Private Blog Networks

[Jason]

What is a Private Blog Network: understanding and creating Private Blog Networks

Preview Private Blog Networks have been widely used to influence search engine rankings for as long as backlinks have been a ranking factor. And, despite a lot of evolution in the field of PBNs, they will likely remain a common SEO strategy for a long time to come. Since PBNs violate Google’s...

www.easyblognetworks.com

Some view them as unethical. A counter-argument is Google is an unethical themselves due to monopoly. What's your view? Are PBNs gaming SEO?

 

[Nomad]

In theory PNB is bad but you can benefit from PBN when you have build quality sites in your network

 

[Arantor]

Are PBNs gaming SEO?

Of course, that's literally the point.

One does not have to be a monopoly to be unethical (becoming a monopoly by definition requires unethical behaviour in the first place).

As for whether it is unethical to engage in PBNs... kinda, yeah, because Google have explicitly made it clear they don't want you doing it to game the results in the SERPs, which is by definition an attempt at manipulation - therefore unethical. But on the flip side, that's the arena Google have created, so there is a certain 'doing a deal with the (metaphorical) devil' that necessarily results.

In theory PNB is bad

The rest of the sentence feels redundant in my head.

 

[Nomad]

The rest of the sentence feels redundant in my head.

Redundant?
My point was despite being called black hat, PBN can be useful if you have managed to build quality sites on your network.

 

[Arantor]

Redundant, sure. “In theory PBN is bad.” Yes, that’s the line, nothing further needs to be said.

Anything black hat is unethical (the only questions are “how unethical” and “do I care”) and it’s only a matter of time before you're cracked down on.

 

[Jason]

When it comes to SEO, I'd just see what the winners are doing and copy that. It's not illegal or unethical. You can find the blueprints for success on SEM Rush and other SEO metric sites.

The Point Being

PBN blogs are not worth the risk.

 

[Nomad]

The main idea behind building PBN is to create a main blog and then build other blogs to give backlinks to the main blog. This is different than creating stand alone blogs that have their own SEO ranking. If you give one or two backlinks to your other sites on relevant pages, it does not harm your SEO. Backlinks will work only when they come form quality sites, if you have created sites just for the purpose of building backlinks and no authentic content, your backlinks will not work, so there is no point in creating PBN

 

[joelr]

"Experienced SEO professionals who still use PBNs advocate treating your PBN sites as legitimate sites rather than a “facade” made-for-link scheme."

You're basically running 5 independent and legitimate sites, rather than 1 LOL.

 

[Heatman]

Anything black hat is unethical (the only questions are “how unethical” and “do I care”) and it’s only a matter of time before you're cracked down on.

This is pure fact! It might be going on so well for a while but it always ends up with you being caught and all your efforts will go down the drain. I will never drift into anything that's black hat when it comes to SEO.