What Is PBN Link Building: Is It Worth It In 2025?

Imagine having a secret network of websites at your command to boost your Google rankings on demand. It’s an intriguing prospect that has SEO professionals divided. On one hand, link building is notoriously difficult – in fact, 55.7% of experts say it’s the most challenging part of SEO. It’s slow, unpredictable, and often frustrating.

On the other hand, what if you could sidestep that grind with a shortcut? Enter Private Blog Networks (PBNs) – a controversial tactic promising quicker backlinks under your complete control.

The idea of PBN link building certainly piques curiosity. We all want higher rankings fast, and a PBN offers exactly that: a way to create backlinks on your own terms. But here’s where the scenario gets tense.

The very thing that makes PBNs alluring – their power to manipulate rankings – is also what makes them risky. Google openly frowns upon manufactured link schemes, and horror stories of penalties circulate throughout the SEO community. In the short term, some marketers whisper that PBNs do deliver results. In the long term, others warn that it’s like playing with fire.

In this post, we’ll pull back the curtain on PBN link building. We’ll define what PBNs are and why they’re so contentious. We’ll explore the supposed advantages (like control and speed) that tempt SEOs to try PBNs.

We’ll also candidly discuss the downsides and risks – from detection to penalties – so you know exactly what’s at stake. For those still intrigued, we’ll outline how a PBN is built step by step, along with best practices to avoid obvious footprints.

We’ll then compare alternative, white-hat link building methods (like guest blogging and content marketing) that might achieve your goals more safely. Finally, we’ll look at real case studies of businesses that grew their traffic without relying on PBNs, proving that legitimate strategies can pay off big time.

By the end, you’ll have an objective, 360° view of PBN link building. This isn’t a topic with a simple yes-or-no answer – it’s about weighing short-term rewards vs. long-term repercussions. Let’s dive in and see why PBNs both intrigue and agitate SEO pros in equal measure.

Understanding PBNs: Definition, goals, and controversy

What exactly is a PBN?

A Private Blog Network is essentially a group of websites created solely to link to a target site (often called the “money site”) in order to boost its search rankings. These networks are usually built using expired or aged domains that already have some authority, so that any links from them carry more weight.

The goal is straightforward: pass link equity from these feeder sites to your main site, tricking Google into seeing your site as more authoritative and thus ranking it higher.

In theory, it’s like voting for yourself hundreds of times from different places online.

However, PBNs come wrapped in controversy. The practice lives in a gray (or rather, black hat) area of SEO because it violates Google’s guidelines on link schemes.

Instead of earning “votes” naturally, you’re manufacturing them. Google’s Webspam team considers this manipulation – a direct attempt to game the algorithm. For that reason, using PBN links is officially against the rules and is often met with penalties if discovered.

Why, then, do PBNs still exist? The controversy persists because PBNs can work – at least in the short run. Based on our survey, 5.3% of link builders found PBN link building to be effective ─ not many, but not zero either.

Despite constant improvements in Google’s algorithms to fight unnatural linking, many in the underground SEO community report that PBN tactics still boost rankings for numerous sites.

This evidence keeps the PBN strategy alive, even as a hush-hush secret. People who build PBNs take extreme measures to hide any connections between their network sites, erasing common footprints that could tip off Google. Everything, from domain registration info to hosting IP addresses, is camouflaged to maintain the illusion that each blog is an unrelated, genuine site.

The upshot is an ongoing cat-and-mouse game. Google knows PBNs happen and considers them “just link schemes” – nothing new, just another form of spam to stamp out.

Google representatives like John Mueller have stated that PBN links are usually pretty obvious to detect with the right tools, and that the search engine has a variety of automated and manual ways to respond to them. In many cases Google simply ignores these links or devalues them, meaning all that PBN effort might not even help your rankings. SOOURCE

In worse cases, Google may apply manual penalties if a PBN is uncovered, causing the linked site to lose rankings or be de-indexed entirely.

On the flip side, some SEOs argue that PBNs fill a need. They point out that “link building is hard” – you can spend weeks on outreach for guest posts or press mentions and get nothing to show for it. PBNs offer a tempting shortcut around that unpredictability by giving you guaranteed links.

There’s also the allure of anchor text control. Normally, when you earn links naturally, you have no say in the anchor text (it might be your brand name, “click here,” or something irrelevant). With a PBN, you choose the exact keyword-rich anchors to use, which can help signal to Google what terms you want to rank for. This level of control is hard to achieve with purely organic link building.

In short, a PBN is a classic risk-reward dilemma. Its purpose is to manipulate rankings by creating an artificial backlink profile for your site. The controversy stems from the tactic being effective enough that people still try it, yet risky enough that many experts call it an “SEO ticking time bomb.”

As we proceed, keep that dichotomy in mind: PBN link building sits at the intersection of high control and high stakes. Understanding both sides is key before you even think about trying it.

Advantages of PBNs: Control, speed, cost-effectiveness

Why would anyone deliberately bend the rules with a PBN? It turns out the advantages that PBN proponents cite are quite compelling, especially if you’ve struggled with traditional link building. Let’s look at the main upsides: unprecedented control, faster results, and potential cost savings.

