PBN Question For SEO Experts

I do not think you will ever find such a service that is any good. The problem is that to build a network for someone and make some money on top of it will cost more than people who are looking for this sort of service are willing to pay.

I did one of 6 sites for someone recently. It was $2,000. That was for finding, purchasing, and registering the domains, setting up hosting, and setting up the sites with content, custom graphics, etc.

Too many people think they should be able to get 6 network sites, all setup, and with top quality content for like $300.

Hi Andrew,

I'd prefer to give the answer publicly as it might benefit other users who have similar questions if thats ok.

In answer to your question about buying domains from auction sites like Godaddy, there is nothing wrong with that. I looked at buying them that way initially but found I had to wade through so much garbage before I found anything remotely good enough for a PBN. On top of that, you are competing against thousands of others and the domains are over priced as a result.

With Scrapebox, you can target very specific niches and find domains that naturally lapsed and were never re-registered. Because of this, i've found the domains I scrape are usually very clean from a spam perspective and can have some very decent link profiles.

Scrapebox
The latest version of Scrapebox is insanely quick and I like to use good proxies for this, as I will be scraping tens of thousands of URL’s in a matter of minutes.

I get mine from Buy Proxies, simply because their proxies are reliable, cheap and fast. I’ve found their tech support to be very good. I usually use about 30 proxies. Shared ones are good enough.

If you tell them what software you are using them for, they will format them correctly putting your username and password in the right places to save you time. I crank up Scrapebox and insert my proxies into the “search engines and proxies” panel through the load button.

I then test them through the manage button and make sure they are all working correctly. Now I insert my custom Google search engine. What this does, is allow me to scrape Google for domains from specific country extensions and specific dates.

***********CUSTOM GOOGLE ENGINE**************

THIS IS A LIST OF EXAMPLE CUSTOM ENGINES---TO CHANGE TO ANOTHER GOOGLE CC TLD, JUST CHANGE IT AT THE VERY BEGINNING
TO CHANGE THE DATE RANGES, CHANGE THE FIGURES TOWARDS THE END FOR EXAMPLE.SEARCH YERAS 2000 TO 2008 'F2000%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F2008' CAN BE CHANGED TO SEARCH YEARS 2008 TO 2015 'F2008%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F2015'
TO GET RESULTS ONLY FROM DOMAINS HOSTED IN A PARTICULAR COUNTRY, CHANGE THIS FROM UNITED KINGDOM TO WHATEVER COUNTRY CODE YOU LIKE. ',ctr:countryUK%7CcountryGB&cr=countryUK%7Ccountry GB'

***CUSTOM USA ENGINE***
http://www.google.com/search?complete=0&hl=en&q={KEYWORD}&num=100&start= {PAGENUM}&filter=0&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A01%2F01% 2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F2008&tbm=

***SEARCHES FROM THE UNITED KINGDOM***
http://www.google.co.uk/search?complete=0&hl=en&q={KEYWORD}&num=100&start= {PAGENUM}&filter=0&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A01%2F01% 2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F2008

***ONLY DOMAINS HOSTED IN THE UNITED KINGDOM***
http://www.google.com/search?complete=0&hl=en&q={KEYWORD}&num=100&start= {PAGENUM}&filter=0&tbs=cdr:1,cd_min:01/01/2000,cd_max:01/01/2008,ctr:countryUK%7CcountryGB&cr=countryUK%7Ccoun tryGB


***SEARCHES FROM AUSTRALIA***
http://www.google.com.au/search?complete=0&hl=en&q={KEYWORD}&num=100&start= {PAGENUM}&filter=0&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A01%2F01% 2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F2008


***ONLY DOMAINS HOSTED IN AUSTRALIA***
http://www.google.com.au/search?complete=0&hl=en&q={KEYWORD}&num=100&start= {PAGENUM}&filter=0&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A01%2F01% 2F2000%2Ccd_max%3A01%2F01%2F2008,ctr:countryAU&cr= countryAU



So say I wanted to scrape Google for domains that existed in Italy or Canada between 2000 and 2005 and I wanted my search location to be in Germany, I simply alter the parameters in the engine. It’s very easy.

To install the custom Google engine, I simply go to settings–> Harvester Engine Configuration–> and select import. I browse for the custom engine, click select, then apply, followed by update.

Another way is to click on the standard Google engine, replace the query string with my custom engine, change the display name to anything you like, and click “add as new engine” followed by update.

