It’s clear that private blog network (PBN) has been one of the most effective ways to rank websites for years. And it did work really well for me and a lot of other people too.
But the good old times are gone.
For the past month or two, Google has been slowly rolling out a new update that deindexes a ton of PBNs and the peak seems to happen last week when a lot of people got affected and some bloggers reported that on their blogs.
How Bad Was The Damage?
Really really bad. Check out some of the posts I curated across the web:
- Spencer and Perrin from NichePursuits lost over $10,000 in monthly revenue combined.
- Jon Haver from AuthorityWebsiteIncomes lost one money site and had 30% of LightningRank deindexed
- The guys from NohatDigital lost around 40% of their massive PBNs.
- Aaron C from NicheSiteStudy also lost 41% out of 200 PBN sites.
- One guy from WarriorForum got 60% of his PBN deindexed.
Looking at these numbers, I bet you would never want to mess with Google again.
Personally, I wasn’t affected because I have foreseen this and killed my PBN or any PBN-related projects since March. I’ve also dropped a few hints on Twitter about this too.
everyone and their dog is opening up services for PBN…I dont want to do that 😉 it's time to try something new other than SEO
— Tung Tran (@OfficialTung) March 19, 2014
no more PBN, grey/blackhat backlinks… finally i found a new direction for Cloud Living and my business
— Tung Tran (@OfficialTung) April 29, 2014
My conclusion? Well, similar to what I said in my last post:
Stop building or getting links from PBN. Build an authority site and focus on legitimate link building methods like networking/outreach.
I’m done with PBNs and I will never talk about it on Cloud Living again.
Yes, there are sites that are still ranking well on Google with PBNs despite the update. But who knows if they’re gonna survive the next updates? We can never win this game!
It’s time to focus on building sustainable businesses that can thrive years after years. That’s the new direction I mentioned above.
And actually, this is the best time to start your new website project as lots of sites got penalized and the competition is easier and fairer. You just need to put in more time and effort on creating high quality content and learning white-hat link building.
What I’m Working On Now? And What You Can Expect From Cloud Living?
Well, a lot of cool things are happening behind the scene. I got a new authority coming up and one of my Amazon sites which was penalized 5 months ago now just got its rankings back after the update (it was penalized around February). The funny thing is that It does have a few PBN links.
I’m very excited for the site and I’m working hard to grow the traffic so I can cash in during November/December. I will keep you guys updated on the progress.
That’s it for today. Stay tuned for a new post on Thursday 🙂
Was you affected by the update? What do you think about the future of PBNs? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comment section.
