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Backlinking; Should sites on my PBN each have unique IP and different web host?

by Toby A
14 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Hi guys,
I am considering building a PBN (Private Blog Network) to help rank one of my sales sites. I have heard various gurus succeeding in SEO say that a PBN is essential.

Despite not having done this before, this is my understanding of what I should do:

• Buy at least one aged domain with high PR (Page Rank) to use as a site that backlinks to your target site (sales site).

• The target site (sales site) should have a Unique IP address.

• Each of the other sites in the PBN don't have to have a unique IP, but should never all share the same unique IP.

• The other sites (not the target site) should be hosted on Shared Hosting accounts, so as to share IP addresses with thousands of other sites - leaving no footprint for Google to detect.

• But each of the other sites in the PBN should be hosted with a different hosting company, so as to ensure their IP addresses are not the same (despite sharing IPs with thousands of sites outside your PBN).

• The web hosts you use should be popular and reliable, to ensure their "shared hosting" has thousands of sites (used by many different people) all using the same IP addresses.

I'd be very grateful if you could tell me if I have this down correctly?
#backlinking #host #ip address #pbn #sites #unique #unique ip address #web
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  • Profile picture of the author Ettienne
    Don't need different web hosts for each sites, but different IP's, yes. PBN's are SUPER expensive and very risky. Look at how many million dollar networks got busted a few years back, that's money down the drain and not worth the risk if you ask me.

    There are better ways to improve your rankings than using PBNs.

    Also having like 5 sites in a network won't do much, you need hundreds if you want to do it properly. That's 10's and thousands of dollars you're risking. It's a gamble, it can work (great), or fail miserably.
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  • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
    It's always seemed like way more work to me, building PBNs which are only helpful if the sites in it have a decent degree of authority. That means you are now spending time and energy trying to get things that aren't even your money site to rank and worse, it could all be for naught if the PBN is discovered.

    Less time and energy would be spent developing stellar content that other sites would want to link to on the money site - a much safer strategy in my opinion.
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  • Profile picture of the author nimdekvan
    Your PBNs should have different IPs
    Your money site should not be on the same shared hosting.
    If your networks is smaller i don't think there is really any footprint.
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    • Profile picture of the author Toby A
      Many thanks for replying guys.

      Originally Posted by Ettienne View Post

      Don't need different web hosts for each sites, but different IP's, yes. ...
      If I had each site on a different web host using Shared hosting, surely each site would end up having a different IP address... that would also be used by thousands of other sites that were not controlled by me (due to "shared" hosting plan, on a "popular" hosting company like HostGator, Dreamhost, etc).

      I can use free SSL on Dreamhost and pay about $5 / mnth for unique IP, but seeing as $5 is about as much money I'd have to pay for a hosting account with another host anyway, I figured I might as well pay for 4 or 5 different web hosting accounts - and use Shared hosting plans.


      Originally Posted by Ettienne View Post

      PBN's are SUPER expensive and very risky. Look at how many million dollar networks got busted a few years back, that's money down the drain and not worth the risk if you ask me.

      There are better ways to improve your rankings than using PBNs. ...
      The only reason I started exploring the PBN subject is because some SEOers mentioned it as a way to gain strong backlinks.

      I just want to be able to boost the G rank of some local biz sites, without getting penalised.
      ... I don't really know much about PBN (private blog networks), I just assumed they were either - a bunch of sites linking to one another, or a bunch of sites kept very separate from one another (different IPs, and no cross linking to each other) but all linked to the same money site.


      Originally Posted by dave_hermansen View Post

      It's always seemed like way more work to me, building PBNs which are only helpful if the sites in it have a decent degree of authority. That means you are now spending time and energy trying to get things that aren't even your money site to rank and worse, it could all be for naught if the PBN is discovered.

      Less time and energy would be spent developing stellar content that other sites would want to link to on the money site - a much safer strategy in my opinion.
      If I bought an aged (and respected) domain from DomCop or similar, would this not boost my off page SEO (stronger back link profile)?



