is just a waste of time
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              • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
                Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                Frankly I have Domains I don't touch except to add a link. Seriously, think about organic natural backlinks that Google wants and loves. A guy writes an article about a product and puts it on a permalink or page. People link to it and it becomes say a PR3. If it sits there for another year is the writer going to go back to that page and change it? Is it no longer a good link? Some government pages NEVER change FOR YEARS. Wikipedia has articles that no editor is even active on.

                Ranked a guy on here number one for his term. took me a couple weeks (he was stuck on a lower position for a long time). Well he flakes out (which is why I don't take customers here often) and rather than yank his links I leave them. Several months have gone by and he is still sitting there even though the pages I left him on have not changed a bit.

                Optimally I like to change things though to keep the search engines coming back (more times they find the same stuff the slower they are to recrawl your sites) but this once a day and several times isn;t somethng tht needs to be done for a network site so half the time all the spinning is just a waste of time
                Okay so if I understand you correctly, say I buy a PR5 domain called 2007celebratetherapids.com (or whatever) that has 1000's of natural and quality backlinks, after taking it over you suggest adding one keyword article to the homepage with your contextual link and then leaving it alone permanently because it's already an established PR5?

                Guess that makes sense.
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                • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                  Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

                  Okay so if I understand you correctly, say I buy a PR5 domain called 2007celebratetherapids.com (or whatever) that has 1000's of natural and quality backlinks, after taking it over you suggest adding one keyword article to the homepage with your contextual link and then leaving it alone permanently because it's already an established PR5?

                  Guess that makes sense.
                  Look at the links and see what they were linking to you for. As much as you can give them that kind of content. As long as you update it now and then and the content is relevant then there would be no reason for them to remove the links. You update now and then so that if a webmaster does come looking they see the site is still active but it does nto have to be a new post a day.

                  Frankly if you do the right research when buying the domain one thing you should look for are interior pages that they linked to you from not their home page or worse site wides. Webmasters RARELY go back and review pages and articles they wrote long ago. thats why I tell people theres a bit more than looking at faked PR when evaluating a domain.

                  You get that one for free
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                  • Profile picture of the author gearmonkey
                    Originally Posted by Mike Anthony View Post

                    Look at the links and see what they were linking to you for. As much as you can give them that kind of content. As long as you update it now and then and the content is relevant then there would be no reason for them to remove the links. You update now and then so that if a webmaster does come looking they see the site is still active but it does nto have to be a new post a day.

                    Frankly if you do the right research when buying the domain one thing you should look for are interior pages that they linked to you from not their home page or worse site wides. Webmasters RARELY go back and review pages and articles they wrote long ago. thats why I tell people theres a bit more than looking at faked PR when evaluating a domain.

                    You get that one for free
                    I already do that. The domains that really peak my interest is event domains because there's a probably chance that it went viral and people all over the interweb linked to the domain to talk about the event. From blogs, other event pages, forums to press releases..
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                    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
                      Originally Posted by gearmonkey View Post

                      I already do that. The domains that really peak my interest is event domains because there's a probably chance that it went viral and people all over the interweb linked to the domain to talk about the event. From blogs, other event pages, forums to press releases..
                      NOt exactly what I was talking about but hey if it works for you.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
    Originally Posted by Mercusio View Post

    If I wanted to start a private blog network, nothing ridiculous, just enough to rank a few of my own private sites. What would be the minimum investment needed to start a network of any worth?
    Depends on what you are trying to rank. I have place two PR3 links to sites and seen them shoot to the top (low obl) and yes it can be done incrementally you could start out with that and using various strategies increase and buy more.

    Finally, Can ya drop a large amount and get near instant results?
    depends on what you mean by instant. You need to take time to reserch and analyze the domains you are buying. There are several checks that have to be done, to make sure the Pr is not faked to makes sure the domain will retain its PR, to make sure the site has not been built just to sell it (and then the links may disappear after you bought it) etc. I know of people who have blown hundreds and thousands of dollars in a blind rush to get domains and lose their shirt left with domains they might have well bought new for the price of registration because within weeks they turn out to be worthless.

