Hi, Sad Dawson here. Now link building has always been and continues to be a crucial part of the SEO jigsaw that you need to build authority and drive rankings in Google. And with the emergence of AI-based search like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Perplexity, the importance of links in getting your site cited in responses means that link building becomes of even greater importance. So I've grouped together all the best episodes of the podcast that touch on link building into a series dedicated to all the many strategies and tactics you can use to get more links to your content. So let's get on to the podcast. Hello and welcome to SEO Is Not That Hard. I'm your host, Ed Dawson, the founder of KeywordsPopleUse.com, the solution to finding the questions people ask online. I'm an affiliate marketer, SEO, and I've been building and monetizing websites for over 20 years. I've built sites from the ground up, bought sites and sold sites in large exits. I'm here to share with you the SEO knowledge, hints and tips I've built up over the years. Today I'm going to talk about PBNs, private blog networks. Before I start, this episode comes with a disclaimer. I'm going to be talking about Black Cat strategies that are against Google's terms of service. This means that if you choose to use any of the methods I discussed today, then you're at risk of getting your sites penalized. Now, while I don't condemn those that use black cat techniques, I personally don't choose to exploit them as I prefer to build sites for the long term. Whereas the inherent risk in Black Cat is that while they may work in the short term, the risk of penalization makes them far less lighter would be a long-term bet. I do think it's important to share black cat techniques though, so that those who wish to avoid them can know what to look out for. With that said, let's look at today's topic: private blog networks. So, what is a private blog network? A PBN is a group of websites that really only exists to provide backlinks to other websites to improve their Google search rankings. So a Black Hat SEA would create this network of websites by either creating new websites or by um buying expired domains which um already have um backlinks themselves and then creating new websites on those expired domains. Obviously, it works better if the um the websites in a private blog network have links of their own, otherwise, the links they're going to provide to other websites aren't going to be that great. Now, the reason people go to the effort of doing this is because it gives them full control of linking. Um they can build backlinks to their websites and other websites without having to actually earn them, which is obviously the white hat way of doing it, and the more difficult way of doing it. We know that earning links organically is quite difficult. Um, but obviously, if you earn links organically, then you don't pay for them, they last forever, and they're not against terms of service. Now, if you're using a PBN, then obviously you can control the anchor text, you can control exactly where uh on the website which pages get linked to, you can determine the link velocity, all these things, and yes, they can work over the short term. Um, so it's not to say that these won't work, but obviously, as we mentioned before, it's the risk that is the big factor, and also the cost. The cost to maintain a um private blog network can soon stack up. Every website needs hosting, every website needs content, every website uh needs domain renewals, all those costs can actually soon significantly add up. Now that's why lots of um private blog networks don't just get used by the uh owner of the network for their own purpose. Most of these networks they'll actually start selling um links on their on their blogs to other people. Um and this is where it increases the risk of these um networks being discovered. Google spends a lot of time trying to discover these networks, and it has many automated systems to look for the patterns of interlinking which can help identify these links, and when it does find the links, it will devalue them. That's the least worst thing that happens if these links just get devalued. It might go a step further and they can actually penalize people who have been linked to on the network. So you can find that if you've got links that you've purchased on uh and they turn out to be on a PBN, then you could end up with a manual action against your site where if you go to Google Search Console and look for uh manual actions, you'll find out that's happened, or you might get a um an algorithmic penalty, um and with all of these, they can be really really difficult to get rid of. You'll end up having to go back trying to get rid of the links, um, disavow the links, um, and just yeah, it just causes a real pain. So that's why I'd say that if you're looking for longevity, PBNs are not necessarily the way to go. Now, if you want to avoid PBNs, how do you do it? Well, obviously, if you're buying links, then don't buy any links where they say you're buying links on a PBN. Some PBN link sellers are totally upfront and say this is a PBN, buy the buy the buy links from us and it's at your own risk, and that's fair enough. So, first of all, yeah, it don't buy on anything when it says they're a PBN. Secondly, if you do decide to buy from a seller and they don't say it's a PBN, when you get a link, do a test by and see what kind of website your um link actually ends up on. If it looks like it's a website where there's lots and lots of posts on that website, full of lots and lots of links, and those posts are from all sorts of different topics that tend to be completely unrelated. You look at the domain, you see that it was an expired domain that used to be something else that's probably been bought by someone to put completely new content on just for the purposes of SEO, then that's probably another flag that you are on a you know that's a PBN network, and I probably wouldn't buy any other links from then. And you know, if you want to be totally safe, just you know ask them to remove those links you put on because that's not the kind of links you want to be buying. I'll say I don't actually say to people you should buy links, but I know people do it, and there's bit buying links and there's buying links, so you just need to be careful. I hope that's given you a good overview of what a PBN is and what the risks of using them are, um, and we'll cover more black hat topics in future episodes. Thanks for listening, I really appreciate it. Subscribe and share, it really helps. SEO is not that hard is brought to you by Clutcom. The solution following the questions people ask online. See why thousands of people use us every day. Try it today for free at keywordspeopleuse.com. If you want to get in touch, have any questions, I'd love to hear from you. I'm at channel 5 on Twitter, or you can email me at podcast at keywordspeopleuse.com. Bye for now and see you in the next episode of SEO Is Not That Hard.