Full control over your backlinks

With a PBN, you become the master of your own link domain. Unlike organic outreach where you hope and pray for a webmaster to link to you (and use a decent anchor text), a PBN lets you dictate everything.

You can choose the anchor text for each backlink, craft the surrounding content, and decide exactly which page of your site to point it at. This level of control is unparalleled.

In fact, one of the biggest attractions of PBNs is having a backlink profile perfectly aligned with your strategy – you’re essentially the editor-in-chief of all sites linking to you. Want to rank for “best fitness tracker”? You can ensure multiple PBN links have that exact phrase in the anchor, something that’s nearly impossible to orchestrate with independent sites.

You also control the frequency and timing of link placement. Links can be added on your schedule, in the quantities you need, whenever you launch a new page or need a boost. This hands-on control can be very appealing to SEO professionals who are tired of the unpredictability of outreach.

Speed and immediate impact

Building a quality backlink profile the normal way can take months or years.

By contrast, a PBN can potentially move the needle in a matter of weeks. How? PBN sites often are built on expired domains that already have solid authority (high DA/DR, existing backlinks). So when these sites link to your money site, you may see a swift ranking improvement thanks to the “inherited” authority they pass. It’s not uncommon to hear anecdotes of sites jumping from page 3 to page 1 of Google within a few short weeks of deploying PBN links.

Essentially, you skip the line by leveraging established domains. This rapid result is one of the most touted benefits – it’s the “quick win” that entices many SEOs.

However, as we’ll discuss later, these gains can be temporary. For now, from a purely benefits standpoint, PBNs offer a way to accelerate SEO progress when time is of the essence.

If you’re launching a site in a competitive niche, the prospect of getting visible in search faster via PBN links (versus waiting 6+ months for outreach and natural links to kick in) can be very tempting.

Cost-effectiveness (in the short term)

Surprising as it sounds, running a PBN can appear cheaper than some white-hat campaigns – at least when measuring direct costs. High-quality link building outreach often involves paying content writers, maybe paying for guest post placements or sponsored posts, hiring PR agencies, etc. These costs add up per link acquired.

In contrast, once you’ve set up a PBN, the incremental cost of dropping a new link to your site is low. You already own the sites. For the price of a domain renewal and hosting, you might place dozens of links over time.

Especially for agencies or individuals who already have a network, getting a new backlink might just require writing an article yourself and publishing it – no external fees. Some argue that buying or building a PBN can be a cost-effective alternative to expensive outreach campaigns.

For example, if a single guest post on a high-authority site costs $300 (a common scenario in influencer blogs or editorial fees), one might reason that the same $300 could purchase an expired domain for a PBN that can yield many links.

Indeed, supporters see PBNs as an asset – once you invest upfront, you reap “free” links thereafter. That said, cost-effectiveness is relative.

PBNs have their own ongoing costs (we’ll touch on those in the how-to-build section), and a poorly executed PBN can become a money sink. But for our purposes here, we note that many SEOs view PBNs as a way to acquire links at scale without the variable costs and low success rates of outreach.

It’s worth noting that these advantages are largely about efficiency and control. PBN link building can feel like you’ve given yourself the steering wheel that Google normally doesn’t let you touch.

You decide how many links, of what type, and when – and you might see results faster than any other tactic. In competitive niches or when budgets are tight, these benefits explain why some professionals still risk using PBNs despite the known dangers.

However, just because PBNs have these advantages doesn’t mean they’re the right choice. It’s crucial to weigh them against the disadvantages, which we’ll discuss next.

Remember the earlier analogy: many experienced SEOs liken PBNs to a sugar rush – a quick high with a bitter crash to follow. The “high” we just described (control, speed, cheap links) can be very real. But what about the crash?

Let’s explore the downsides and risks so you have the full picture.

Disadvantages and risks of PBNs (De-emphasized but real)

No PBN discussion is complete without a frank look at the risks involved. Advocates may downplay these, but they are very real.

If the advantages of PBNs are high control and quick results, the disadvantages are the exact inverse: you can lose control rapidly if things go wrong, and any short-term gains can vanish in an instant – or worse, backfire into penalties. Here are the key risks and downsides to consider:

Google penalties (The nuclear risk)

This is the big one. Using PBNs is a direct violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

If Google catches your site engaging in this, you risk either an algorithmic penalty (your rankings drop because the algorithm detects unnatural links) or a manual penalty (a human reviewer from Google Webspam takes action against your site).

The penalties can be harsh. In the worst case, your site could be demoted or removed from search results altogether. As Moz founder Rand Fishkin warns,

“The potential penalty for getting caught is so harsh… that it’s not something I would recommend for anyone who’s making a long-term bet on their business.”

In other words, a penalized site can mean lost traffic, revenue, and countless hours of cleanup.

Yes, you can recover by disavowing links and filing reconsideration requests, but that process is painful and not guaranteed. One day you’re enjoying a ranking boost; the next day your site might disappear from Google – it’s happened to many who flew too close to the sun with PBNs.