You can change the engine location, search dates and search location in the “query string” to whatever you like. I have it set to Google.com 2000-2008. Now I just need to load the footprints. This will basically go out and look for any domain with links, resources, bookmarks etc. in the domains URL and pull them in.

Then I add my merge list. This is just a list of keywords that are appended to my footprint, so it brings back more targeted domains. Now I click the start harvesting button and sit back for a minute or two as it scrapes Google for my URL’s. When the harvester has finished, I remove any duplicate URL’s and check the remaining domains for page rank.

When that’s finished, I remove all URL’s with a page rank of five or less. Then I filter out all domains with a .gov or .edu extensions. Click “Export URL List” under manage lists and save the file. The reason I remove the .gov and .edu domains is because 99% of the time they link out to other .gov and .edu domains and it’s simply not worth the effort looking through them.

Now I have two options… I can use the free scrapebox addon, “broken links checker” which will scan each page and look for broken links, or I can manually examine each PR5 page with a broken links checker extension for chrome like check my links.

The reason I filter out all domains with a PR of 5 or less, is because a PR of 5 gives my PBN site an instant PR of 3, which is a pretty decent PBN link.

Using, Scrapebox I import all my PR5 pages into the ‘broken links’ checker and click ‘start’. It then scans every page initially for links and then rescans for 404 pages.

When it’s finished, I save all the broken links to a file. Now I import that file back into Scrapebox, trim them all to root and remove all sub-domains.

The next step is to see which of these broken links are actually available domains. I head over to Dynadot and I paste the domains from my new list, up to 1,000 at a time. I click the radio button “I have entered fully qualified domains” and click search. All available domains will be highlighted in green and I collect all the URL’s and save them into a third file.

So now I have quite a large list of domains that can be bought for the price of a registration. Now I need to weed out the wheat from the chaff.

Traditionally, people would use Majestic SEO, Ahrefs and Moz to look for authority, trust etc. I don’t use any of these quality metrics, simply because they are meaningless in terms of ranking in Google.

Don’t get me wrong, they are great for checking backlinks, but that’s as far as I go with them.

My preferred method is by examining the backlinks. This is the most accurate method as it’s the same one Google uses. Each site should only take a minute or two. The first thing I need to confirm is that it indeed, has a PR5 pointing to it.

Any additional links are a bonus. You can use any tool you like to check the backlinks, but probably the best are a combination of the above tools. For some reason, MOZ Explorer rarely finds any backlinks.

I check both the http://www. version and the http:// version. Redirect the version with the least backlinks to the version with the most when I register the domain. If one version has none, that don’t I bother with the redirect.

I’m pretty sure I don’t need to tell you to avoid domains with porn links, gambling links etc. I’m looking for domains with a few links that I would expect to see pointing to a legitimate website.

If you have followed this tutorial, you should now have 50+ minimum PR3 niche specific PBN sites.

Hosting Your New Domains

Having all my PBN domains with the same host can seriously devalue the power of my PBN. Google will accept a couple of links from the same host but will disregard others. Much like Google devalues multiple links from the same domain.

Ideally, what I want are my websites hosted on completely different servers, belonging to different hosting companies. Traditionally, this meant going out to low-cost hosting companies, opening accounts, paying a year in advance, etc.

Then I would have to try and manage them all. Imagine trying to manage 300 domains, all from different hosting companies, different log in’s, passwords etc. Budget hosting companies have a habit of disappearing overnight along with your PBN site, leaving a gaping hole in your network. If you fancy having bulging eyes and bald patches on your head from days of pulling your hair out, be my guest and do it the hard way.

The best solution I have found and thus far, works very well is using a company like Nonameinternet. Instead of you having to manage all those domains, you simply create one account with these guys and all your sites are in one dashboard, with one simple payment to one company. They are not an SEO hosting company.

They don’t own the servers. They simply offer you an interface that allows you to manage all your websites from different servers in one place. The websites will be hosted by different companies, in different countries (if you like) with completely different IP’s at a very low cost. They have over 100 locations for you to choose from and you can pick any locations.

Their prices start at $10 per month for 5 PBN's which is pretty decent.


I like to add my PBN sites to Uptime Robot as they will let me know if any of my sites are down for a specified amount of time. It’s a free service (so far) and is a useful tool.

How To Add Content And Make Your PBN Relevant

As I mentioned earlier, the key to a PBN is to make it relevant to your niche. I’ve seen a lot of PBN’s over time built by other people and something most of them do, (or fail to do) means they leave a lot of potential juice on the table which could be used to power up their PBN.

