Linking Authentic Sites Together - Semi-PBN?
-
Recently I've had a lot of ideas of sites to build that all would have some sort of relevance to each other, all that would be relevant to my current business.
For example, say you have sites for: bars/clubs, music festivals, cinemas, etc, one site for each. While these aren't all directly related to each other, they all kind of fall within a category of entertainment and having fun.
Now, I'm not thinking about this as if I were to build a Private Blog Network, but instead each site would actually be valuable to visitors, be content rich, have regular updates and thriving social media etc, as if each were its own individual business.
What would be your opinion on actually linking these together at some point down the line?
I must stress that these would not be like typical PBN sites where the themes are the same, content is spun or badly written, no human touches or actual value, anything spammy etc, these would actually be authentic quality sites that you would reasonably expect to have a thriving community.
Personally, after changing my ways from blackhat to weary-of-linkbuilding whitehat when Penguin 1 was released, I'm aware of what a bad linkbuilding strategy can do and would rather steer clear, however when I compare the plan of these authentic sites I have in my head to the obvious, low quality PBNs that I find competitors use to rank well all the time, I'm coming around to the idea that they may not pose a threat with the way I intend to implement them.
Can I get some thoughts?
-
Good point EGOL on showing that after you crush your main market there is actually an opportunity to produce secondary sites, I hadn't thought of it in that way before.
-
If you had a small niche site with incredible potential and you had key articles that could support that site on your main site, you could move them to the niche site and redirect the URLs. Or, you could publish them on both sites and use rel=canonical to give the indexing and ranking value to the niche site, while still displaying that content on the main site.
I would only do the above if the amount of content is small compared to the size of the main site.
-
Thanks Andy,
Will have a look for that hangout (usually don't miss them but don't remember this one).
A little surprised he's OK with not using no-follow but I suppose if you make it really obvious there's a connection between sites, then Google can probably figure out which links to follow or not.
Will make that it's not seen as linkbuilding and instead just referencing our other domains - thanks
-
Thanks for the input EGOL,
Fully agree with you there, I've always found larger sites to work better than lots of little networks.
With this plan I can get some input from others who would be relevant to each of the secondary sites, and while it obviously will detract me from the main site somewhat, I think there may be potential for some of these to help contribute to the main site's growth in a way that could be worth investing in.
Are there any circumstances where you would take resources away from your main site (before it reaches its full potential) in order to grow a high-potential side-venture?Many thanks
-
I believe that the value of one large site would be much higher than a medium size site accompanied by a bunch of hotdog stands.
I'd put the work of these hotdog stands into the main site. The best time to produce secondary sites is after your main site crushes its niche market.
-
Hi,
John Mueller from Google recently answered this question at a Webmasters Hangout and his view was that if you have a few of the same brands, like 4-5, that are all related, owned by you and you are just showing people your own network, that there isn't much of an issue doing this at all. Add the links into the footer was also not a problem, as was not needing to add no-follow to them.
However, problems might occur if there are more if it looks like they were being done to try and gain SEO benefits (i.e Link Building).
-Andy
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
How to deal with link echoes of former hacked websites?
Hi all, I'd know which is the best way to deal with link echoes of former hacked websites that Webmaster tool reports. to clarify: when you download the backlink report from Webmaster tool you'll have a list of backlinks discovered, but if you follow one of those links you will see that on that page there is no link to your website. the source code is also clean, no hidden links or other dodgy technique. Since that the topic is usually miles away from my industry I have to assume at some point that site has been hacked by a spammer who placed that backlink. In this case what should I do? Ignore it, disavow the domain or what? Moreover, which is the best procedure when you have to face a site which points a lot of backlinks from only its sub-domains? For example: this dodgy spammy website : http://px949z32.com/ is apparently a desert, but when you do site:http://px949z32.com/ you'll discover 55,200 results! Would be it be enough to just disavow the root domain http://px949z32.com/?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | madcow78
As I don't want to wait too long before taking any action, my plan is to disavow all those domains without any mercy, although I can't find a current backlink in one of their pages. I will do this, as at the minute my concern is they will be hacked again and I have to face the same issue again and again Thanks to all, P.0 -
Pleasing the Google Gods & Not DeIndexing my site.
