If you use PBNs, I’m going to be talking about a technique that I highly recommend you start incorporating as soon as possible: PBN testing.
In my article about debugging backlink results, I alluded to the fact that in order to successfully make sense of SERP movement, you’ll need be 100% sure that your PBNs are clean.
SEO is getting increasingly complicated. Results depend on a large number of interconnected factors. The only way to truly understand your results is to eliminate as many unknowns as possible. And that starts with testing your PBNs.
By testing your PBNs you’ll find out if your costly PBN investment is actually getting you the return you expect. At the same time, you’ll get the peace of mind knowing for sure that your PBNs produce positive results, enabling you to focus on the multitude of other ranking factors.
Why you should be testing ALL of your PBNs
Have you ever received a negative result after posting a PBN backlink? Of course, you have. Typically, this can boil down to one of two reasons:
- You chose the wrong anchor text
- Your PBN is poisonous
Now wouldn’t you like to narrow that down to a single reason? Of course, you would.
The fact of the matter is, no matter how much due diligence you do in your PBN purchasing audits, some rotten PBNs are going to slip through the cracks. It’s inevitable. Why?
As most of you already know, metrics are only a rough gauge of a PBNs quality. Typically, people are looking for a minimum DR/DA/PA/TF and a healthy CF-TF ratio. But this is only the first step. It all comes down to the actual links which are going to your PBNs.
We have tools like Majestic, Moz, and Ahrefs to help us dig into the backlink profiles, but we’re human, we make mistakes. When sifting through hundreds of domains in a day, some having over 100 referring domains, it becomes very likely than an error can occur.
The backlink bots are also not perfect. We care about what Google sees, not what these 3rd party crawlers see. Google can crawl much deeper than the bots, finding links that we might not have access to.
Lastly, are you looking at the 2nd tiers? Are you sure that you’re buying PBNs that aren’t artificially juiced up at tier 2 so they can be sold to you with higher metrics?
Ultimately, there’s many reasons why your manual audit might not catch a bad PBN. A PBN that will actually hurt your rankings rather than help.
I’ve gotten pretty damn good at auditing domains over the many years I’ve been using PBNs, but still some terrible ones slip through the cracks.
The last line of defense is testing. After all my PBNs are put through the screening process, roughly about 5-10% of them go in the trash can.
How to Test Your PBNs
Luckily, testing your PBNs is a very simple and quick process. It doesn’t require you to risk hurting your money sites’ rankings, nor do you need to own a suite of testing sites.
You simply need to identify some third party sites that you can use as test subjects and send some links. Here’s how it’s done…
Identify a Testcase
Find a 3rd party URL with the following criteria.
- It’s in your niche
- It’s ranking on page 2-4
- It has never had any target anchor sent to it
The reason we want a site with its keywords on page 2-4 is two-fold. You want a site that Google thinks is healthy, it just doesn’t have enough link juice to be on page 1. Also, in the event that you might be sending a rotten PBN to a site, you don’t want it to affect anyone’s income stream.
To find a testcase, you’ll be using SEMRush or Ahrefs. These tools allow you to enter a website, and it will return all the keywords it is currently ranked for. This process is also amazing for keyword research, I might add.
Example: howtogetridofwartshome.com
Here we have a keyword “clove oil cvs” that is ranking on page 2. It’s important to verify that you have a keyword which has never had a target anchor sent.
If you send a new target anchor to a healthy site, there is a very high chance that it’s going to cause a ranking increase for that exact keyword.
Plugging this URL into Ahrefs, we see that this anchor has never been sent. This makes it extremely likely that sending an exact match anchor with “clove oil cvs” will increase rankings. That is, if you have a proper PBN.
Finding these testcases is a great task for a VA. In fact, a VA found the example above in about 10 minutes. I suggest you have your VA go out and find a suite of 20 of these tester sites to use in your upcoming tests.
Create the Link
Now it’s time to create the link on your PBN.
- Get a 300-word Iwriter.com article created for $2.
- Add some images to your post
- Create an exact match anchor link with the keyword that you identified before. Send it to the exact URL that SEMRush says is ranking for that keyword.
