SEO Blueprint

PBN

(1) Introduction To Private Blog Networks

Defining The Perfect Backlink

The first thing we need to understand before building our private blog network is what truly makes a perfect backlink?

The Perfect Backlink

We can break down the perfect backlink into a number of elements-

Site Authority

One of the strongest signals to look at is the authority of the site & page a link is coming from.

So, for example, a link from Wikipedia or a leading blog in your niche is far more powerful than a link from a newly registered domain.

The perfect backlink always comes from an authoritative domain.

DA = >30

Relevance

The second most important thing to consider when defining the perfect backlinks is relevance.

For example, if your site is about dog training, you want links from sites & pages that talk about dogs, pets or animals in general. You certainly don’t want a link from the make money online niche.

Relevancy is becoming more and more important and the perfect backlink comes from a relevant page and/or domain.

TF > 20

Placement

The placement of the backlink also plays a critical role in obtaining the perfect backlink.

Google understands where links are placed and links that are placed inline of editorial context are far stronger than any other.

Sure you could get a link from a comment, in the sidebar or footer – but nothing will beat the power of a contextual link inline with relevant content.

Homepage Backlinks is more powerful than any other inner page

Anchor Text

Anchor text can be tricky as there is no one size fits all glove recommendation.

But as a general rule, you want all of your exact match/phrase match anchor text backlinks to be coming from authoritative domains.

Then diversify your anchor text ratio with branded & generic anchors with lower authority link sources.

Basically, save the big guns for the big keywords.

Outbound Links

Last but not least is the number of outbound links on a page. The more outbound links there are, the more ‘link juice’ you have to share.

There is a common myth that Google can only read the first 100 outbound links on a page, which used to be true but they have updated since.

However, the perfect backlink would not have more than 10 outbound links on the page. In general though, the less outbound links – the better.

What Is A Private Blog Network (PBN)?

A private blog network is simply a collection of authoritative domains & websites that you own. You can then use them to rank whatever site(s) you want.

It takes a bit of time to set up but private blog networks should be considered serious long term business assets.

Building the first site in your network might seem daunting at first, but once you have done it a few times it becomes a very quick & efficient process.

It is also important that you do not get private blog network confused with public blog network. You can find many services offering to sell posts on their private blog networks, but the very nature of selling posts makes it a public blog network.

PBN vs PBN

The Hidden Private Blog Network Advantage

SEO is nothing more than risk management and one of the most overlooked benefits of private blog networks is the control of that risk that it gives us.

In fact there is no other type of backlink that can be built that offers the same level of control that a private blog network does.

Having this level of control allows you to mitigate any risks.

Design/layout

Content topic

Internal links

Outbound links

Anchor text

Unlike any other type of link, you have full control to login to your network and instantly clean up your link profile in a few clicks.

The Risks Of Private Blog Networks

I want to be very clear with this. If Google catches you using a private blog network, you will be penalised. There are no two ways about it.

It is very easy to leave a footprint behind if you are not careful, so it is critical that you pay attention to every piece of advice and follow every step in this course. But here are the two worst case scenarios-

#1 – Google Detects The Network

If Google detects your network a few different things can happen. There is no doubt that you will receive a link penalty, either through failing a manual review or an algorithm update.

If this happens your site will lose rankings & traffic and it is possible your private blog network will be partially or fully deindexed depending on what they detect.

But remember the hidden benefit of private blog networks is control and we can exercise the control in a couple of different ways.

#2 – Competitor Reports You

The most common way people get penalised when using a private blog network is after going through a manual review that was triggered by a competitor submitting a spam complaint.

Trust me, if you are in the top 10 for a low-medium competition keyword – your competitors are watching closely. What you do with your site and what you do with your backlinks.

We will be capable to avoid any complaining and take full control of networks after this lesson completed!

The One Type Of Blog Network You Must Avoid

There is one type of blog network you should avoid at all costs and that is public blog networks.

Especially public ‘private’ blog networks that you tend to find advertised in Fiverr.

Let me be clear here, the second you start selling posts on your private blog network it is no longer a private blog network.