Hey Mozzers, So plenty of you who follow these threads have come across my posts and have read bits and pieces of the strange dark dark gray hat webspace that I have found myself in. So I'm currently doing some research and I wanted all of your opinion too. Will Google always notify you before they stop indexing your website? Will Google always allow you back if you do get pulled? Does Google give a grace period where they say "fix in 30 days?"? What is every bodies experience with all of this?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | HashtagHustler0 -
How should I use the 2nd link if a site allows 2 in the body of a guest post?
I've been doing some guest posting, and some sites allow one link, others allow more. I'm worried I might be getting too many guest posts with multiple links. I'd appreciate your thoughts on the following: 1. If there are 50+ guest posts going to my website (posted over the span of several months), each with 2 links pointing back only to my site is that too much of a pattern? How would you use the 2nd link in a guest post if not to link to your own site? 2. Does linking to .edu or .gov in the guest post make the post more valuable in terms of SEO? Some people recommend using the 2nd link to do this. Thanks!
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | pbhatt0 -
Disavow - Broken links
I have a client who dealt with an SEO that created not great links for their site. http://www.golfamigos.co.uk/ When I drilled down in opensiteexplorer there are quite a few links where the sites do not exist anymore - so I thought I could test out Disavow out on them .. maybe just about 6 - then we are building good quality links to try and tackle this problem with a more positive approach. I just wondered what the consensus was?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | lauratagdigital0 -
Same template site same products but different content?
for the sake of this post I am selling lighters. I have 3 domains small-lighters.com medium-lighter.com large-lighters.com On all of the websites I have the same template same images etc and same products. The only difference is the way the content is worded described etc different bullet points. My domains are all strong keyword domains not spammy and bring in type in traffic. Is it ok to continue in this manner in your opinion?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | dynamic080 -
Does your website get downgraded if you link to a lower quality site?
My site has a pr of 4. My friends site has a pr of 2 but I think that he is doing some black hat seo techniques. I wanted to know whether the search engines would ding me for linking to (i.e., validating) a lower quality site.
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | jamesjd70 -
Buying Links
Hello, I have talked to many SEO companies about their services and rates. I noticed that all of them will buy thousands and thousands of links once you first join. That is why they always want a start-up fee, so they can purchase the links. I know the best method is doing it the ethical hard way of asking sites to link to them, but I dont have time to do that. I mainly want to know where the SEO companies buy their links from. I am figuring that them buying the links are not negatively affecting the sites or they would lose their clients if they got into black hat links. It must be good inorder for them to keep their clients. I was interested in buying links, but do not know who to trust. Does anyone have a recommendation?
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | neeper670 -
40,000 High Value Links - Sold?
I'm a developer spending ever more time on SEO for SMBs. I've never had cause to buy links. Not one bit. I've done ok. Until now that is. Now I am getting my arse kicked into last year. By, I think, a top SEO company. Really, you know these guys and they are whiter than white. But what they have achieved seems an impossibilty to me using white hat techniques. Maybe they are from another planet than me. Or maybe something else is going on. In six months they have built 40,000+ links. These are unbelievably high quality links in their thousands. Really top notch. Keyword rich anchors slap bang in relevant content on great, great sites such as newspapers, univertsities, government, corporate, charity etc. Nothing spammy at all. Amazing. I was skimming but I found nothing to question at all until link 800 which was a cloaked link on a well known review site's product page. But generally the high quality sustained. Gradually, some began to feel somewhat worked into the content, although worked very well. 2000 links in and there are still magazine and review sites, still page authority 40+. There are still local government sites at 10,000 links when the export file ends. I go dizzy at the thought of the remaining 30,000. How far down could this quality have gone? Gulp. I am in awe, intimdated...and a little suspicious. How on earth do you do that with a pure white hat on? Actually, whatever colour your hat - how on earth do you do that? Rand's position is clear. He doesn't do it. Other's are less unambiguous. Comments like "I do it, you do it, we all do it" go unchallenged. Even on a recent link buying question here on SEOMoz most comments say don't do it but one advocates "Paid, targeted, individually prospected links". Am I too suspicious - a fool trying to rationalise my relatively pathetic link building? Honestly, you should just see these links. Of course, maybe some of you have. 🙂 Come on, please don't tell these guys simply worked hard. But maybe that's the harsh truth I cannot face. I have to say I cannot see the site generating an income to pay for the man hours needed for 40,000 high-value, white-hat links but then what do I know. Tell me, what do you think: Is it possible to build 40,000 very high value links in six months using pure white hat techniques - or is there another way? Phil
White Hat / Black Hat SEO | | Phil_2