Building links is hard. And when your link building efforts don't immediately pay off, it's tempting to dream of having a network of websites to place links on. This would definitely make life much easier, right?
Unfortunately, this isn't a new idea. These website networks are known as PBNs (private blog networks), and using them is against Google guidelines.
Should You Use PBN Backlinks?
In the vast majority of cases, it is a bad idea to generate PBN backlinks. Here's why:
- Penalties are real. Google classifies PBN link building as black hat SEO, and getting caught can lead to big ranking drops.
- Short-term gains, long-term pain. You may see a temporary boost, but search engines will eventually catch up.
- You don't control the network. Unless you build your own PBN, you're 100% at the mercy of somebody else's network. If they pull the plug, all of your hard work could be undone overnight.
That last point is the big one. Staking your business growth on infrastructure you don't own or control is not a clever business decision.
What Are PBN Backlinks?
Private Blog Network (PBN) backlinks are links built from a network of privately owned websites to another site. These sites are typically built on expired or repurposed domains that still carry authority from their previous owners. The PBN sites only exist to link to the main site, with the goal of pushing pages up the search engine rankings.
PBNs can work because Google's algorithm uses a website's link profile when deciding where to rank it. The idea is that pages attract links when the content is worth linking to, so a high number of links can be a sign that a page is high quality.
In other words, a PBN is an attempt to fool search engines into thinking a site is getting more organic attention than it really is. If you're adding links from a PBN to your main site, it doesn't reflect genuine editorial endorsement. It just means you're trying to game the system.
Because of this, search engines don't like PBNs. And while they used to be an effective way to rank websites, Google is now adept at discovering these networks and penalizing people who use them.
How Do People Build PBNs?
Backlinks are most effective when they come from authoritative domains. But building this type of site is expensive and time consuming.
Because of this, people who run PBNs take several shortcuts.
First, they build the sites on expired domains that have existing authority due to links generated by the previous owner. The new owner just adds content to the expired domain and adds the links within these articles.
And while adding high-quality website content is expensive, PBN owners use cheap, low-quality content, or increasingly, content generated by AI copywriting tools. This is exactly the kind of content Google doesn't want to reward. Google has strongly hinted that thin, auto-generated content conflicts with their quality guidelines. What they want is thoughtful, original material, and PBN content is the opposite of that.
PBN owners will also try to hide the fact that the sites are related. Common disguise tactics include:
- Using different hosting providers for each site
- Publishing some content that doesn't link back to their main site
- Applying different website themes and designs across the network
Despite these efforts, Google has gotten significantly better at identifying these patterns and connecting the dots.
How to Generate PBN Backlinks
There are two main ways to generate PBN backlinks:
1. Build your own network. This means creating and maintaining a set of websites you control, then selectively linking out to your main site. If the network is managed carefully, it can be effective for a period of time. But it takes serious time, money, and technical know-how to keep it hidden.
2. Buy links from someone else's network. This is the faster route. You can get a high number of links in a short space of time without building anything yourself.
However, buying links from a third-party PBN comes with a huge catch. The people who sell PBN links at scale are running networks that are almost never maintained carefully. They're monetizing their access to a set of domains by selling as many links as possible, which means they have no incentive to protect the quality of the network.
Ultimately, this means these networks are very unlikely to offer any benefits to people who buy links. They're essentially link building scams designed to make easy money off of inexperienced SEOs.
The owners very often don't even bother hiding the fact they are running PBN sites and selling links. Google already knows which sites belong to these networks, which means they won't pass any meaningful link value to your site. You're paying for links that do nothing, or worse, links that get your site penalized.
Not All Website Networks Are PBNs
It's worth drawing a distinction here. Not every group of related websites is a PBN. There are legitimate reasons to own multiple websites, and many large media companies, publishers, and content brands operate large portfolios of sites that cross-link naturally.
The defining feature of a PBN is intent. If a network of sites exists primarily to pass link equity to a target site, with little or no genuine editorial purpose, that's a PBN by Google's definition. If the sites exist to serve real audiences and earn links as a byproduct of legitimate content, they're not PBNs, regardless of how many there are.
This distinction matters because some grey-hat strategies blur the line. Understanding where the line sits helps you evaluate any link building tactic more clearly.
Should You Build PBN Links?
No. In almost every case, building PBN links is a bad idea. The risk of a Google penalty far outweighs any short-term ranking boost you might get. That said, here is a fair look at the pros and cons so you can understand exactly what is at stake.
Pros
✔️ PBNs are an easy way to generate backlinks to your website
✔️ You can choose the exact pages to point links to
✔️ You can choose the optimal anchor text to use
✔️ You can create links at scale
✔️ If you own the PBN, the links are free
✔️ PBNs can work in some situations, such as generating short-term traffic increases
Cons
❌ PBN links can cause severe Google penalties
❌ PBNs are expensive to set up, as you need to buy expired domains and add content
❌ The PBN links you can buy are almost always worthless
❌ Even if you see a rankings increase, this could be taken away when Google discovers the PBN
❌ It can be hard to sell sites if they are built with PBN links
Google's Stance on PBNs
Google's stance is clear: it doesn't like PBN links. While the search engine's Webmaster Guidelines don't specifically mention PBNs, they do discuss many associated practices.
In addition, Google released a link spam update in December 2022 which aims to target links from these types of sites.
It specifically says that any link "intended to manipulate PageRank or a site's ranking in Google search results may be considered part of a link scheme and a violation of Google's Webmaster Guidelines."
Ultimately, if you want to stay on the right side of Google's regulations, don't use PBN links.
What We Think
There are many places where Google's guidelines and the realities of the SEO industry don't quite match up. For example, paid links go against Google guidelines but are becoming increasingly common (as webmasters look to monetize) and effective.