Wait for the Result
Depending on where you’re getting your domains from and when you set them up, your time to result will vary. I set a reminder to look at the results 7 days later.
Positive Result
If all turns out well, you’ll see a positive ranking increase on the keyword.
Go ahead and remove the link at this point. Consider this PBN to be an official asset and add it to your network.
Negative Result
Unfortunately, not all expired domains are clean, despite how much we think we’ve audited them.
My suggestion, in this case, is to wait an additional week to make sure it wasn’t Google messing with you using their random documents algorithm (read more).
If your PBN truly is rotten, remove the link and the rankings to the target site will recover in a week or two. In the below testcase, this PBN was so bad that there was an exaggerated rebound effect.
Or… Just Buy your PBN Links from a Reputed Vendor
Testing PBNs isn’t exactly the best usage of your time.
Nor is setting up PBNs, designing them, putting them on unique IPs, removing footprints, worrying about outbound link patterns… the list goes on.
That said, all these precautions are absolutely necessary if you’re running PBNs these days.
To be dead honest, I gave up. I simply buy my PBN links from the best: Rank Club.
This technique can also be used for 301 Redirect Testing
Even trickier than judging a good PBN, is how to judge a good candidate for a 301 redirect. With 301s, relevancy is significantly more important and consistency in a positive result is rare.
I actually was inspired to create this whole PBN testing technique based on Brian Tucker’s surrogate SEO, 301 redirect testing setup.
Before 301’ing a candidate domain to your money site, first test it on a 3rd party site to make sure it will actually have the result you desire.
Already saw it on email.. Awesome share as always, Matt 🙂
Btw I got few questions – if you see that domain is good, you simply remove test link and put link to your $$$ site? Simple as that?
I’ve seen several posts stating that “boost” remains even after links are removed. What are your experience?
Also for each test do you use a completely new site? Or target same site several times, each time with new and untouched kw?
Hi Niko, yes, its as simple as that. Simply remove the link to the test site, create a new article for your money site, then link it up.
About boost remaining after links are removed… sure. Sometimes it takes as much as two months for a link removal to kick in. Anyone in local SEO who has had a client cancel with them can attest to this.
You can actually use the same sites and the same keywords over and over again. You just need to space out the tests a good couple of months to be 100% sure its a clean test.
Hi Matt,
Thanks so much for this article.
I built some PBNs and just not getting results but I didn’t know about this testing you have described so probably one of mine is bad.
Seriously there is a lot of work in building and maintaining quality powerful PBNs – I think I will stop building and just buy Diggity links!
Thanks,
Dale.
Cool man! You actually took my suggestion and ran with it! Thanks for elaborating, this is very helpful as always…
Another very nice article Matt, I do have a quick question though, looks like you’re using Google Analytics, so I guess we have to gauge the competitor’s backend analytics by what we see visibly if I’m not mistaken? Seeing as we won’t have insight to their analytics, unless of course you are using some other tool to see those charts for various websites in nearly real time.
Thanks!
-R
Hey Ryan. No, I’m not using analytics. Are you referring to the ranking graphs? Those are from serpfox.
Yes, that’s what I meant. Thanks so much Matt!
Matt, when you are not using google analytics, how do you track the website and your visitors?
Clicky.com
Great post Matt! I was just thinking the other day that I need to develop a system for testing my PBNs out before firing them at a MS. This helps a lot!
Excellent Post Matt! Looking forwards to many more!
What about competitor seeing my PBN backlink in his Ahrefs reports ? or eventually in his Google WMT Tools report of incoming links ? Not a good idea.
A) You can block your PBN from showing up from Ahrefs, etc.
B) Don’t send it to a competitor. Send it to a webmd article, for example.
Hey Matt another golden nugget blog post. Couple of questions please:
1. For the 301 redirect option you said “consistency in a positive result is rare” does that mean you find that getting a SERP changes from a 301 to stay is difficult compared to say a PBN link?
2. I assume if a PBN domain provides a good PBN test link then it should also be good for using a 301 as long as it’s backlinks are relevant to the money sites niche?
