Private blogging networks, or PBNs, can be a useful tool in your effort to categorize an immoral website or tactic on par with terrorism, depending on who you ask. But most people don't ask because they're afraid of what other people might think. Today I'm going to change that by explaining PBNs. We'll discuss the technical side of things as well as myths, ethics, a bit of history, and my usual snark. Now, I know some self-righteous SEO pros will climb into their soapbox and shout "La la la, I can't hear you!" at the mere mention of PBNs, but that is a position of sheer ignorance. It would be like a doctor saying, “Viruses are bad, so I refuse to talk about them!”

It doesn't really inspire confidence in someone's abilities when they refuse to address reality simply because they don't like the subject. Whether we Banner Design choose to use PBNs ourselves or not, we need to at least understand how they work because we are all likely to face a competitor using them at some point. Advertising Continue reading below This knowledge can also help you create your own PBN if you decide it's right for you, and it will help you better understand how search engines work in the real world. Deeper and more comprehensive knowledge makes us better SEO professionals. So what exactly is a PBN? A PBN is simply a network of websites that you use to build links to increase the ranking of one or more websites. There is some debate about the ethics of this tactic. But before we get into that discussion, let's focus on explaining what a private blog network is and how they work in a bit more detail. How do PBNs work? A PBN works by passing authority, in the form of links, from a number of websites that you control, to one or more other websites.

We all understand the role links play in search engine algorithms. The more links pointing to a particular web page, and ideally the higher quality of those links, the better the web page will rank. Advertising Continue reading below But acquiring links is both expensive and time-consuming, so many marketers have opted to create their own websites from which they can then link to their other websites. It is a PBN or Private Blog Network. As with most things in the SEO industry, PBNs have evolved over time. It used to be that you could create a couple dozen websites full of complete garbage, remove links to your “money site” in that content, and then sit back while y