It is a regular occurrence to hear news of yet another ‘private’ blog network getting completely deindexed then you have everyone running around saying ‘private’ blog networks are dead.

Public Blog Networks (Drawbacks)

The sites are usually poor in design

They use junky unreadable spun content

They sell hundreds of posts per month per site

The domains themselves usually have a spammy backlink profile

You have zero control

SAMPLES

Indexed: http://www.true2youlifecoaching.com/

DeIndexed: http://www.doellingundgalitz.com/

MORE

https://baileydoesntbark.com/

http://chiringadecuba.com/

Technology: http://pc-dtv.com/

Lifestyle: http://www.festivalmusicapuertomorelos.com/

Health: http://celebrate2004.org/

Gambling: http://joffeepublish.com

Finance: http://collsfc.com/

Entertainment: http://racing-line.org/

(2) Planning A Powerful Network

The PBN Process

Each site you build in your network follows the same 4 simple steps

Find & buy an authoritative domain

Set up web hosting

Build the site

Add your links

For each site in your private blog network you will need

A domain

Web hosting

Content

The Cost Of Building A Private Blog Network

A lot of people think that building their own network is expensive, but that’s not true at all.

In fact you can build the start of your network for cheaper than what it would cost you to buy posts on a public network.

You also have to consider that each site in your private blog network is a business asset that will bring huge financial returns in the near future.

So let’s take a look at the rough costs involved.

Authoritative Domain

You can often register a relevant expired domain with authority for the same price as a new domain which is around $8.

But if you go through a domain broker or service that specialises in selling these domains you can expect to pay around $30-$100 each.

I will take you through all of these different options later in the course but on average you can expect to pay around $15 per domain for your network.

So, Take note for $12 on average

Hosting

On average you can expect to pay around $2-$6 per month to host each site in your network.

I would say on average $5 per month.

Content

Sourcing content for each site in your network is usually the biggest expense you will face.

There is an endless amount of places you can source content from (again I will discuss this in detail later) but you will need 4 to 8 articles of 400-800 words each at random for each site in the network.

You will pay around $6-$8 per article and you need 4 to 8 of them at random for each site.

So on the low end of the costs you can expect to pay around $28-$56 for the content you need if you don’t write it yourself.

So, on average I should say, 5x$7 = $35

Sum Up

Domain + Hosting + Content = 1 PBN

$12 + $5 + $35 = $52 per PBN (1 st month)

$0 + $5 + $0 = $5 per PBN (2nd month)

Planning Wrap Up

The beauty of building your own network though, is that you can build it as slowly or as quickly as your time and budget allows for.

If you are on a tight budget you can just build 1 site per month, but if you want to accelerate your results you can build as many as you want.

I always recommend that you go through the process with 1 site first to get a feel for things before jumping in with both feet because nothing beats hands on experience and knowledge.

(3) Hosting of PBN

How To Avoid Leaving A Hosting Footprint

As long as you take each of these points into consideration – you won’t have any problem with Google finding a hosting footprint.

Unique IP’s

If you don’t know already, an IP Address is simply a computers unique address on the internet. Much like your house has a unique address so does every computer on the internet.

IP Addresses typically come in this format – xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx

For example – 82.134.32.42 or 135.643.123.2

What Is a C Class IP?

IP Addresses are made up of 4 ‘blocks’ of numbers like this-

AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD

123.234.345.456

123.234.678.456

123.234.237.456

123.234.985.456

123.234.568.456

You want to make sure that every site in your private blog network has a unique set of numbers in the CCC section of the IP address.

So for example if you had a 3 site private blog network that used the following IP’s

134.12.34.67

134.12.34.62

134.12.34.12

That would leave a hosting footprint for Google to find because they all have the same .34 ‘C class’.

However if the IP addresses of your 3 site network looked like this-

134.12.132.67

134.12.36.62

134.12.34.12

Then you can clearly see that each site has a completely unique C class. This would not be detected by Google.

As you build out your network you should keep an eye on this and make sure that you don’t introduce duplicates as you build out your network.

What Is An A & B Class?

If for any reason you need to build a huge network, you can move things up a level with unique A or B class IP addresses.

