Tips to Select Domains for a Private Blog Network (PBN)



Mike Friedman 🎩
Mike's Tuesday Tips –
Selecting Domains for a Private Network (Part 1)
This is already going to be pretty long, so I'm not going to go into great detail on every point and it is broken up into 2 parts. Just want to give you a basic outline of what I do.
Acquiring domains is arguably the most important part of building your own private network. Although my methods in evaluating domains have changed over the years, there are a few key points that have never changed for me.
First, buying domains for a private network is all about risk management. The idea is to purchase domains with little to no risk in regards to their quality and strength and to them being outed as part of a network. Do I ever buy domains that look a little more risky? Yes, but I factor it into how much I'm willing to spend. If a domain looks like it may have had some issues in the past, but I can get it for only $50, I will sometimes take a chance on it.
Second, remember that the reason you are buying a domain for a private network is because of its existing link profile. The stronger its link profile is, the stronger the links off of the site are going to be. That is the whole reason you want to buy old domains. Things like domain age or how it was used before (minus illegal or extremely spammy activity) really do not matter to me.
The reason you are setting up a private network is because, like me, you believe links are still the #1 ranking factor in Google. Otherwise, why bother?
Third, names matter. See point number one. When I build sites for a private network, my philosophy has always been to build sites that could stand on their own. There is little to no difference between one of my network sites and one of my "money sites" other than the network site happens to link to a few sites I'm trying to rank.
Because of that, domain names matter. I am not going to buy a domain like best-mortgages-for-first-time-home-buyers.tld and turn it into a site about health and nutrition. I only buy domains with names that I can repurpose. I want to build sites that will last and that do not make it obvious they are a part of a network.
You are not always going to find a domain with a name that you can directly relate to the niche you are building in. Domains with people's names are often the easiest to use. For example, I can turn a domain like CharlesBarr.tld into a blog or website about whatever I want it to be.
How do I shop for domains?
I mostly stick to auctions these days. I used to have quite an apparatus setup with Scrapebox feeding Xenu feeding a spreadsheet to find broken links to domains that had expired in an automated fashion. These domains could be bought for just the cost of registering them.
It worked great… twelve years ago. The problem now is that there are so many people scraping sites for dropped domains that it will be pretty rare that you find one that is available and even more rare that you find one that is worthwhile.
I get most of my domains in auctions now. If you pull up GoDaddy auctions right now, you will see thousands of domains to look through. Going through them one at a time is not very efficient. I use a service called Spamzilla instead. Spamzilla lets you create filters for sorting the domains in auctions.
There are other tools out there too. DomCop is another solid tool. Before that, it was RegisterCompass. I use Spamzilla because it offers the most options and also costs the least.
Next week we will go through how I sort through the list and some of the other key factors I use in choosing domains to bid on.
#TheSEOPub
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Goyal
will be waiting for the 3rd part now.
Also I have a few questions:
1. Suppose I have bought 5 expired domains and now I am using them to create my own private network. Can I use this network for multiple clients?
Or do I have to create a seperate network?
2. I was going through the backlinks of a competitor site and found that they are using free blogging sites or web 2.0 sites.
Can web 2.0 sites be used to create a network?

Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩
I would be careful about using them for all of the same clients. One obvious way to spot a network site is the outbound link profile. If 5 sites are all linking to the same 3 websites, that can be a footprint. Mix it up.
You could use Web 2.0 sites, but they are extremely weak on their own. You can push links to them to build them up, but if I am going to do that, I'm going to do it for something I own instead and not something that could be taken away from me at any moment.
Goyal Β» Mike Friedman
Thanks for your feedback.
Also, how many domains should one consider for 1 private network?
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Goyal
How long is a piece of string?
There is no good answer for that. One really strong site can carry the weight of 5 weaker ones. Plus, a lot depends on the competition.
If I had to guess, the average size of my networks is in the 12-15 site range, but I have also built one that was well over 100 sites too.
Goyal Β» Mike Friedman
Got it.
If I create a network of 5 domains for starting, how often would you suggest should I post content on those 5 sites.
Also can I place the link of money site in the very first article or shall I post 3-4 articles first and then link in the 4th one?
P.S: Sorry for too many questions πŸ™ˆ
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Goyal
I rarely post. I put all the content for the site together and publish it all at once.
It really depends on the theme of the network site though too. If it is a site about something news worthy or something with a lot happening in the industry, I may post more often.
Goyal Β» Mike Friedman
Thanks for answering all my questions. πŸ™‚
Will be waiting for next Tuesday now.
Also, if possible do show an example of 3-4 sites of any single network which you own.
If will definitely going to help us in understanding this more deeply.
Thanks a ton.
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Goyal
Sorry, but I will definitely not be sharing any network sites. That would be a disaster.
Goyal
Hi Mike Friedman
Today I was auditing a website and it took me less than an hour to find their Private Blog Network (PBN)
My question is, are such PBNs still worthy as if I can find it using a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tool then I guess Google can also figure it out.
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Goyal
Are they ranking well?
Goyal Β» Mike Friedman
The keyword mentioned in all the PBNs is ranking on 1st position in a very competitive niche
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Goyal
Well there is your answer.
Goyal Β» Mike Friedman
But you said that if a PBN network is exposed then Google might penalize the site.
If I can crack down that whole network using SEMrush then I guess Google can also do the same using its own algo.
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Goyal
Yep. It might be. It might not be. You asked if networks like that work, and the answer is that they do.
Goyal Β» Mike Friedman
Thanks 😊


Fion
So you don't subscribe to Google telling us, many years ago, that when a domain expires they reset all the Page Rank to zero so it can't be inherited by the new owner?

Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩
I've never seen any such official statement from Google, and if anyone did say that, they clearly just meant while it is expired. As long as the links are there, it works fine.
Fion Β» Mike Friedman
Heres a more recently published confirmation from John M.
Expired Domains & Google Ranking Bonus?
SEARCHENGINEJOURNAL.COM
Expired Domains & Google Ranking Bonus?
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Fion
John didn't say they reset the PageRank to zero or anything close to that. You need to read what he actually said again. That is just another shitty clickbait article from SEJ
Fion Β» Mike Friedman
Of you read the full post the discuss the particular update that hit PBNs and they link to the announcement from Google ahead of that update..
Expired Domains & Google Ranking Bonus?
SEARCHENGINEJOURNAL.COM
Expired Domains & Google Ranking Bonus?
Fion
Apparently Matt Cutts and other Google engineers used this forum user to communicate do SEO users:
Good news about expired domains
WEBMASTERWORLD.COM
Good news about expired domains
Mike Friedman ✍️ 🎩 » Fion
That is from 2003. Whether Google intended it to, it has never worked that way. Hell, back then you could buy a domain and see it's Google Page Rank (PR) with the next PR update.
They might have reset the toolbar to zero, but as long as links were out there they still were passing along PR

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