1) Absolutely. PBN success rate is like 95% after testing. 301’s are like 60%
2) Not necessarily. 301s have more to do with relevance and the existing anchors already going to the money site. It’s more complicated.
Oh yeah, another hit post from one of my favorite bloggers M Diggity =)
Few questions though:
1) Following this method, when a PBN yields a negative result does this mean it’s penalized (toxic juice)?
2) When setting up a PBN is there any benefit to “warming” it up by posting related articles before linking out from it?
Thanks Matt.
1) Not necessarily penalized, but definitely toxic juice.
2) Not that I’ve seen through testing.
a question related to toxic pbns: if a site has lots of spammy and low quality links, but has very little keywords in top 100. Does it necassarily means it is penalized for bad links and anchors? will just rrmoving bad links allow the site to rank in the future?
Hi Igor. Not sure I understand the question. Seems like there are multiple questions here involving spam and anchors. But anyways, the answer is no. Removing bad links is only handling the links. There’s more to SEO, such as onsite, technical, content, etc.
As always, you’ve got tricks, brother. Quick question: Do you recommend auctions or running a scraper?
Definitely don’t scrape.
Really appreciate the continued wisdom and knowledge bombs, Matt. Happy 2016.
For ages I’ve been thinking of a good way to test PBN’s and this is so obvious, and much needed, thanks!
Great post Matt, this definitely helps to identify the rotten apples and get rid of them.
How many pbn would you try on one test site? 5? 10? Then how would you known which is the weak link or pbn site?
There’s no limit, you just need to space out the tests long enough such that you don’t confuse the results. At least 2 months between tests.
Also, make sure that your testcase is still a good testcase later on. If its received links on its own, then it might not meet your testing criteria anymore.
Hi, Matt. Great Post Again
I have a question regarding 301s…
I have a site which I registered in September last year…. and made a few links to it… but It wasn’t ranking anywhere so I left it & moved on…..
Just a few days back, I saw that it has come up to page 7 & 8 for different KWs….
So, I wanted to ask can I use this domain as a 301 on a New domain targeting the same KW??
Does a 301 also passes domain age?
BTW I want to 301 the old site because I want to move to a branded domain. The old domain is an PMD and I don’t like it.
Thanks
Yes, you can definitely try using it on your new domain. It passes on domain age, so you’ll jump out of the sandbox.
That said, when I do solid onsite SEO, I usually have brand new pages ranking at least page 4-5 right out the box. So I’m concerned that your 301 domain is as good as it might seem.
Everything I can learn about testing my PBNs is crucial. Thanks for this insight!
Fantastic suggestions Matt,
Had a quick question for you. We don’t have a test site yet. Any suggestions on how to set it up from scratch? Any way in particular to get it going quickly and optimize it?
Sounds like we’ll need multiple ones too.
Follow the guide. You wont need to setup your own test sites. Identify other people’s websites for your testing.
What do you mean by “if you send anchor to healthy site, then there is high chance that it’s going to cause a ranking increase for that exact keyword”
Lets say a healthy site ranks on page 2 for “how to swim in a tuxedo”. Some how it ranks for this even though there’s never been an anchor sent with the words: how to, swim, or tuxedo. If you send “how to swim in a tuxedo” to it from a nice PBN, wouldn’t you say that theres a very likely chance that the rankings will increase?
Also, they can easily find out in webmaster tool and uncover my PBN? What to do now?
Not sure I follow.
Odds are unless they read their new incoming links in Webmasters over their morning coffee they’ll likely not even notice. Some webmasters are that anal, but since you’re sending a link at most you’re highly unlikely to shop up in “top linked content” or in “who links the most”.
In summary, don’t worry about it. Besides unless you’re linking to nasty blackhat aff sites for your testing, most webmasters 1) don’t know how to sabotage your pbn or 2) they don’t care to even try.
Chin up! Get to work and stop worrying.
Is this a good idea to do with high authority sites like webmd, though? Since sites like that have so much authority, won’t they get a ranking increase even from a poisonous link which would ruin the test.
In my experience, even authority sites don’t get a ranking increase from poisonous links either. In fact, they don’t get as much movement from good links too, compared to a normal site that isn’t ranking from pure authority.
