Private blog network (PBN)
A private blog network is a group of websites run by one owner to link to another site and push it up the search results.
A private blog network, or PBN, is a group of websites run by one person or company for one purpose: linking to another site to make it rank higher. The sites look like independent blogs, but they share an owner, and their posts exist to carry links.
It's one of the best-known link schemes, and Google's spam policies forbid it.
How they work
A PBN is often built from expired domains. Someone buys domains that used to belong to real sites, so they still have links pointing at them, and puts up thin blogs. Each blog then links to the "money site," the one the owner wants to rank. To hide the connection, the sites use different hosts, designs and names.
For example, say an SEO agency offers Kestrel Roasters "20 links from coffee blogs" for a monthly fee. The blogs have names like "Bean Daily" and "Morning Brew Hub," they all went live last year, and they all link to Kestrel and to the agency's other clients. That's a PBN, and Kestrel is the one whose rankings are at risk.
Why they're a bad bet
Search engines are good at finding networks. Shared owners, the same writing, the same outbound links and blogs with no real readers all give them away. When Google finds one, it can ignore the links, or take a manual action against the sites that benefit.
The payoff is shrinking too. AI platforms name brands they read about on sources people trust: reviews, news, directories and well-read roundups. A blog nobody visits has little to offer an answer. Even when a network's pages show up in a platform's search results, they're the kind of page that goes as soon as the search engine behind it catches up.
In AnswerOrbit
Sources shows which sites the AI platforms actually read for your prompts, so you can spend your effort on the ones that shape the answers. We never recommend links you pay or trade for.