Remember an IP address is made up of 4 ‘blocks’ of numbers like this-

AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD

At a minimum you need your sites to all have a unique C class. But you can also introduce a unique A or B class as well.

For example the IP addresses below all have the same C class-

134.12.34.67

134.102.34.62

134.11.34.12

But because they are all on a unique B class the network wouldn’t leave any detectable hosting footprint.

The same applies when you move things up to the A class.

More Examples

To give you some more examples here is a list of IP addresses that would be detected by Google-

212.102.34.67

212.102.34.62

212.102.34.12

212.102.34.101

212.102.34.202

This is because they all have the same C class, but also the same B class above that and then A class above that.

And here is a list that would not be detected by Google-

212.102.34.202

210.102.34.67

212.186.34.62

212.102.38.12

212.87.34.101

This is because even though the first 2 have the same .34 C class – they are on different A classes.

This is one of the biggest things that Google can use to pickup a hosting footprint so it’s important that we get it right.

Handy Tool To Double Check Your Setup

If you want to be extra sure then once you have built your sites you can paste the domains

https://tools.webconfs.com/en/class-c-ip-checker/

http://prntscr.com/ocwoyk

In the screenshot above you can see I checked 5 sites. The first 2 are on different C classes.

But the last 3 all share the same C class – and those sites would be detected by Google possibly leading to a penalty on your main site.

1 Site Per IP Address

It is also very important that you only use each IP address once. This means you do not have 2 sites that are on identical IP addresses.

You should always use a unique IP address for every single site, taking the unique C class information above into account.

By doing that, you will reduce the risk of the network getting found out by Google significantly.

Diversify Hosts

You should try to host your private network across as many different web hosts as possible. The more diversity, the better!

So while you can get away with hosting 2-3 sites on a single shared hosting provider, I wouldn’t recommend that you do so personally.

Unique Nameservers

Each domain in your network should use a different nameserver. A nameserver is what translates a domain name like google.com into an IP address like 123.232.453.232.

When you order hosting for a domain in your network, you will have to login to the domains registrar (GoDaddy or Namecheap for example) and update the nameserver to whatever your host tells you.

Tool: https://who.is/

http://prntscr.com/ocwx19

The problem is even if you have different unique C class IP’s with the same host, its likely they will all share the same nameserver.

Make sure every site in your network has different nameservers

Check SOA Records

Every domain has a state of authority (SOA) record attached to it. This contains various bits of information, but what is critical – is sometimes it includes your email address.

Not many people are aware of this but this is something you should check for if you have more than 1 site hosted with 1 hosting company.

You can check this easily by doing a DNS lookup on any domain.

http://prntscr.com/ocwxjv

As you can see in the screenshot above, if we run the check for my blog – it reveals an email address in the SOA record.

That would create a possible footprint if I were to have other sites with that host.

Check IP Ownership

Every computer in the world has a unique IP address and every IP address has a registered owner.

So it could be that you have bought hosting from 2 different companies, but they are both just acting as ‘resellers’ and you end up on 2 completely unique IP addresses – but they are both owned by the same company.

http://prntscr.com/ocwzin

Now it doesn’t matter if a few of your IP’s have the same owner if you have a large network, but if the vast majority have the same owner – this is a red flag for Google.

Avoid SEO Hosting

If you do a Google search for ‘SEO hosting’ you will find a plethora of results offering exactly that.

Any host that advertises itself as an ‘SEO Host’ should be avoided like the plague.

On the surface they look like good options because they all offer hundreds of unique C class IP addresses at a low price to host your entire network.

http://prntscr.com/ocx00t

The problem is that because the SEO hosting companies specifically target people in the SEO world looking to build private blog networks. All of their ‘unique C class’ IP’s are jam packed with private blog networks.

This in itself leaves a detectable footprint for Google to find and ‘SEO hosts’ are regularly targeted by Google.

But that isn’t the main problem, most of these networks also fail the SOA Record & IP Address Ownership checks.

So if when you’re checking out a host they advertise themselves as an ‘SEO Host’ – avoid them.

Avoid Reseller Hosting

Reseller hosting is different than SEO hosting in that it’s setup so people can ‘resell’ shared hosting and essentially setup their own hosting business.