Exactly, so wouldn’t you recommend to send test links to ‘average’ small business type sites? Or better yet, the way i’ve been doing it is to send pbn links to authority sites for really long tail keywords that nobody else is aiming for, and the authority site isn’t anywhere near for. Usually, if the PBN site is good, the test authority site will be ranking #1 for that long tail keyword.
Basically for testcases, I just try to find sites that are smaller size and meet the criteria in this post.
Great article, I’d never heard of a way of testing a PBN. Definitely a job for a VA. Thanks for the insight.
What a great idea Matt! I was planning to test my PBNs on a social site or something, it never occurred to me to actually test using a real site from the serps!
Hey Matt, I have 2 PBN questions really need your help.
1, Which kind of domains is your perfer:
(1)expired domains which you can get them by scrape machine, n/a PR, high TF/CF.
(2) Aged domains which you can buy them on auction market or godaddy closeout, valid PR, high TF/CF.
2, When will you place links on PBN pages to MS after you built the PBN site? Immediately place the link or wait for some time?
1) (2) for sure.
2) If I’m using (2), then right away.
Thanks Matt. But check their history, it’s hard to get aged domains have the same exact niche as MS.
Therein lies the challenge.
Hi Matt, I am pretty new to the world of PBN’s and loved the ease of how you made this testing phase sound. I have a question about 301’s please.
How many 301’s can we use to point to our money site?
Do you also 301 a new PBN right away or do you place an article on the PBN, Wait for it to be indexed then 301 to $ site?
Thanks in advance
Hi Lloyd,
1) I’d say 2 max. Any more and there’s an unnecessary amount of risk that you’re adding to your site with marginal benefit.
2) 301’s and PBNs are different concepts. You either do one or the other.
Hi Matt,
Have you heard about the link echo effect? You can read about it here – http://seosherpa.com/seo-experiments/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=SocialWarfare
Long story short: Is says that some value from links (perhaps a lot) do remain, even after the links are removed and it will remain for many months. What do you think about this? Have you seen something alike during your tests?
It’s a real effect. If a client cancels with you for whatever reason and you delete their links, they’re still going to rank for a few months.
Hi Matt!
.
Do you think any of the 3 following would be a better use of a 301?:
.
1) 301 the domain to a Web2.0 and from that Web2.0 link to a money page with the proper anchor text
.
2) 301 the domain to an inner page of the money site (which we don’t intent to rank for anything) and from there, link to a money page with the proper anchor text (i.e. Linking to the supporting pages in The Reverse Silo).
.
3) 301 the domain to a random subdomain we created from our money site. Something like: “xyz.domain.com” so the overall power of the site increases.
.
Or is it just a better ROI (money/time) to 301 it straight to the target page you’re trying to rank?
.
Thanks!
The best conservation of the link juice is the direct 301 to the money site. But a lot can go wrong, especially since the target site inherits all the anchor text from the 301’d site. Testing will give you a good answer.
Hey Matt – great read. Question for you if you get time. If I point a new domain name at my main site, and then point either pbn links or a 301 from a name with juice, will my main site get benefit since the buffer domain is new? Or will it take some time like it’s been sandboxed?
Thanks!
LJ
It will be sandboxed.
Good to know. Thank you sir!
Hi Matt,
Great article, I have just run 3 tests over the course of 10 days, some of the test sites dipped but have recovered with better rankings. Removing the links now and adding the sites to my PBN.
Would it be safe to use the same articles from the test and simply change the outbound anchor text to my own money sites? Or Should I delete the entire post and start fresh?
Thanks!
It probably doesn’t matter much either way, but if you want to be 100% safe, remove the links from the original article, create new articles and new links.
Hi Matt, nice technique!
I would like your opinion please, is it OK to register an expired domain with high metrics (TF, BLs, etc) but had Chinese content in the past (checked with wayback machine)? What about if it seems to be a clean content after you see the translation (no sex, drug, etc)? thanks!
It’s probably fine to use, but for peace of mind, personally I avoid Asian sites altogether.
What about other foreign language?
Sure.