But we think that PBNs are an area where it is best to stay on the right side of Google. The search engine is adept at spotting these networks and many sites that use these links have been destroyed. At LinkBuilder, we never build links on PBNs.
What Will Happen If You Use PBN Backlinks?
If you do choose to buy PBN links, you'll typically see one of three outcomes.
1) You'll waste your money
The first outcome is that you will see absolutely zero impact on your rankings. Your site won't go up and it won't go down, although your wallet will be a little lighter.
This typically occurs when you have a small number of links on a website that Google knows is part of a PBN. The search engine's algorithm simply ignores the link.
Why doesn't Google penalize these websites?
Google has started ignoring links rather than penalizing sites in many situations. We believe this is to reduce the impact of negative SEO attacks that use spammy backlinks to reduce a site's rankings.
Think about it: if you could destroy a site's rankings by pointing a couple of PBN links towards it, anyone who wants to rank above their competitors would have a ready-made strategy to do so.
Unless Google is sure the site is intentionally building artificial links, it's much fairer for the algorithm to just ignore the links.
2) You'll receive a manual penalty
A manual penalty is when a human reviewer decides that your backlink profile is unnatural.
If you receive a manual penalty, you'll get a warning in your Google Search Console account. This can result in rankings decreases and even your website being delisted.
The good news is that this isn't terminal. You can remove the links by submitting a disavow file, a spreadsheet with a list of all your bad links, to Google.
You can then submit a reconsideration request and the search engine can choose to restore your rankings.
3) You'll see rankings increase
It's easy to assume that PBNs never work. But if you build one carefully and use it sparingly, you can see positive results (at least in the short term, before Google discovers the network).
For proof, all you have to do is head to the Empire Flipper website marketplace and then filter the search results by sites that use PBNs.
There aren't many, but there are enough sites built with the help of PBNs that generate tens of thousands of monthly visits and thousands of dollars in profit to suggest that using PBNs can work in some situations.
The issue with this is that if you build a site using PBNs, you are always at risk of a Google penalty. This could see your rankings and earnings disappear at any time, even if you see a short-term boost.
It's also worth noting that positive results occur when people build their own PBN. If you are buying links from third parties that sell PBN links, there is almost zero chance that these links will work.
How to Spot PBN Backlinks
We've established that in most cases, PBN backlinks are bad for your website. The next question is: how do you know if your site has links from a PBN?
“But I Never Built a PBN Backlink!”
There are several reasons why you may have PBN links, even if you never intentionally built them.
For example:
- A low-quality link building service may have generated them
- You may have been on the wrong end of a negative SEO attack
- A site you built links on was repurposed as part of a PBN
The good news is it's typically easy to spot PBN links. You just need to use an SEO tool to see information about the websites that link to you. You can then look for unnatural links.
When performing backlink audits for clients, we use Ahrefs to spot bad links.
Just head to the "Backlinks" report and then filter the results for "Dofollow" links and then set it to show "One link per domain."
This will highlight all the domains that link to your website. Signs in this report that suggest a link is from a PBN include:
- Suspicious anchor text
- Low organic traffic
- Sudden large spikes in organic traffic
- Redirects from other domains
Remember that PBNs are often built on expired domains, so they may actually have a high domain authority.
Another option is to use Moz to find websites with a high spam score. This is a metric that represents the percentage of sites with similar features to the one you are looking at that Moz found has been penalized by Google.
It's not foolproof, as good PBNs are built to intentionally not look like other PBNs. But you should definitely investigate sites with a high spam score.
Once you've found suspicious links, click through to the website to get a better look. We've written an article about how to spot low-quality websites, but some of the biggest signs include:
- Bad content
- Suspicious outbound links
- No "about" information or contact details
Removing Toxic Links
If you find PBN links pointing to your site that you didn't build yourself, you have two main options.
The first is to reach out to the site owner and ask them to remove the link. In most cases this won't work, especially if the site is part of an actively managed network. But it's worth trying for any links you're genuinely concerned about.
The second option is to use Google's Disavow Tool inside Google Search Console. This lets you upload a file listing the domains or URLs you want Google to ignore when evaluating your site's link profile. It doesn't delete the links, but it tells Google not to count them.
If you're dealing with a manual penalty caused by unnatural links, you'll need to disavow the offending links before submitting a reconsideration request. Getting this process right is important, so if you're unsure, it's worth working with an experienced link building agency rather than guessing.
Frequently asked questions
Do PBN Backlinks Still Work?
PBN backlinks can still produce short-term ranking gains, mainly in low-competition niches. But any lift is temporary and unpredictable. Google has gotten much better at detecting these networks and neutralizing the links. If the network gets flagged, your rankings can drop just as fast as they went up.
It is also worth noting that the only situations where PBNs have produced real results involve privately owned networks that are carefully managed. If you are buying links from a third-party PBN seller, the chances of seeing any benefit are close to zero. For most sites, the risk is simply not worth it.
What Is the Difference Between a PBN and a Legitimate Link Building Campaign?
A legitimate link building campaign earns links from real, independently owned websites where an editor or site owner has chosen to include your link because it adds value to their audience. A PBN is a network of sites controlled by one person or entity, created specifically to pass link equity rather than to serve a genuine readership. The distinction comes down to editorial independence and intent.
Can I Get Penalized for PBN Links I Didn't Build?
It's possible, but Google is fairly good at recognizing when links are part of a negative SEO attack versus a deliberate attempt to manipulate rankings. In most cases, Google will simply ignore the links rather than penalize you. That said, if you're concerned about your backlink profile, running a disavow is a sensible precaution.
Want Links That Actually Move the Needle?
PBN links are a shortcut that usually leads nowhere good. If you're looking for white hat link building that delivers real, lasting results, we'd love to show you how we work.