How PBNs work
- Expired domains that still have backlinks from their past life are bought, often at auction.
- Each domain gets a simple site with thin or spun content, hosted separately to hide the connection.
- The sites link to the “money site” that the owner wants to rank.
Why PBNs are risky
- They break Google’s spam policies: links made to manipulate rankings are a link scheme, and reusing expired domains this way can also count as expired domain abuse.
- Networks get detected: shared hosting, themes, owners, link patterns and thin content give them away, and systems such as Google’s SpamBrain are built to spot them.
- The value disappears: Google may simply ignore the links, so the money spent brings nothing, or the site that benefits gets a manual action.
What to do instead
Earn links with content and relationships: original research, useful tools, partnerships, PR and expert contributions. If you have inherited PBN links from a previous agency, get them removed, or disavow them if they have led to a manual action.