Easy detection and link devaluation

You might think you can hide a PBN well, but keep in mind that Google’s getting smarter every day. John Mueller from Google has said that usually nobody needs to “leak” a PBN for Google to find it –

“they’re pretty obvious to the appropriate tools & basic scripts.”

Google has a lot of practice identifying patterns that indicate a network of sites under common control. These patterns are called footprints (more on those in the best practices section).

If your PBN sites share any fingerprint – be it the same IP range, similar themes or content, cross-linking, or even coordinated WHOIS info – they can stick out like a sore thumb.

And even if Google doesn’t flat-out penalize you, they might simply ignore PBN links algorithmically. Imagine spending months building a 20-site PBN, only to have Google quietly discount every single link from it.

In that scenario, you’ve shouldered all the risk and effort for no reward. There’s evidence this happens a lot – Google’s algorithms (like Penguin) have been tuned to nullify unnatural links.

As an example, Semrush’s analysts note that while PBN links can boost your rankings, the increase is usually temporary and “likely only temporary… your rankings will plummet once Google discovers them.”

In short, detection is getting easier, and the consequence is often that the PBN links end up providing zero lasting value. That’s a best-case downside (worst-case being the penalty above).

Ongoing maintenance and costs

Running a PBN is not a “set it and forget it” tactic. It actually requires a lot of ongoing work and expense – something that’s sometimes underestimated. You have to manage multiple websites as if they were real, standalone properties.

That means securing hosting (often dozens of different hosting accounts to diversify IP addresses), paying for domain renewals, creating fresh content regularly for each site, updating plugins or software, keeping sites secure from hackers, and more.

This can turn into a logistical nightmare if you’re not prepared. One Ahrefs guide bluntly states,

“Building PBNs effectively is risky, costly, and time consuming.”

You’re essentially doubling, tripling, or tenfolding your workload compared to managing a single site. The content on PBN sites can’t all be garbage – if it looks abandoned or machine-generated, that’s a footprint.

So you may need to invest in writers or spend your own time writing articles for sites that aren’t even your main business. Add to that the cost of unique IP hosting or CDN services to spread out footprints, and the bills can add up.

Over a year or two, a serious PBN operation might cost thousands of dollars in upkeep. This often negates the “cost-effective” argument unless you’re very efficient.

The moment you stop maintaining a PBN site (say you let the domain expire or the content quality slips), that asset and all its backlinks are gone. It’s like spinning plates – stop spinning one, and it crashes.

Short-lived results (Boom-and-bust cycle)

Many PBN users experience a pattern: initial success followed by decline. You might get a nice boost in traffic and rankings for a few months, but then things plateau or drop.

Why? Perhaps Google caught on, or competitors reported your links, or simply because PBN links don’t age as well as truly earned links.

Think of it as a hack – hacks often get patched. SEO forums are rife with tales of sites that soared to the top with PBN support, only to tumble down once an algorithm update hit. This volatility means PBNs are not a stable, long-term strategy.

If you’re building a brand or a business you want to sustain for years, having your ranking depend on a precarious link network is nerve-wracking.

The bottom line is that PBN wins tend to be fleeting. When the crash comes, you might end up worse off than if you had never used the PBN at all.

Reputation and ethical concerns

This disadvantage is a bit more subjective, but worth mentioning. Using PBNs can damage your reputation if clients or peers discover it. Many SEO professionals are outspoken against PBN usage, considering it spammy.

If you run an agency or work in-house for a brand, getting caught employing PBN tactics could embarrass your company or lead to client loss. It’s essentially doing something search engines deem unethical, which for some is a line they’d rather not cross.

Also, think about the opportunity cost. Time and money spent on covert link schemes is time not spent on improving your site’s content, user experience, or earning real fans. There’s an ethical satisfaction in knowing your rankings are achieved through quality and merit, not trickery. PBNs trade that for a quick fix. Not everyone is comfortable with that trade-off, especially given the risks we’ve outlined.

To “de-emphasize” these risks doesn’t mean to ignore them – rather, it’s to recognize that not everyone gets caught immediately, and some people run PBNs for a while seemingly unscathed. That said, every major SEO resource, from Search Engine Journal to Ahrefs, concludes that the risk far outweighs the reward in most cases. Google’s own stance couldn’t be clearer:

“we respond to link schemes in a variety of algorithmic and manual ways”

In plain English, they’re on the lookout and they will act, one way or another.

It’s also worth noting that Google’s tolerance for manipulation is only getting smaller.

Years ago, entire PBNs were de-indexed in mass penalties (the famous 2014 crackdown, for example, where known blog networks were obliterated).

Nowadays, Google often just neutralizes the effect quietly. So you might never get a dramatic “penalty” notification – your PBN links will just stop working. Either way, the advantage you chased can disappear. As Neil Patel has quipped,

“Black hat SEO is like trying to lose weight by taking diet pills; you might see short-term results, but they’re likely to disappear as soon as you’re caught, and the side effects can be disastrous.”