Hey Matt,
I have been using this technique and have sort of hit a roadblock/confusion point, it worked great for first couple of sites.
1. After I add the links the website just starts bouncing around sometimes even after 6 days?
2. In one particular site I saw that the rankings fell but something didn’t feel right so I added another anchor text right next to it, opposite of the first anchor text for e.g women/men and linked to a different site. This new site just jumped in rankings. So I am confused whether its a good domain or not?
Thanks
Ayush
1) Random documents algorithm. Let it sit for longer.
2) Sounds like its probably ok.
Valuable information. Thank you.
Hi Matt,
What would you do if you see no impact at all on your test even after ~3 weeks? No increase and no decrease, just regular “mini” jumps each day.
Maybe I should re-test it with another domain and anchor? Or it means that PBN is too weak to have an impact at all?
Try it again with another test site.
Thanks Matt. This article is both helpful and dangerous, though. Wouldn’t want to be the site competing against you. 😉
Awesome blog and glad I discovered it. Keep up the good stuff! 🙂
Welcome, Nick. Thanks for stopping by.
Ive found that testing with 301s, a lot of the time there is no movement at all. Its really hard for me to tell from 301 alone if the domain is a winner and I should pursue building out a site. However if a link is toxic the effect will be devastating (many times the site falls off the serps completely). This is in the local niche, so the sites don’t exactly have a strong backlink profile to begin. If a PBN redirect has no apparent effect, is it worth it to build out the site and try it with an article the normal way?
301’s and links have very different effects. The key differentiator is relevance. You can’t take the results from one test and apply them to another.
Hey Matt,
I was wondering when you test your PBNs are they already fully built up?
I mean do you add filler articles (filler posts, about us) make the widgets, and add the theme also?
Thanks!
They get a minimum build. But definitely not a full aesthetic overhaul.
Thanks Matt 🙂 good post with nice and easy steps to follow
Hey Matt – It’s almost a year since the last comment so I hope you get this!
I have a question about matching keyword anchor text with PBN quality. I have about 10 domains, some are stronger than others. Should I test stronger domains on higher volume keywords and weaker domains on lesser volume keywords? How do you go about choosing your exact match anchor for each individual PBN domain? I want to make sure I get the cleanest first-test possible. Thanks! ~Adam
That’s the general industry standard. Save your high powered PBNs for your most impactful keywords.
Thanks Matt. Second question (as I just learned this now) …
My page 2 for my top keywords is nearly 100% competitors. I’m in a VERY large niche, that is still very much niche-focused. The “authority sites” I would be able to link to are basically the sites who own the EDM for the base keywords (5-7 letter single words, big guns). Are these the sites I should be testing on? Everyone else is someone I want to climb over. Thanks again!
You could. Or you could just pick any random sites that are on page 2-4 in any niche.
hi Matt
it is very good article.
I recently started SEO and your article helped me.
My site is In the field of Pnu University and PNU News in iran 🙂
thanks
Hey Matt!
I just read your article, and made the mistake of not doing this test on any of my PBNs. I added about 18 PBNs over 3 months to my clients site, it did not decrease the rankings, but it does not increase and fluctuating between 30-20.It jumped to 16 a few days ago. Is it possible that some of these PBNs are toxic? Only 3 of them are auction domains, the rest i bought from PBNHQ.
Should i test them the same way?
Thank you in advance!
It’s never too late to test them. Go ahead and do that. Give yourself the piece of mind and finding out if these are actually assets or toxic.
Matt
Very valid post since you are just as lost when you pick up an expired domain to send links to your money sites. I have got a question though not entirely relevant to your money site.
I am building out a 50 PBN network for a client who hold sites in almost all niches. And majority of his keywords are medium high competition. My plan is to build the network with a 60:40 ratio of expired:auction domains. Then add high quality relevant articles to all the niches of the client and create categories for the niches. Add links to his sites after getting the articles indexed. My question is to get max link for such a comp keyword what should be he upper limit of OBL from each domain. I am planning to keep it at 15, is it the correct number or should I reduce further ?
I have a post coming out on this exact topic soon. Stay tuned.
Could you please explain in more detail the initial on-page setup of a PBN site prior to testing?
