Top ways to use PBN backlinks to increase keyword ranking

Are Public Blog Networks still valid and effective? Absolutely.

PBNs are an all-popular link building technique for many SEOs. The domain purchasing market is massive. Why? Because this method, though frowned upon by Google, still works (pretty well, to be honest!) As long as backlinks are referred to as a superb ranking factor, PBNs should stay as powerful as ever.

Using Private Blog Networks for Ranking

There’s a simple formula for releasing your private blog networks into the wild. Just below, you will see a quick overview. We will carefully explain every point!

Purchase an expired domain

Domains expire every day. Many a time, their owners decide not to prolong the registration. As a result, anyone can purchase it. Quite often, this can be an excellent trusted and reputable domain with a nice backlink profile. SEOs acquire them in order to publish links to their website, that they are promoting. Typically, you can get a domain for 10-15$ dollars.

Expired domains are likely to pass on good link juice to your primary website, which is why PBNs are so powerful. But before you make a purchase, make sure to check its domain rating, backlinks profile, as they are useful criteria. Always use the Wayback machine to see how the domain in question looked like in the past.

The perfect scenario is when you find a right domain that’s relevant to your niche (say that you a pottery store and you find a website about kitchen utensils. Pretty close, right?). In this case, you can avoid re-theming your website.

Set up hosting

This gets tricky. The truth is – you need to set up different hosting accounts for each and every website that you own. This is done to prevent the online world, Google included, from knowing about what you do in the shadows.

Popular hosting accounts are CloudFlare, BlueHost, HostGator, GreenGeeks, ASmallOrange, DigitalOcean, Amazon Web Services. There’s no denying it – they might be pricey. But the safest way is to use hosting with a good rap like all of the above.

Make sure your website looks legit

You need to make it look like your just-set website is 100% legit. It shouldn’t look like make-believe. This means you should have some good content on it, WordPress plugins, and a solid theme as a starter’s pack.

Don’t worry. You don’t have to shell out on some sky-high website templates. Free WordPress themes will do. There’s a caveat also. If you have many domains in your PBN – it’s best to use a different WP theme for each of them.

As I mentioned earlier, You’re in luck if the domain is related to the same niche you’re in. But what if your just acquired website is absolutely irrelevant to your business? In this case, re-theming your website is a natural thing to do.

For example, let’s say you were able to get a nice cleaningworks.com domain which initially belonged to the cleaning company that went out of business. But what if your niche is technology and software? In this case, you might want to re-theme it into the website that reviews computer cleaning software or some professional cleaning equipment.

Creating content for your PBN

Disclaimer: you need to create good, high-quality content for your PBN. Your new website shouldn’t look spammy, poorly-written, or else. Create at least 2-3 pages. Thumbs up for creating more than that. Your goal is to establish a website that looks like a real thing. Don’t forget to set up an ‘About’, ‘FAQs’, and ‘Contact us’ pages. Use a new logo, set up a nice-looking menu, choose a beautiful & simple WordPress theme.

Below are some key tips that will help you build a long-lasting and effective PBN and boost your keyword ranking:

Different Hosting – We recommend that each of your websites is located on a different subnet IP address. Most web hosts will only receive a small number of IP addresses that they can provide to a client. While the IP address may be slightly different, you may also end up receiving the same ones. In this situation, it is recommended that you only host one or maybe two domains with this same web-host.
Different Registrars – It is recommended that you buy domains through different registrars or have most of your domains through GoDaddy since they have control of the most domains. On all of your domains, you should have WhoIS Guard enabled. You should avoid having any fake information or details in the WhoIS records. It is imperative to use the DNS of the individual registrar and avoid using one name server for all the domains under your control.
Content – It is recommended that each of your websites have unique SEO-valuable content. Avoid spinning content at all costs. Treat every domain in your PBN with the same love and respect as you treat your main money making site, by investing in its quality.
Linking Out – It is very tempting to link out a domain to all your money sites. But this is a footprint and not recommended, one PBN site should only link to one money site.
Link Profile – Every page will have a maximum of 2-5 outgoing links whilst some pages will have no links at all. This is to ensure the link profile remains natural and doesn’t raise any red flags. All outbound links from your page should go directly to the money making or authority sites, relevant to your industry, field, or niche market. Linking to other websites within your market or niche is still extremely important.
Embed Links – It is recommended that you avoid site-wide links and focus on links that are embedded in the contextual texts.
Build Up The Site – Only link a domain to your money making site after you have created a few pages minimum. Avoid linking out to websites such as YouTube or Wikipedia and focus all initial links directly to authoritative sites in your niche (obviously not direct competitors though).
Anchor Texts – Using different anchoring texts when linking to your main money making site is imperative. If your site is new, then you need to make sure you have branded, generic and naked URL links going to your domain BEFORE you start linking from your PBNs. You need a good base of links then use partial match anchors on your PBNs for the most effect. We do not recommend doing exact match anchor text from your PBNs or from any links for that matter.
Site Structure – Every website is required to have certain key pages in order to pass a manual review such as an about page, contact us as well as a privacy policy.
Use Relevant Niche – It is highly recommended that all your PBN sites are kept in the same niche as they were before the domains expired. If Google realises that the new site is significantly different from the original site, the backlinks will be devalued in the search engine algorithm.
Don’t Advertise Your PBN – Do not share any information about your domains or attempt to sell a PBN link.