In summary, the disadvantages of PBN link building center on high risk and high effort for potentially little lasting reward. Penalties can crush your site’s future. Even without penalties, maintaining a PBN is a heavy burden.

The short-term gains often don’t hold up long-term, putting you on a treadmill of constantly needing more tricks. It’s a classic

“the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long”

scenario. Now that we’ve covered both sides, if you’re still curious about how one would even build a PBN, let’s move into the practical steps – with the strong disclaimer that knowledge ≠ endorsement here.

How to build a PBN: Domain acquisition, hosting, content, linking, management

Disclaimer: Building a Private Blog Network is against Google’s rules, and we’ve just gone through the many reasons to be cautious.

If you decide to proceed regardless, you should do so with eyes wide open. What follows is an objective overview of how PBNs are typically built. This is for educational purposes – to understand the process and scope of effort involved.

At a high level, building a PBN involves acquiring a set of domains (often expired ones), setting them up on different hosts, populating each site with content, linking out from those sites to your main site, and continuously managing the network to keep it under the radar.

We can break this down into a few key phases:

1. Domain acquisition

The foundation of a PBN is the domains you use. PBN builders usually seek out expired or aged domains that have existing authority. These are domains that previously hosted real websites and have backlinks pointing to them.

By acquiring such a domain, you inherit its backlink profile – and thus some SEO value – from day one. How to get these domains? Common methods include:

Expired domain marketplaces/auctions

There are auction platforms (GoDaddy Auctions, NameJet, etc.) where expiring domains are sold to the highest bidder. PBN seekers scour these for domains with high Domain Authority or Domain Rating and quality backlinks.

For example, a lapsed cooking blog that had hundreds of links from recipe sites might be a great PBN candidate for a food-related money site. Prices can range from $50 to thousands, depending on how SEO-valuable the domain is.

• Domain crawling tools: Tools like ExpiredDomains.net or SpamZilla list expiring domains with metrics. Here you can filter by Moz DA, Ahrefs DR, number of referring domains, and so on, to find gems.

• Buying existing websites: Some take over currently live sites (maybe small blogs or business sites that owners want to sell). This can be pricier but sometimes more straightforward, as the site might still have traffic and indexed pages.

When selecting a domain, vet carefully. Look at its backlink profile (via Ahrefs, Moz, etc.) to ensure the links are coming from reputable sites and not spam.

Check the domain’s history via Archive.org; if it was previously a spam site or had irrelevant content, it might carry baggage. The best PBN domains are ones that were legitimate sites in their past life and fit thematically with the niche of your money site (for relevance). PBN builders often say

“buy quality, not quantity”

– a few strong domains beat dozens of low-quality ones.

Also, avoid domains with trademarks or names that stand out (you don’t want legal issues or obvious patterns like all your domains have the word “SEO” in them). This phase is essentially about laying a strong foundation.

It can be costly and time-consuming to find good domains, but it’s critical. Using fresh domains (with no backlink history) for PBNs is generally ineffective, because those have no authority to pass – you’d basically be creating a regular blog from scratch and it won’t help rankings much until it gains links.

2. Hosting and technical setup

Once you have your domains, each needs to be hosted and set up like an independent website. A cardinal rule in PBN building is do not host all your sites on the same server or IP range. That would be an immediate footprint – imagine 20 different “blogs” all resolving to the same IP address. Google would easily suspect those are connected.

So, PBN builders use a mix of hosting solutions to diversify footprints:

• Different hosting providers: You might host one site on HostGator, another on BlueHost, another on a DigitalOcean droplet, another on Amazon AWS, etc. The idea is to spread them out so they have unique IP addresses (ideally unique C-blocks).

• SEO hosting services: There are specialty hosts that offer “SEO hosting” with multiple IPs. These let you manage many sites from one dashboard but assign different IPs. However, be careful – if all your IPs are from known SEO hosts, that itself could be a footprint. Many SEO hosting IP ranges are known to be associated with PBNs.

• Cloudflare or CDN: Some use Cloudflare not for performance, but to mask the origin IP of a site. Cloudflare can make multiple sites appear to resolve to generic Cloudflare IPs (shared by many sites globally), which can hide your tracks a bit.

• Unique DNS and Nameservers: Ideally, use varied DNS providers or at least make sure the nameservers for each domain aren’t identical across your network.

Technically, you’ll want to enable WHOIS privacy on all domains (so your name/email isn’t listed as registrant for all – huge footprint if you don’t). If privacy isn’t available, use different registrant details per domain (some use aliases or business names).

Set up each site with a CMS (content management system) – WordPress is common, but it doesn’t hurt to mix in other platforms (Joomla, Ghost, even static HTML) to avoid uniformity. Also vary the themes and templates – if all PBN sites have the same WordPress theme or design, that’s a clue.

Essentially, the setup phase is about making each site look like a real, standalone website on its own distinct island in the internet. No interconnections, no shared fingerprints if possible.

3. Content creation for PBN sites

A PBN site needs content just like any site. In the early days, people would throw up spun or low-quality content and call it a day – but that’s much less viable now. Thin content is a footprint and also might not rank or get indexed well, reducing the site’s value.

