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Truly Private Blog Network

by inetguru_987
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've been searching for some answers on this and hopefully someone can provide me some insight.

Does a truly private blog network go against Google's guidelines?

Definition of a Private Blog Network.
- Owned by me
- I do not sell any links whatsoever
- All content is 100% unique, 0 Spam and truly adds value
- The websites do link back to my money site
- The websites are nicely structured with headings and images but only 1 page of content.

With that being said is there any reason why google would ever penalize such a network since it falls within the quality guide lines?

And if your answer is "No there is no reason why Google would penalize you." Would you go as far as having the websites in WMT? I know this might sound crazy but if it is all legit then why not?

Thoughts?
#blog #network #private
  • Profile picture of the author twilightofidols
    It sort of boils down to your intent, which may or may not be easy to prove depending on how well done your PBN.

    It boils down to this, creating a website for the sole purpose of placing a link back to your site is most definitely what Google does not want you to do regardless of the quality of the site.

    You are still in a sense "buying links". You purchased the domain for the sole purpose of linking back to your money to site pass link juice.

    They most definitely would penalize you if they found out what you were doing. You'd have to be crazy to add these sites to WMT. I couldn't think of a better way to shoot a flare up in the air and say, "Hey pay extra attention to my network!"

    The sites should present the illusion of different owners. If someone stumbled upon your site, like a manual reviewer for example would they be fooled into thinking your site existed for any purpose other than to pass juice?
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    • Profile picture of the author DiggitySEO
      Originally Posted by twilightofidols View Post

      It sort of boils down to your intent, which may or may not be easy to prove depending on how well done your PBN.

      It boils down to this, creating a website for the sole purpose of placing a link back to your site is most definitely what Google does not want you to do regardless of the quality of the site.

      You are still in a sense "buying links". You purchased the domain for the sole purpose of linking back to your money to site pass link juice.

      They most definitely would penalize you if they found out what you were doing. You'd have to be crazy to add these sites to WMT. I couldn't think of a better way to shoot a flare up in the air and say, "Hey pay extra attention to my network!"

      The sites should present the illusion of different owners. If someone stumbled upon your site, like a manual reviewer for example would they be fooled into thinking your site existed for any purpose other than to pass juice?
      Twilight hit the nail on the head. PBNs most certainly look like rank manipulation in Google's eyes.

      Take the extra steps and cloak them.

      - Put them on separate hosts.
      - Use fake email and contact detail registration on each of them (unique from each other)
      - Use different themes.
      - Don't use the same outbound link profile on each of them
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      • Profile picture of the author twilightofidols
        I actually uncovered my competitors PBN. He left footprints all over, I was able to locate his entire network within minutes, guess how easy it'd be for Google to do. I'd bet the guy is probably on this this forum.

        Footprint #1: He used hand-spun 100% readable articles on each one, but every article was on the same subject in the same order. It was obvious he had spun these articles just for his network.

        Dozens of blogs all with 5 posts that follow the exact same order per post?

        1. Subject A
        2. Subject B
        3. Subject C
        4. Subject D
        5. Subject E

        And they all link back to the same money site!

        Can we say footprint? And this was "quality content" I mean readable, made sense, the whole shebang.

        Footprint #2: He used the same plug-in on every single site which left a footprint in his source code even though there's a thousand different plugins which do the exact same thing.

        You're falling into the most common trap OP like my competitor has. You've gotten too comfortable with your results. You think you can let down your guard just an inch.

        You don't think there's someone at Google's webspam team right now trying to concoct a way to take down private blog networks? Of course there is. Just like they did with Public networks. That was an easy target.

        I guarantee you some of the first things they will look for will be 2 of the footprints I listed above. Dozens of sites, all outbound links to the same blog, all with the same plugin? Boom, easy red flag! Here comes the Blog Network Destruction wing of Google's web spam team for the manual review to confirm what's been flagged by the spider's data.

        You're better than that OP.
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  • Profile picture of the author inetguru_987
    All good points. I really don't hear about Google targeting Private Blog Networks though, really only larger Public Networks where it is very obvious. Am I wrong here? Have you heard a lot of truly private networks being shut down?
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  • Profile picture of the author twilightofidols
    You should worry more today, about what they are going to do TOMORROW. I remember before many public blog networks were taken down, many people were convinced that these were untouchable by Google.

