A PBN, or private blog network, is a group of websites owned by one person or company, built mainly to link to other sites. Often on expired domains that still have backlinks of their own.
Why people use them
Control and price. If you own the network you decide exactly which links, anchors and pages you get, and buying PBN links is usually cheaper than links on real sites.
The risks
- Google explicitly calls PBNs a link scheme. Networks get de-indexed, and sites using them can get a manual action.
- Footprints (same hosting, same theme, same owner details, thin content) make networks easy to spot.
- When a network is hit, all the links disappear at once.
How to spot a PBN site
- No real audience: little traffic, no comments, no social following
- Every post links out to a commercial site
- Content that is generic, spun or AI-filled
- An expired domain whose history has nothing to do with the current content
We don’t accept PBN sites on Linkbuilding.com. Publishers have to prove ownership, and sites without real traffic or with obvious link-selling patterns are rejected in review.