Today, successful PBNs often have to feature reasonably decent content. Here’s how content is handled:

Rebuilding old content

If you got an expired domain, you might retrieve its old content from Archive.org and republish some of it (especially if it had backlinks pointing to specific pages). This can maintain continuity and make the site look like it never died.

However, one should be careful not to host plagiarized content – if the old content belonged to someone else, republishing might infringe copyright unless it’s in the public domain or you rewrite it.

New content strategy

Treat each PBN site as a small blog in whatever niche it appears to be in. Write articles that fit that topic. They don’t have to be amazing, but they should be unique, readable, and not blatantly full of SEO spam.

For example, if one PBN domain used to be “AllWorldTravelBlog.com” (travel niche), you’d publish travel articles or guides on it. Within those articles, you can naturally incorporate a link to your money site (ideally on a related topic).

Content volume

At minimum, put some cornerstone pieces on each site – a homepage article, a few blog posts, an about page, etc. Many PBN builders will launch a site with say 5-10 articles, then continue adding a new post once in a while (to show activity). The content doesn’t always have to link out.

A good practice is most posts have no link to your money site, and only occasionally you insert one.

Also, link out to other authority sites too, not just your own – that makes it look more natural.

Quality vs quantity

Obviously, you won’t pour the same level of effort into these as your main site. But do enough to avoid obvious red flags. Correct grammar, some images, a logo, maybe even a fake persona as the author – these touches can make a PBN site look legit at first glance. Some PBN owners even set up social media profiles for their sites, or allow a few real comments, etc., all in the name of authenticity.

Keep in mind: A completely empty or bare-bones site with one page that just happens to link to another site is a huge warning sign to Google. To fly under the radar, PBN sites need to resemble small, independent websites that have their own purpose. It’s a lot of work, frankly, to do this at scale.

4. Linking strategy (How PBN sites link to your money site)

Now we get to the whole point of the PBN – the links. How you link out from your network to your main site (or sites) can make or break the effectiveness and secrecy of the PBN. Some guidelines PBN users follow:

• Link placement: Usually, links to the money site are placed contextually within blog posts or articles on the PBN site. For example, in an article about “Top 10 Fitness Tips” on a PBN site, you might naturally mention “staying hydrated” and link those words to your money site article about workout hydration. The idea is to make the link look editorial.

• Anchor text: One advantage was controlling anchors – but you still must be careful. If all your PBN links use exact-match commercial anchors (“best fitness tracker 2025”), that pattern is obvious. It’s wise to diversify: some branded anchors, some URL anchors, some generic along with those exact matches. The goal is to not raise eyebrows with an over-optimized anchor profile.

Link frequency and volume

In a healthy PBN, not every site is linking to you, and certainly not every post on each site. You might, for instance, have a PBN site with 20 articles, but only 3 of those contain a link to your money site. Some PBN sites might initially have no links to you – you add them later.

Also, you wouldn’t want all PBN sites linking at once or on the same day. Drip them out over time. A sudden spike of 50 new referring domains in a week, all of which coincidentally have low traffic and similar profiles, looks fishy.

One money site vs. many: Be strategic if you have multiple projects. Sometimes PBN builders use one network to link to several different money sites (non-related), effectively monetizing their PBN across clients or sites. This can be risky because if one money site gets penalized and the network is discovered, it could cascade to all. Others keep separate PBNs for separate projects to avoid cross-contamination.

Outgoing links ratio

A legit site links out to various places. So your PBN site should not exclusively link to your money site. Sprinkle in external links to high-authority sites (Wikipedia, news sites, authority blogs in the niche) – not only does it make it look natural, it can actually help the PBN content be seen as more useful.

Additionally, ensure each PBN site doesn’t link to all the other sites in your network (that would literally create a visible network).

Ideally, each only links out to your target in its niche and maybe a few other relevant external sites.

Blocking SEO crawlers

A somewhat technical trick – many PBN owners will block third-party SEO crawlers (like AhrefsBot, Moz, Majestic) via the robots.txt or .htaccess. The reason is to prevent tools from showing your backlinks to curious competitors or researchers. If others in the industry can’t easily see your PBN links, they can’t report them or study them.

However, note that blocking all crawlers except Google might itself be a pattern if done en masse.

5. Management and monitoring

After setup and linking, the work isn’t done. Managing a PBN is an ongoing project.

Key tasks include:

• Monitoring indexation: You need to ensure your PBN pages remain indexed in Google. If some PBN site or page gets de-indexed (could happen if Google suspects it or if it’s thin), its links won’t count. You may need to rework content or figure out why it dropped out.

• Maintaining hosting/domain renewals: Keep a spreadsheet of renewal dates. If one of your PBN domains expires without you noticing, someone else might snap it up – and you lose that site (or worse, they see it was part of a PBN linking to you). Same with hosting – don’t let sites go down. Uptime checks can help.

• Updates and security: Apply WordPress or plugin updates if using CMS, to avoid hacks. A hacked PBN site could inject unwanted links or content that blow your cover or harm your main site by association.

