A PBN is a private network of websites created or bought up with a single purpose – to link to the main website and artificially increase its ranking. It is among the practices that search engine rules explicitly prohibit, together with buying links without disclosure, mass link exchanges, spamming comments and discussions, and hidden links in template footers. In the short term these practices can work, which is exactly why they are still used. The risk, however, is not theoretical: if detected, it results in a loss of rankings or a manual action, and the remedy takes months to years, because the links must be removed and reconsideration requested. When outsourcing link building, therefore request a list of the links obtained and verify where they come from – responsibility rests with the website owner.
See also: Toxic links and disavow, Guest post, Link exchange.
