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+RZ WR %XLOG $ 3%1 6LWH ,Q /HVV 7KDQ 2QH +RXU Building a Private Blog Network – The Right Way UPDATE – As SEO is forever changing, this guide has been updated to follow suit and keep you up-to-date. Additional information has been added, such as the best places to find Expired Domains and my methods to build and maintain your Private Blog Network. For everyone that has asked – The limited Content Network has launched. If you want a ‘done for you’ blog network that will save you time, money and build awesome backlinks to your website from authority domains, you can register your interest here. —————————————————————————————————————————– You will have heard, seen and even participated in some form of Blog Network as part of your link building strategy. However what’s working RIGHT NOW is Private Blog Networks. By private I mean we won’t be selling links for $15 a pop on forums. Private means private, for your use only. This guide is all you need to know about building your own private blog network to rank your sites highly in Google.
Buying Domain Names Ultimately THE most important step in building your private network. You want domain names that have an existing link profile, with age and a good Google history too. That means no spammy links, nothing from questionable Chinese sites, no adult or gambling sites either.
Where to Find Quality Domains? I use 3 sources for domain names, all of which allow us to search for both expired, expiring and auction domains.
ExpiredDomains.net
I use ExpiredDomains.net because it’s a great source of FREE information and the search/filter capabilities are very powerful. They have multiple options for finding domains, such as GoDaddy auctions, free to register expired domains, plus lots of other neat filters such as a minimun Moz Domain Authority or Majestic Trust Flow. Applying Filters There are 3 type of filter you can apply. - Common Filter,
- Additional Filter - AdWords & SEO Filter A quick summary of each is below; Common Filter
The common filter allows you to define PageRank, Domain Length, with or without hyphens and numbers etc As you can see my this search excludes any Fake PR’s and Page Rank -1 (it’s still worth performing additional checks before you commit to buy however, you can use the Fake PR Checker here). Additional Filter
The additional filter allows you, as I have done, to choose only domains that are available to register. If this was not selected, auction and closeout domains would be returned also. Offerde.com(http://www.offerde.com/) is one of the largest sources for affiliate marketers to find, list or rate affiliate programs, CPA offers, affiliate (CPS)/CPA networks and Ad networks online. AdWords & SEO Filter
This is where the tool gets really powerful. - We have the ability to search on both Majestic Trust Flow and Moz Domain/Page Authority. - There is also the option to look for domains that include keywords, where those keyword receive a minimum number of Exact Match Searches. - A Min and Max CPC function is the icing on the cake. We have pretty much all we need right here to find some awesome domains.
Register Compass
Note – I no longer recommend RegisterCompass as a good source of Expired Domains. This is for several reasons; 1. I myself am no longer able to find decent domains here, that I can’t find elsewhere. 2. I cannot justify the monthly subscription cost as the ROI isn’t there anymore. 3. I find the interface far slower than other tools/services out there. 4. You can find better/cheaper services from the other recommendations in this post. RegisterCompass is a premium tool that is pretty much unrivalled in the industry. I have yet to find another piece of software or service that can deliver the volume of data at the speed RegisterCompass does. With this tool we can search for Expired Domains, Auction Domains and Domains due to Expire. The search box gives us every option you would need to find those hidden gems;
In this example, I’m looking for domains that contain the word “Dog”, that have over 50 Moz backlinks. The top TLD’s are selected (.com, .net, .org and .info thrown in for fun). This search brings back the following;
That’s a total of 159 domains we have to go at, now that may not seem like a lot but there is always something of interest. Lets take a look at the 53 Expired domains that we can grab for the price of the reg fee… Scrolling down the list a few jump out at me, one of the best I see is “cratetrainingdog.net”. And here’s the Moz backlink details…
This is a super related domain to the dog niche, with a DA score of 20 and PA score of 33. There are 60 linking domains and a total of 67 links. Looking at the anchor text usage we see there is a fairly good split of anchors being used to link to this site. You could do a lot worse than pick this domain up for the $8 reg fee
Moonsy.com
Another free tool, this time from Moonsey.com and their expiring domains auction tool. At the time of writing, their site states;
List of recently expiring domain names in next 24 hours at Godaddy auctions In this time will finish 6585 auctions with great domains for SEO having Google Pagerank (PR). This is live updated list ( several times per each minute ), contains accurate domain auctions details and seo metrics.
So we have 6,585 GoDaddy auctions that will expire in the next 24 hours. The the cool thing about this tool is the ability to sort your results very quickly, the downside is the lack of filters available which can make it difficult to find niche specific domains. However as you will see from the guide below, we don’t have to buy niche specific, as we can always rebrand the site to make it super relevant to our money site. Moonsy offers the ability to show both domains at Auction or those available to Buy Now, along with the ability to sort by many different metrics including; Current Price # of Bids Time Left Google PR Moz DA Age Moz Backlinks Linking Sites
EDU/GOV Links Directory Listed AdWords CPC AdWords Search Volume Alexa Rank You can also check if the domain is indexed in Google and it’s history using the Way Back Machine from Archive.org.