    Others buy domains and do nothing to protect them and end up getting deindexed. Take your time and build out. You can rank for terms along the way and make money. I usually tell my guys to have about $300 to start. Thats like two months of senukeX.
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  • Profile picture of the author affiliated survivor
    Despite what´s someone´s opinion on low or high PR sites you have to consider that domains and hosting cost money. And in order to make a profit from these sites the links have to be worth the money you spend on domains and hosting. And more than that, if you want to make a profit. So if you don´t intend to sell links, I think it´s better to buy only a few domains and give them as much backlinks as possible. So that each link makes a real difference and does more than pay back the costs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Avy Smith
    Joining a blog network is more preferable. In other case even if we buy a domain it is still hard to maintain the PR plus if it is .info instead of .com it creates problems on search engine.
    Starting a new blog and bringing traffic to that is not that much difficult in today's social oriented world. All one has to do is to make it available to the eye of every Tom, Dick and Harry.
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  • Profile picture of the author mikeevee
    Yes, you certainly can start small.

    Buy some new domains, or if you want to go really cheap just use Blogger or Wordpress free domains.

    Add a couple of unique articles to each.

    Drip feed some free PLR onto each, or set up WP O Matic

    After a couple of months add Adsense

    Easy peasy.

    If you have more time build a few links. It will be well worth it.

    Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author kkchoon
    Originally Posted by Mercusio View Post

    If I wanted to start a private blog network, nothing ridiculous, just enough to rank a few of my own private sites. What would be the minimum investment needed to start a network of any worth? Secondly could it be done incrementally and still be effective? ie. I invest a couple hundred a month into building it. Finally, Can ya drop a large amount and get near instant results? I'm sorry I'm asking a lot. I've read up on them a lot however I'm still unable to get a true idea straight up of what it'd cost to invest it and make it work. I don't wanna get half way and quit over wrong expectations.
    I'm not sure setup private blog network is always a good thing, see this post: Should You Build Your Own Blog Network?

    BTW, what budget do you have in mind to setup the network?
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    • Profile picture of the author Mike Anthony
      Originally Posted by kkchoon View Post

      I'm not sure setup private blog network is always a good thing, see this post: Should You Build Your Own Blog Network?

      BTW, what budget do you have in mind to setup the network?

      You can disregard KKchoon on this . He doesn't know much about blog networks or how to maximize their use and has absolutely no concept of LOW Obl or links that stick to a PR Page rather than rolling off with almost all big blog networks that he is suggesting. He put that post here and had the thread deleted and is now attempting to back door the deleted post by posting a link to it.

      IF you want high Pr links that stick on a page with very low OBl to maintain their juice then having at least a few of your own sites is the way to go. Blog networks that you rent have their place but as almost everyone knows your links stay only for a few hours or maybe a day on the high PR pages. Home page backlinks systems are better for this but you will rarely find any that have less than a hundred links on a page and with a whole lot of spun content that makes them very susceptible to having the domains deindexed.

      DEFINITELY if you are considering any service or combination of services that runs over a hundred dollars a month then getting your own is something that you should consider. Just makes common sense plus owning your own allows you to potentially make money from it by itself down the road.
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  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    It depends of what you want to achieve in SERP's, really. Most of the time you can just use a already established network and pay a monthly fee. Sometimes you need a powerful approach... and some other times (like me and a couple other posters above) you will need a medium/big, ongoing private network - and that is much far from the description I usually see in forums.

    From there you can create whatever you want, you just need some creativity to create something that goes PR up and use it to your benefit. Or you can buy already high PR domains, etc etc. Your choice really.

    The events idea you should have kept it to yourself I know cause my offline company creates a lot of marketing for events (including websites) and we know damn well how those babies shoot to the sky...
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