• Content freshness: Continue adding or updating content periodically. A sudden stop in activity after you place the links could be suspicious. Even one new post every month or two can signal the site is “alive.”

Performance tracking

Watch your money site’s backlink profile and rankings.

If you see a big ranking drop, check if it correlates with anything (like did Google unleash an update that possibly targeted link schemes? Did any PBN pages drop from the index?). It might be a sign to pull back or reconsider.

Some even set up Search Console for PBN sites to watch if Google issues any manual actions on them (though adding them to your Search Console has its own risk of connecting them via Google’s data – a tricky balance).

• Stealth and OpSec: Always think in terms of secrecy. Use different browsers or profiles when logging into your PBN site admin panels (to avoid sharing cookies or Google logins between them). Don’t link all PBN sites in Google Analytics or Search Console under one account (in fact, many avoid GA entirely on PBNs). Basically, maintain operational security as if you are running multiple identities.

As you can see, building and running a PBN is a labor-intensive affair. It’s like running multiple mini-websites in parallel, each needing care and feeding, all while also trying to ensure none of them inadvertently reveal the whole scheme. The process we described is complex, and messing up any step (for example, accidentally using the same article on two PBN sites, or one of your writers reusing content) can create a footprint.

It’s also worth pointing out: some sophisticated PBN builders take it further – they may even build links to their PBN sites (so-called “Tier 2” links) to bolster their authority.

For instance, if they have a PBN site on a strong expired domain, they might do a bit of white-hat link building to that site to keep it looking legit (like sharing its articles on social media, or even doing small outreach for that blog). This is an added layer of effort that blurs the line between PBN and “real site.” But a truly well-disguised PBN is often indistinguishable from a small genuine blog in its niche.

Before moving on, let’s underscore the time sink this represents. Our industry survey found only 3.1% of link builders admitted to using expired domains (a common PBN tactic) as part of their strategy. That’s a tiny fraction, likely because of the challenges and risks involved.

Meanwhile, far more respondents focus on tactics like guest posting or content marketing. This should tell you that while PBN building is known, it’s not mainstream – it’s a specialist tactic taken on by those prepared to handle the workload and gamble on the risk.

In conclusion for this section, building a PBN is like constructing a house of cards. With extreme care and skill, you can set it up and see some benefit. But one wrong move (or one gust of wind from Google’s direction) and it can all come tumbling down. If you have trouble building links through sustainable methods, you can always turn to the pros at The Backlink Company.

Best practices for PBNs: Diversification, monitoring, avoiding footprints

If, despite the risks, someone decides to operate a PBN, there are best practices that experienced practitioners follow to minimize risk. Think of these as the “street smarts” of PBN usage – they won’t make it safe, but they might make it safer and less detectable. Many of these we’ve touched on, but let’s consolidate the key best practices:

Diversify everything

Diversity is your best friend in avoiding patterns. That means different domain registrars, different hosting providers, different CMS templates, and even diversity in content and niche.

For example, don’t make all your PBN sites about the same topic (unless your niche is super narrow). It’s actually better if they are topically varied (but each still relevant in its own context when linking to you). Ensure IP diversity, as mentioned – ideally no two sites on the same IP range.

Use a mix of TLDs (.com, .net, maybe a country TLD if it makes sense) rather than all from one type. Diversify the whois info if privacy isn’t possible (and even with privacy, the registrars differ).

Essentially, you’re creating randomness so that there’s no obvious common thread that ties your network together. One way to test this: if someone were to manually look at your PBN sites side by side, would they notice similarities? If yes, change things up. The more random your network appears, the more it blends into the background noise of the web.

• Interlinking PBN sites: Never cross-link PBN sites to each other (like PBN site A linking to PBN site B). That forms a clear network structure. Each site should stand on its own. Also, avoid having multiple PBN sites all link to each other’s social profiles or a common “hub.”

• Common identifiers: As noted, identical Google Analytics codes, AdSense publisher IDs, contact emails, etc., across sites are footprints. Many PBN users simply omit Analytics/AdSense entirely to avoid this.

• Same web design or plugins: If all your sites use the same WordPress theme or the same unique plugin, that’s a pattern. Switch them around. Use different site layouts. One could be a blog, another a small business site look, another a news portal style – be creative.

• Linking pattern: If your money site has 50 backlinks and 45 of them are from sites with no traffic and oddly similar attributes, that is a footprint in itself. Ensure your overall backlink profile has plenty of non-PBN links too (even if they’re easier ones like directories or social profiles or genuine outreach links). The PBN links should be a fraction of the profile, not the whole thing, in a disguise sense.

• Content and writing style: If one person writes all the content, it may accidentally have a similar voice or repeated phrases. Some PBN owners outsource to different writers or at least vary their tone. Maybe one site is written in a casual tone, another is more formal, etc. It’s going the extra mile, but it can help.

• Publish/update schedule: Don’t post new articles on all your PBN sites on the same day or with the same frequency. Stagger them. Real sites have randomness – maybe one site hasn’t posted in 3 months, another posts twice a week, another once a month. That unpredictability is good.