Choosing the Right Domain Names? I will start this section by saying FORGET PAGE RANK right now. It won’t be around in the very near future and it hasn’t been updated in quite some time. There are so many PR5 sites out there you can pick up for next to nothing, you may think you have a steal, however quite often they have already lost their backlinks and they are worthless.
What Makes a Good Domain? Authority & Relevance A link from an authority domain that is relevant to your niche is gold for your search engine ranking. Google loves these kind of links, its a big thumbs up for your site from another trusted site. Whilst buying domains with authority is definitely doable, buying relevant domains may prove a challenge. However what we can do is MAKE THEM RELEVANT. We can do this by taking the following steps; Make the Name and Branding of the site relevant Make the Title Tag Revevant Change all Meta Tags to make them niche specific and super relevant. Add posts, images and videos all related to the topic
Backlinks The only way to buy quality sites is to look at the back links. Stay away from spammy looking links or anchor text in another language. You’ve seen those domains with 5k backlinks and Chinese anchor text right? Yeah, so stay away from those. I follow a 4 step process when choosing domains for my private blog networks. 1 – Use Moz.com Open Site Explorer I look for Domain Authority (DA) over 30 and as many referring domains as possible. The more the better, there is less chance of 100 sites all dropping your link than say just 10 referring sites. Also check the backlinks and anchor text split to see if the domain may have been over optimised in the past. 2 – Use MajesticSEO.com I look for a Trust Flow over 20 and again as many referring IP’s as possible. Also check the links in Majestic as it will pull different results than Open Site Explorer.
3 – Use ahrefs.com ahrefs will usually give you a more complete link profile overview. Look at the quality of the links pointing to the domain, the more relevant they are the better. Older links are better still. 4 – Test the history of the domain by throwing it into the Wayback Machine from Archive.org. Look back at the snapshots to make sure the domain didn’t contain any nasties.
How Much to Pay for a Good Domain? There are various opinions on what you should expect to pay for authority domains. However most of these are based on PageRank as that is what has driven the market up until very recently. Those prices and opinions are now out of date. To be completely honest, prices and valuations are constantly changing. It’s both a buyers and sellers market and you really need to get a feel for the market buy dipping your toe in. I would suggest picking up a few expired domains for the reg fee and go from there. You will quickly get an understanding on how to value a domain and it’s links. To give you an example I bought 7x UK domains from a forum member for $480/$68 each. Now this was when the market was all about PR, so 3 of the sites were PR4′s, 1 is PR3 and the other’s are PR0, however they have an awesome link profile and I knew I could actually use one for a niche site and the rest for my blog networks. The Moz DA of these sites range from 28 to 44, so I have some very good domains for what I consider a great price. As a rough guide, domains with a PA of 30+, with a clean link profile (usually PR3) sell for between $150-$400 depending on the link profile.
Registering and Registrars This part is important; You need to use different registrars not just GoDaddy and NameCheap. By mixing up the registrars you significantly reduce any footprint your site may have and you make it harder for the powers that be to find your network and deindex it. Also as an optional layer of protection, I like you use a combination of both Fake registrant details and privacy protection. This way not all of your domains have private whois, some of them have real looking people and addresses…even if they are made up! So mix it up and be different, don’t take the easy road and have all you domains in one account, all using privacy protection.
Hosting This step is WAY overcomplicated by many. You need to keep it simple or you will get lost in the madness and lose focus on the important stuff. I have 2 rules for hosting; 1. Stay away from SEO Hosting 2. Only 2 domains max per hosting account
For some reason many people suggest SEO Hosting as a solution to managing many domains. Whilst it does make it easier to manage, SEO Hosting is NOT GOOD for a Private Blog Network. You want to avoid attention and footprints at all costs. Don’t you think Google with all it’s PHD employees they have sitting around, could easily identify these ‘LOOK AT ME I’M AN SEO’ hosting providers. I do. So the trick is to use multiple hosting accounts, from many different sources. This can also be cheaper than SEO Hosting.
Which Hosting to Use for a Private Blog Network? Simply go here – webhostingtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=4 Sign up with one of the $1 hosting companies. Add a domain to the account -> create another $1 hosting account with a different host -> rinse and repeat. Yes you have multiple passwords, and yes you need to login to different accounts, but I show you a simple way how to manage that later on
Setting up a Site With 19% of the web running on WordPress and the fact that it’s so easy to mange, you can be forgiven if you use it on all of your PBN sites. I would say 80% of my private network runs on WordPress. For the other 20%, I dabble between Raw HTML, Joomla and Drupal. I believe this adds a little extra security to your network and helps to hide the footprint left by WordPress somewhat. The process of setting up these sites is exactly the same as creating any niche site, and can be broken down into 3 steps; 1. Install your blogging platform 2. Add a theme and plugins (vary these) 3. Add content and OBL’s to your niche site and other authority sites I would actually recommend doing everything yourself when you first get started, as 5-10 PBN sites are easy to manage. When you get above 50 it gets…interesting, and you may need a VA to help you so you can get on with more important stuff. Doing it yourself initially also gives you the added bonus of knowing the process inside-out, you can then show your VA exactly how you want things done.
