A private blog network (PBN) is a group of websites controlled by one person or company and used to place links to another site, the “money site”, to raise its search rankings. The network sites are made to look independent, but they exist mainly to pass ranking value, which puts them squarely against Google’s spam policies.
How a PBN works
The classic recipe starts with expired domains: web addresses that once belonged to a real business, charity or blog and still have links pointing at them. The operator buys the domain, rebuilds a basic site on it, publishes some articles, and adds links to the money site with keyword-rich anchors. The idea is that the old links’ authority flows through the rebuilt site to the target. Some networks are built for a single owner; others rent links on dozens of sites to anyone who pays.
To avoid detection, operators try to hide the connections between sites, using different hosting, themes, registrars and author names. These clues are called footprints, and the trouble is that something always connects them: patterns in content, linking, ownership records or the simple fact that the sites have no real audience. Google treats links built this way as a link scheme, and since March 2024 its spam policies also name expired domain abuse, which covers buying old domains and repurposing them to manipulate rankings.
Why it matters for a UK business
Most UK business owners never set out to use a PBN. They meet one by accident, through a cheap monthly SEO package, a link seller on a freelance marketplace, or an offer of “high DA guest posts” arriving by email. Look at the sites behind those links and you often find blogs covering everything from crypto to cake recipes, each with a few posts linking out to unrelated businesses. Those are typical network sites, and a third-party Domain Authority figure says nothing about whether Google values them.
The risks are real. At best, Google’s systems ignore the links and the money is wasted. At worst, a manual action for unnatural links can remove or demote a site until the links are cleaned up and a reconsideration request is accepted, which can take months of lost enquiries. There is also no exit plan: if the operator stops paying for the network, the links vanish anyway.
Common mistakes
- Buying links based on third-party metrics such as DA or DR without looking at the sites themselves.
- Believing a supplier’s promise that their network is “private” or “undetectable”.
- Accepting a monthly link package without asking for a list of the sites used.
- Building a small network of your own on old domains you happen to own, then linking them all to your main site.
- Panicking and disavowing every unfamiliar link after finding a few network links.
How to act on it
If you have paid for SEO in the past, ask for a full list of links built and review a sample. Warning signs include sites with no clear owner, mixed unrelated topics, posts that exist only to link out, and many outbound links with commercial anchors. Check Search Console’s Manual actions report. If you find network links, stop the activity, ask for removal where you can, and use a disavow file for any you cannot remove, particularly if there is a manual action to resolve.
Going forward, put the budget into links a real editor chose to give: local press, trade associations, suppliers, partners and genuinely useful content. That is slower, but it builds something that lasts. My link building service works only this way and starts with a review of what is already pointing at your site.