• Images and media: Even using the same stock photos across PBN sites could be a footprint. Use different image sources or none at all on some. Watch out for EXIF data on images (rarely an issue, but some say remove location data if any).

• Don’t use public link networks: This is related – never buy into those “20 PBN links for $50”-type deals you see in shady marketplaces. Those are often on networks that are already known to Google or will be easily uncovered.

If you do PBN, it should be private (only you or your team use it) to have any longevity. Public or widely-sold networks have short lifespans.

Maintain some quality standards

Best practices include trying to make each PBN site actually decent. If a random person landed on it, they shouldn’t immediately label it a spam site. This means fixing broken links, having an “About” page or some basic nav menu, perhaps a contact form (even if it goes nowhere).

Some PBN sites even have a few genuine backlinks of their own or rank for a few long-tail keywords – making them look more legit. The better each site stands on its own legs, the less likely it draws manual scrutiny. It’s when a site is clearly junk that someone (or Google’s algorithm) might dig deeper and then unravel the network.

Constant monitoring and prompt action

Treat your PBN like a system on surveillance. Regularly check that all sites are up and indexed.

If you notice one site gets de-indexed by Google, remove or replace the links from it ASAP – and investigate why (it could mean Google caught on to that site). Also monitor your money site’s Google Search Console for any “unnatural links” warnings.

If you get one, it’s a fire alarm – you’ll need to consider disavowing the PBN links and cleaning up. Some PBN users preemptively disavow their own PBN links after getting a boost, hoping to avoid a penalty while keeping the ranking (risky and not always effective, but a strategy out there).

Use PBN links strategically and sparingly

Rather than blasting dozens of PBN links at every page, some of the best practice advice is to use PBN links in a targeted way.

For example, maybe you use them to boost a few specific difficult keywords where you need an extra push, while relying on safer link building for other terms. Or you use them to rank a secondary site that funnels traffic to your main site (so the main site itself isn’t directly at risk – a buffer strategy).

If you can achieve your goal with fewer PBN links, do so – the less you use, the smaller your footprint and risk. Also consider phasing them out over time.

For instance, maybe you use PBN links to get initial traction, but as you gain more organic backlinks, you gradually remove or let some PBN links lapse.

Plan an exit strategy

One seldom-discussed practice is having an exit plan if things go awry. If Google penalizes you, you should be ready to cut loose the PBN – meaning disavow all those links, shut down the network if needed, and focus on recovery. Sometimes, it’s wiser to back off before that happens.

If you sense Google is closing in (algorithm updates specifically mentioning link spam, etc.), you might start dialing down your PBN or at least not building it further. In a few cases, site owners have migrated their site to a new domain to escape the link penalty, effectively starting fresh (an extreme measure). The best scenario is you don’t have to do this, but be mentally prepared.

To summarize, the best practices for PBNs revolve around one theme: “Don’t get caught.” Every tip is essentially about hiding in plain sight by mimicking legitimate websites and link patterns as much as humanly possible. Even then, it’s important to remember that no method is foolproof. Many very careful PBN users have eventually faced penalties when Google connected the dots.

One expert commentary encapsulated PBN use well: they said if you must do it, run your PBN as if you’re running real websites – that means real effort and real resources. Ironically, at that point you might wonder, “if I’m putting this much work into these sites, why not just make them genuine projects or invest that work into white-hat campaigns?” – a valid question indeed.

Now that we’ve covered alternatives to getting caught (and by extension, getting penalized), it begs the question: why not avoid all this cloak-and-dagger and build links without PBNs?

In the next section, we’ll explore exactly that – the alternatives to PBNs that can yield strong backlinks and rankings without veering into black-hat territory.

Alternatives to PBNs: Guest blogging, PR, and content marketing

After understanding how much work and risk PBNs involve, you might be wondering:

“Isn’t there a safer way to build links and improve SEO?”

The good news is yes, there are plenty of effective link building strategies that don’t carry the same risk of penalties. Three of the most prominent alternatives are guest blogging, digital PR, and content marketing (often creating linkable content assets).

These fall under “white hat” or at least legitimate practices that align more with search engine guidelines. Let’s briefly look at each and why they’re considered solid options:

Guest blogging

This is a tried-and-true method where you contribute an article to another website or blog in your industry, and in return you often get to include a backlink to your site (usually in the author bio or within the content if it’s relevant).

Guest posts allow you to tap into an existing site’s audience and authority, providing value to them with your content while earning a link back. Unlike PBNs, guest blogging is generally welcomed when done in moderation and with genuine, high-quality content.

For example, a SaaS company might write an expert guest article on a tech blog about “5 Data Security Best Practices” and link back to their own resource on the topic.

This kind of link is earned by providing real content to a third-party site. It’s sustainable and builds relationships.

Importantly, it’s considered one of the most popular link building tactics – in a 2025 survey, 41.2% of SEO professionals reported using guest posting as a core strategy, showing it’s mainstream and effective. Google doesn’t penalize genuine guest posts, especially if you’re selective (focus on reputable sites, not low-quality blogs created solely for links). Yes, it takes effort to pitch and write articles, but the payoff is a natural, context-rich backlink that you don’t have to hide.