Managing your Network If you were expecting me to use fancy tools for managing my blog networks, then I am sorry to disappoint you. I like to keep things simple. I use an Excel spreadsheet and my VA. That’s it. I buy a domain, add it to the spreadsheet and my VA does the rest. Below is a list of the tasks I provided to my VA to get the site up and running. 1. Add Registrar account details to spreadsheet 2. Add the domain to the hosting account (this varies from domain to domain) 3. Add Name Servers with the registrar
4. Install WordPress, Joomla or Drupal, including theme and plugins 5. Add the Username and Password to spreadsheet 6. Create the core pages (About | Contact | Privacy Policy) 7. Remove pre-installed plugins and pre-created pages (Sample Page and Sample Post) You can get a copy of the spreadsheet I use to manage my Private Blog Network below; a share would be much appreciated This content is locked! Please support us, use one of the buttons below to unlock the content. As you can see the sheet makes it very easy to keep tabs on your domains. The comments column is used to keep track of the sites development, and the ‘Content Info’ section gives an indicator when we need to update the sites with fresh content. Whats more, I use the “link building” section to track the number of links to the site (using ahrefs) and also when the last link building campaign was done.
Writing Content This is a brand new section to this guide as many of you have been asking me questions on how best to write and add content to your PBN sites. The rules for content are as follows; 1. 300-800 words in length 2. Contain an image, video, opt-in form or some other visual reference 3. Link out to other authority sites within the same niche. 4. Quote facts and figures or statements made by other people. 5. No keyword targeting is to be done. Ok, first off we need content. The steps I follow are simple; 1. Hire a VA Writer from Elance/ Odesk – There can be had for less than $3 per article. 2. Come up with a list of topics/article titles that will fit my niche and links I am building. 3. Send the VA the instructions along with a deadline. (if possible have the VA upload the articles direct into your WordPress dashboard as a draft) 4. The last step is to add your links to your money site into the articles. Be sure to vary the anchor text, link out to other authority sites and add images/video where possible. That’s it in a nutshell, however I will also answer another questions that is often asked;
Should I allow the articles with links to roll off the homepage?
My answer is YES. Do what seems natural and that any normal website would do, don’t just leave a one page article on there if you want to continue to add links then do so using additional content.
Link Building Linking to Your Niche Site The key to linking to your money site is not to overdo it.
3 links to your own website on the homepage is enough. I recommend the following; 1 keyword anchor text link (e.g “Dog Training”) 1 raw URL/Brand link (e.g www.mydogtraining.com) 1 keyword abbreviation link (“best place for puppy dog training”) Any more than that looks spammy, and we don’t want to reduce the impact of our links do we. I also place links to other relevant websites to further improve on the sites ‘natural looking’ articles and links. You may think the anchor text “best place for puppy dog training” is too long, but time and time again, I have sites ranking very well, with minimal backlinks, because they have a more natural looking anchor text profile.
Increasing the Power of your Blog Network Sites N.B This section has been updated to reflect my recent thoughts and findings. Previously I explained how I would use GSA Search Engine Ranker to build backlinks to these PBN sites to increase the number of links pointing to our sites and increase the authority/power of them. Well from testing I have completely removed this step and spend zero time or money adding extra links. The time saved is invested in finding aged domains with quality backlink profiles. The beauty of this is that the hard work has already been done and these sites that have a super clean link profile will give us all the juice we need. By all means you can test things yourself, however I have not seen any negative effects from a brand new network that has had zero additional backlinks built. The PBN is ranking a couple of niche sites very well just on it’s own using the existing backlink profile.
How To Avoid a Blog Network Footprint Footprints are the reason many of the larger blog networks were taken down by Google, PBN’s such as Build My Rank, ALN and LinkVana to name a few. If you want to ensure your network stands the test of time and continues to be a valuable business asset for years to come there are specific steps you must take to avoid leaving a footprint with your private blog network sites. As this section is such an important part of building a blog network, I have given it it`s own guide which can be found below; Private Blog Network Footprint Checklist
The 5 Golden Rules If you follow these 5 golden rules when building your Private Blog Network, you will be well on your way to building a very powerful resource.
1. Never Interlink your network sites (this means don’t link one PBN site to another). 2. Only link out to your site a maximum of 3 times one the homepage and use varied anchor text (Keyword, raw URL and keyword variation) 3. Don’t use spun content for your PBN sites (unique content of 300 words is plenty, add an image and video and your golden) 4. Add other authority outbound links (OBL) to your articles (wiki, youtube etc) 5. DO NOT sell links on your sites – keep all that lovely link juice for yourself So there you have it, my complete guide to building a private blog network the right way. If you have your own tips for reducing footprints or a specific way you manage your sites, please let me know in the comments. ———————————————————————————————————————————————–
UPDATE The Cloud Income Private Content Network is live, find out more at RankSource.com - Lewis Get My Latest Posts