    This is an unsavory practice in the eyes of Google. It's very unlikely any private network has been taken down, or perhaps no owners of PBNs who've suffered this wrath have gone public about what happened. The first targets will be those selling links to "private networks" on forums. Regardless of whether or not the articles and sites in the network have been vetted. It's already happened on another more black hatted forum.

    All it takes is one crumb from the same cookie spread all over to identify the baker.

    A well done PBN would be nearly impossible to take down without someone from the webpsam team manually combing through your backlinks. A poorly done PBN could probably be flagged algorithmically, and then taken down after a quick a manual check.
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  • Profile picture of the author johnben1444
    Well, sorry to tell you Google doesn't want us to lift a finger to build backlinks as it's considered spam.

    You can choose to quite SEO traffic or live by it.

    PBN is one of the most valuable BL strategies but very delicate and pricey. If done wrongly, it can land you in a serious mess (deindex). I implore you hire a professional for it.
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    • Profile picture of the author inetguru_987
      Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

      Well, sorry to tell you Google doesn't want us to lift a finger to build backlinks as it's considered spam.

      You can choose to quite SEO traffic or live by it.

      PBN is one of the most valuable BL strategies but very delicate and pricey. If done wrongly, it can land you in a serious mess (deindex). I implore you hire a professional for it.
      I am a professional. lol
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  • Profile picture of the author jlxseo
    You're not out to fool a person with how you set up the network. If you get a manual review, you're toast regardless of how many steps you've taken to protect your sites.

    As far as Webmaster Tools goes, yeah, go ahead and wave a big red flag telling Google where all your sites are! Same thing for Analytics - don't connect your sites to the same Google account... and be choosy also even connecting them to a Google service at all. Don't think they don't know exactly who you are regardless of whether you sign in under a different username.

    Something to be aware of if you buy domains (assuming with good backlink profiles already there - or PR and all those other numbers that individually don't make a difference but altogether matter a lot), is this: Don't suddenly go off on a tangent with content. Try and morph the content of the old site into the desired niche of the new one. eg, Instead of going from a whole history of Tractors suddenly into a site about Hamsters, write your content about Hamsters driving Tractors... sort of thing.

    To me, at least, this seems like the easiest thing for Google to hit - major content changes on PR sites, and the higher the PR the more likely you'll get smacked.

    Originally Posted by johnben1444 View Post

    Well, sorry to tell you Google doesn't want us to lift a finger to build backlinks as it's considered spam.

    You can choose to quite SEO traffic or live by it.

    PBN is one of the most valuable BL strategies but very delicate and pricey. If done wrongly, it can land you in a serious mess (deindex). I implore you hire a professional for it.
    I don't think it has to be pricey per sé - you don't need a PR5 backlink to rank. you can have good results in medium competition niches with lower (and considerably cheaper) PR domains. And when I say PR, I'm including the allusion that it has a good profile in other areas to go with it.
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    • Profile picture of the author twilightofidols
      Originally Posted by jlxseo View Post

      You're not out to fool a person with how you set up the network. If you get a manual review, you're toast regardless of how many steps you've taken to protect your sites.
      While it's true that it's very unlikely a manual reviewer would be fooled (If you put that much time in your PBN to do so your PBN sites probably would've been better off as money sites in their own right).

      Google's algorithm can be fooled, as computers are nowhere near as smart as humans in the year 2014. Your competitors can also be misdirected, and have a much tougher time finding your sites.

      Unless someone specifically reports you, the only other time you're going to flagged for a manual review is if you trigger something algorithmically.

      Your affiliate competitors are probably ranking with a PBN as well, most of them won't report you out of fear of retaliation.

      Ahh the realities of SEO in 2014. A whole market based on destroying other web sites with Neg SEO, a whole different market just to clean it up, domains with authority who's prices have skyrocketed, and people who think quality content (notice I didn't say unique) is what you need for ranking in Google (hint quality content is for your readers)
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  • Profile picture of the author inetguru_987
    I have a smaller network of 50 sites where I employ the strategy of keeping the old type of content and relate it to my niche. I do very well with this network. The other network is a bit larger 200 sites (that i'm building out) where I'm not really as concerned with keeping the original theme. Not all 200 sites are pointing to the same money site but several money sites.

    The reason i post this is because I discovered a few people who rank very well with 300+ of these one-pager sites where I can tell they just bought expired domains and changed the content. Of course if they get reviewed then the Google webspam team will certainly figure it out but if they made $75k in the process it was well worth it. So far it's been 6 months and this site is still going strong for a very competitive niche.
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