They buy the domain, put back the original content and have one link in the body of the root domain, with no inner content. That’s fine if you are only interested in PR, but without relevance, it’s a much weaker link. If your money sits is about payday loans and the PBN site is about outboard engines, it’s not relevant. Relevancy is so important in a PBN.

One relevant page on a PBN is worth many irrelevant pages. Completely changing the content of a website makes no difference to Google. It indexes what it finds. You can change the website name, description and content to make it relevant without any worries. Add a page of completely original content to the main landing page with 6-10 inner pages of original or spun content.

If your objective is to try and rank your PBN's which is always a good idea, use original content. If you just want to piggy back on the PR, spun content from article builder will do provided it's relevant.

You can use spun content, but original readable content is always better. Writing original content isn’t as hard as you might think. It takes me about 5 minutes to create a 300-500 word page with 100% original and relevant content with Dragon Dictate. I simply find a 300-500 word article online and read it out loud in my own words and that’s it.

Dragon dictate listens to my voice and simply types the words, creates paragraphs, punctuations etc. I simply copy and paste the finished text and I’m done. You can get a decent Koss headset on Amazon for a bit over $20 here. As I mentioned, Google looks at relevance in two ways. The content on the site and the content on the sites holding inbound links.

Now that I have added content to the PBN domain, I need to create additional links from other sites to the PBN to swing the niche signals in my favour. If the PBN site has 10 inbound links, I create 50. You can use any link building tools to do this, like Ultimate Demon, Senuke or Rankwyz. I prefer Senuke as I can set the whole thing on autopilot and it will build links to my tiers indefinitely.

It’s expensive, yes but like anything, you pay for what you get and the features available in Senuke are worth it. If thats not within your budget, Rankwyz is perfect as it build out web 2.0 sites. In addition, I make sure I build links to the original PR5 site, the PBN site as well as the tier-1 site. I make sure I spread it over 50 days as link velocity is very important.

I usually create about 1 link a day and keep on doing it, but a bare minimum of 5 times any existing links will do the trick. I also add a plugin to redirect all inbound links to other pages on my PBN site that no longer exist, like Backlinks Saver.


Sorry if this post is a bit long but it's a cut and paste from a blog post of mine and I haven't inserted any images. There are many methods of finding expired domains, this is just one that I like to use, so play with it and improve it if you can.

If you have any questions about it, I would be pleased to answer them.

Hi ZimmerSEO,

Great post. I have a couple of questions:

Do you change the domain registrar information from domain to domain ie. change the whois?

Do you register the domains with the same company?

Can you purchase the domains and then transfer them to nonameinternet?

Many thanks,

B

Here's a few misc. tips.


Study "hilltop". It's an old Google concept that is likely still in effect. Basically, Hilltop is the concept of two sites being related, or "affiliated" as Google calls them, in some way. A link from a site to another site owned by the same person would have less value than a similar link from a totally unaffiliated site.


One example is using affiliate links that include some type of unique identification. Don't use affiliate links on a PBN that you've used on any other site.


When trying to find cheap hosts, my experience has been that over 50% of them don't even work when you first order them. You don't get your login details or there are other issues. Finding reliable cheap hosts is a major pain.


I've tried to start a "hosting exchange" group in the past, but it didn't work for various reasons. However, if you can exchange hosting with a friend or two that you know and trust that have reseller accounts, it can save you a bit of a hassle and money.

It's better to take services that specialize on specific things. For instance, our service specializes in SEO domains, no other service (especially if it also offers many other services) can offer you the same quality.

PBNs do not come with content. You need to create your own content in most cases.

We do provide inexpensive PBN hosting as well as research with registration. It only depends what niche you are in and what is the level of your competition.

How hard could it really be though to conceal your information by building the pbn? if your trying to do everything on a budget, which is very likely, yes it will be difficult but anything seo related will be difficult in my opinion. there are plenty of tools to help you but yes diversification is literally the best approach for a natural link profile

So using the same adsense on PBN will leave a footprint behind I assume? What about using bitly or other url shorteners for amazon or other affiliates?

Fightback is still a great option.

Buying links and building PBN will only hurt your SEO. I cannot believe that people are still buying links. Focus on making the content on your site awesome. Share that content as regularly as you can on social media and find blogs relevant to your website and leave valuable comments there.