      Originally Posted by nimdekvan View Post

      Your PBNs should have different IPs
      Your money site should not be on the same shared hosting.
      If your networks is smaller i don't think there is really any footprint.
      I originally intended to have 5 sites on 5 different web hosts. One would be my money site and the other four would link to it.

      Thanks again
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      • Profile picture of the author dave_hermansen
        Originally Posted by Toby A View Post

        If I bought an aged (and respected) domain from DomCop or similar, would this not boost my off page SEO (stronger back link profile)?
        Not necessarily. The age of the domain isn't going to do much, if anything, nor is "respect" (as if an algorithm can make that judgment). If by "respect" you mean that it is very relevant to the site it will be linking to and has a whole lot of other super solid links already built to it by other high authority, relevant sites (which almost always means the site already ranks well on its own), sure, it will help. I can't imagine those come very cheap, though!
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  • Profile picture of the author Toby A
    I have another question relevant to this thread, which I think is very important.

    Q: I watched an SEOer's video advising to register your hosting account under a different name... is this really important?

    Hostgator account :- John Smith
    Dreamhost account :- Toby Jones
    ICD Soft :- Mike Ellis
    Bluehost :- David Macarthur
    etc.

    I want to avoid getting a Google-slap resulting in my Sales-sites & Backlink-sites not ranking.
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  • Profile picture of the author Toby A
    From what I can tell so far, the best indicators of a good domain are are Majestic CF (citation flow) and TF (trust flow), and Moz DA (domain authority).
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    • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
      Originally Posted by Toby A View Post

      From what I can tell so far, the best indicators of a good domain are are Majestic CF (citation flow) and TF (trust flow), and Moz DA (domain authority).
      No. The only thing you should use 3rd party metrics for are as filters. You should never make a purchasing decision based on these metrics. They are highly inaccurate and you will waste a shit ton of money.

      Your purchasing decision should be based on the live link profile.
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      • Profile picture of the author Toby A
        Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

        ... Your purchasing decision should be based on the live link profile.
        Isn't the list of backlinks in Majestic the "live link profile"?
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        • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
          Originally Posted by Toby A View Post

          Isn't the list of backlinks in Majestic the "live link profile"?
          Majestic, Ahrefs, and any other link index you want to use to a great job of finding links, but not such a great job of keeping their data up to date.

          You will find links in there that disappeared months ago.
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          • Profile picture of the author Toby A
            Originally Posted by MikeFriedman View Post

            Majestic, Ahrefs, and any other link index you want to use to a great job of finding links, but not such a great job of keeping their data up to date.

            You will find links in there that disappeared months ago.
            Wow... that's a bit concerning, especially seeing as both of these tools are considered so powerful in the SEO world.

            How do you identify the 'live link profile' of a site?
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            • Profile picture of the author MikeFriedman
              Originally Posted by Toby A View Post

              Wow... that's a bit concerning, especially seeing as both of these tools are considered so powerful in the SEO world.

              How do you identify the 'live link profile' of a site?
              You either go visit the links yourself and see if they exist or use something like Scrapebox or SEO SpyGlass which lets you import a list of links and then check if they still exist.
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  • Profile picture of the author Toby A
    Thanks Mike
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  • Profile picture of the author jborowy
    PBN's are incredibly powerful but the key is only buying safe domains. Just one or a few bad domains will tank your ranking efforts. So my partner and I always approach the subject with a safety-first policy. Any domain with questionable links or history, even if TF is really high, is simply disqualified. I personally feel domains with long and traceable histories and totally natural link profiles are more powerful than ones with higher metrics but more anchor text link % and/or multiple past owners. But it's really hard to find the good ones.



    As for hosting, the safest is either a dedicated VPS cloud host or shared hosting account for each one, but that does get pricey. Depends on how dedicated you are, budget wise, to ranking. You could do multiple sites on one hosting account and we've seen it done successfully, but it is a risk. Some clients prefer to pay the $4/month per pbn domain just to be safe.
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