This is an option that many people recommend to build your private blog network with, one of the popular options I see thrown around is HostNine.

http://prntscr.com/ocx18a

The problem with reseller hosting in any capacity though is it introduces a lot of risk through footprints. First of all, HostNine comes highly recommended on SEO forums & blogs, that for me personally is a red flag.

On top of that reseller hosting rarely passes the IP Ownership check and you would have to create unique nameservers for every domain.

Granted reseller hosting (and SEO hosts) do make things a lot easier to manage and a bit cheaper, but they introduce huge risks that you should not be taking.

CDN

Make it random

Take CDN from different company

Finding Private Blog Network Hosts

So now you know exactly what type of hosting to avoid and how to fly under Google’s radar.

List Of $1 Hosting Companies

To help you get started I have prepared a list of $1 per month hosts you can use for your private blog network.

123Systems

1And1

1DollarWebHosting

3iX

AiCheapWebHosting

AsuraHosting

AwardSpace

BlazingHost

DoHost.Us

ExpertWebHost

HoboHost

HostBandit

HostBig

HostBudget

HostDens

Hostica

HostIcon

HostingDude

HostInit

HostMastered

HostRipples

HostSo

HostTop

IPXCore

LiteWeb

MyTrueHost

NetworkPanda

PhotonVPS

VPSHostingDeals

Warpline

WaxSpace

ZettaHost

Other Cheap Hosting Companies

JustHost

BlueHost

HostGator

247Host

Arvixe

BigBoxHost

BlastPort

GeekStorage

StableHost

SiteGround

A2Hosting

HyperVMart

IdeaStackHosting

LinkAlone

BuddhaHost

CentralHosts

CrocWeb

CycloneServers

DoHost

EasyHost1

Eleven2

HawkHost

HostBlizzard

HostBuddy

Hosthex

HostingOwner

HostingSource

HostMantis

HostMastered

HostRush

MeanServers

NameHero

NetworkPanda

Perfect Hosting

RSHosting

ShockWaveServers

SmileServer

StGeorgeHosting

StudyHost

THCServers

XLXHost

Find Even More Hosts

WebHostingTalk - http://www.webhostingtalk.com/

CloudFlare Partners - https://www.cloudflare.com/partners/

Cloud Hosting Option #1

CloudBoss - https://cloudboss.pro/

It allows you to take advantage of cloud hosting provides like Amazon and Digital Ocean to deploy your private blog network.

These cloud hosting providers have data centers all over the world with hundereds of thousands of IP addresses and you can even use custom nameservers.

CloudBoss connects all of these services under one roof so you can deploy hosting for new sites in the click of a button.

CloudBoss allow following Cloud Hosting

Amazon EC2 / S3 / Lightsail

Joyent

Linode

Vultr

Digital Ocean

Rackspace

Take Notes

Takes a while to set everything up

Manage the hosting for your entire network from one place safely

Host your PBN all around the world

Use custom nameservers to reduce footprints

Can convert WP sites to HTML sites and host upto 50 sites for free (plus CB subscription fee)

Can download sites from archive.org and deploy in one click

Cloud Hosting Option #2

EasyBlogNetworks - https://www.easyblognetworks.com/

There is literally no setup at all and you can deploy hosting along with custom nameservers in about 15 seconds.

Not only that but it will also choose a random WordPress theme, change random settings and install random plugins.

It also takes daily backups of your entire network, automatically protects against IP/Nameserver footprints and much much much more – be sure to watch the video!

Take Note

Zero setup required

Deploy your PBN using cloud hosting providers all over the world

Hundreds of thousands of IP addresses

Creates custom nameservers AUTOMATICALLY

Advanced management features like IP footprint prevention

Automatic backups of every site in your network included

One click WordPress installer with lots of different options

Hosting Wrap Up

Remember – you should not order hosting yet. You need to own the domains for your network before you can host them.

In the mean time just remember that every site in your network should-

Use a different host (not SEO hosts or reseller hosts)

Have different C, B or A class IP’s

Have different nameservers

Have different SOA records

Have different IP address owners