Digital PR

Digital PR is about earning links by getting your brand mentioned in media outlets, news sites, or high-authority blogs. It often involves creating something newsworthy or data-driven (like a study, an infographic, a cool tool) and reaching out to journalists or influencers who might cover it.

When they write an article, they link to your site as the source. This tactic can yield incredibly powerful links (think Forbes, BBC, industry magazines, etc.). It’s essentially the opposite of a PBN in terms of visibility – here you want everyone to see and share your content.

According to industry research, Digital PR was deemed the most effective link building tactic, with 64.7% of experts rating it highly. And it’s easy to see why: one successful PR campaign can net dozens of authoritative, organic links that no PBN could ever match.

For instance, an ecommerce site might run a unique survey about shopping trends and pitch the results to news outlets, resulting in coverage that links back. These links are not only safe, they bring direct traffic and brand awareness too.

The trade-off is it requires creativity and sometimes some budget (for research, hiring a PR professional, etc.). But when done well, digital PR links are gold – they’re exactly the kind of editorial votes Google loves to reward.

Content marketing and linkable assets

This approach focuses on making your own website a magnet for links by publishing content that people naturally want to reference and link to. This could be in-depth guides, original research, infographics, interactive tools, how-to videos, etc. The idea is if you create something truly valuable or unique on your site, other webmasters and bloggers will cite it as a resource.

For example, a company might maintain a “Ultimate Guide to Cybersecurity in 2025” – a huge, regularly updated piece that becomes a go-to reference in the industry. When others talk about cybersecurity stats or tips, they link to that guide.

This method is slower burn: you invest in great content and possibly promote it (through social media, communities, or even small ad campaigns) to get it in front of the right audiences. But over time, it can accumulate many organic backlinks. It’s a strategy that compounds. And there’s zero risk of penalty because people are linking by their own accord.

It aligns perfectly with Google’s view that great content earns links. It’s worth noting that content marketing often ties in with guest posting and PR – for instance, you write a guest post that includes a reference to a cool infographic on your site (earning a link to it), or you do a PR push for your new research paper.

These tactics interweave to boost the reach of your content assets. The downside is it requires patience and creativity. Not every piece will catch on. But the ones that do can drive consistent traffic and authority.

Beyond these three, there are other PBN alternatives: niche edits (inserting links into existing articles via outreach), HARO (Help A Reporter Out) which is a platform to get quoted (and linked) in articles, community engagement (like being active on forums or Q&A with your link in profile), broken link building (finding dead links on other sites and suggesting your content as a replacement), and more.

The key difference is all of these involve interacting with the real web ecosystem, not a closed network you control. They might have lower success rates per attempt (because you have to ask, pitch, or earn the link), but they carry virtually no risk of a Google penalty.

Another alternative is to simply focus on on-page SEO and let links come naturally. While “build it and they will come” doesn’t always work in competitive niches, some businesses choose to double down on content quality and user experience, trusting that over time, satisfied users will share and link without active link building. This is the purest form of white hat. It may be slow, but it builds a foundation that’s unshakable by algorithm changes.

To illustrate the effectiveness of not using PBNs, look to case studies of sites that grew with clean link building:

• For example, an AI SaaS company managed a 40x growth in 9 months through SEO and quality link acquisition, no PBN shortcuts needed.

In another case, a B2B SaaS startup increased its Ahrefs Domain Rating from 4 to 40 by sticking to a steady, content-driven link strategy. These kinds of results show that putting effort into legitimate link building and content can yield stellar outcomes. The companies behind these successes likely used a mix of guest posts, targeted outreach, and content marketing to earn those links.

• Even classic businesses benefit: one e-commerce jewelry store grew 4x in 5 months by leveraging content and links in a smart way – again, no evidence of PBNs there, just strategic SEO.

In the end, the alternatives to PBNs might not give you that immediate “rush” of dozens of links at your fingertips. They require building relationships, investing in content, or coming up with newsworthy ideas. But what they offer is sustainability and peace of mind. You won’t be constantly looking over your shoulder for the Google penalty hammer. You’ll be building a backlink profile that can withstand algorithm updates and even manual scrutiny, because your links are real endorsements rather than artificial ones.

It’s telling that many SEO experts – even those who acknowledge PBNs can work short-term – ultimately advise investing in these white-hat methods. As one Ahrefs article concluded,

“Link outreach is a much safer alternative to building PBNs… we recommend avoiding [PBNs] in favor of earning quality backlinks.”

The sentiment is echoed across the industry: the ROI of clean link building is higher in the long run, especially when you factor in the potential cost of a PBN gone wrong.

So, if you have the budget or time that you were going to sink into PBN creation, consider redirecting it to these alternatives. Hire a good content writer, engage a PR outreach service, or simply start writing guest posts for authoritative sites in your niche. The process might be more involved upfront, but each link you earn will be one you never have to be afraid of.