I mean, is it just a basic WordPress theme with that one 300 word post?
Or is it fully designed, with re-created pages, widgets etc?
Please, elaborate. Thanks you.
Default theme. About, contact, etc all created. Two posts: one with no link, other with the test link.
Thank you for clarification.
spun content?
Definitely not.
What about highly readable and unique spun content using scraped content from the same domain from archive.org?
I never mess with spun content anymore.
Hey, Matt!
Liked your Technique to Test the PBNs! I have seen many times that People go for 3rd party Algorithms Metrics to Check the Quality, But I think we should check the Domains quality by its Backlinks, Age, Past Site Traffic, etc.! Am I right? One more Question, that How to determine if we should use Exact Match Anchor in PBNs or not! Let’s Suppose if I have already used all types of Anchors in Backlinks then What should I use?
Will be waiting for your reply man!
Cheers!
SK Bansal
Hello SK. You should check “everything” and then at the end of the day: test your PBNs. For the answer to your second question, please refer to this article.
Hey again Matt,
I was wondering what do you do with the ones that don’t pass?
Thank you
Straight to the trash can.
Hello,
I placed a link on my PBN for a KW that ranked place 70. After a week it totally disappeared from google serps. After next 2 weeks being not displayed in google serps at all it came back and actually rank at position 16 now. Shall I consider this PBN as a good one?
You ultimately experienced a gain. As long as it stuck, I’d consider that a win.
Matt, for how long do you wait to confirm the “stickiness” of the increase in rankings on your PBN tests? Like in the previous example. Adriam got an increase in rankings from his PBN test after the 2 week… From that point, how long he should monitor the rankings to see if it sticks?
Maybe just 2-3 more days. I hardly ever see them drop back down again.
Hi Matt,
Quick question:
You said that it’s definitely better to buy action domains, than scrape expired. This is because of domain age? Or there are some more benefits of auction domains? 100% of my pbn’s are expired domains, and reading your comments about auction domains made me stop and think if i’m going in the wrong direction:) I’m using you links by the way more than a year i think))
Thanks
If you can find good domains, both expired and auction PBNs will do the job. The problem is that its extremely hard to find good expired domains.
My experience with PBN that they do more harm than good if you are not very careful, they must be run like reel websites to make a difference, and this is very time consuming
Hello Matt,
It’s really one of the top 5 guides I have ever gone through.
But I haven’t found a proper guideline so far, about how to understand whether an expired is penalized.
Could you please through a bit more light on this?
Thanks for this great post!
The only way to TRULY find out if an expired domain is penalized is to test it, as per this article, or plug it into GSC.
Hi Matt,
I am currently doing this, and actually found what I think to be a poisonous PBN (so that’s great). My question is, what if the target domain that you link to has no movement at all (i.e. it stays #18 for 5 days or more)?
Thanks!
Hi Bill, give it more time. I’m seeing link delays as long as a month lately.
Hello Matt,
one of the best articles I have ever read about SEO.
I have 2 questions regarding this method.
1. Have you ever experienced a significant gain (testing on a high DA site) and drop? Eg. start position: 20, after a week position 10 which stays constant for a week, and then a drop back to position 20? Because I have and am not quite sure what it could mean.
2. According to you, is there any correlation between the strength of the PBN and place for which its main KW is ranking? Eg. Most of my PBNs have a 500 word article referring to the same product. They rank for the main KW at 60-80 place. However one of those PBNs is ranking at 280~ place. Does it mean it most likely sucks?
I am asking because maybe this way it will be faster to assess PBN’s quality..
Thanks a lot!
1) I’m currently looking into this phenomenon. So far it looks to be an issue with trust signals on the receiving side. Perhaps lack of social or user engagement.
2) Check out this article.
Thanks Matt, makes sense.
Anyhow what do you do when you experience this significant increase and a drop? Re-test it or assume it’s fine?
Retest. It could be random documents algorithm.
Hi meth, I’d like to hear your opinion.
In theory, this looks good (testing pbn). But in practice it is not so easy to test the PBN. For example my niche.
Site № 1 – 25, 26, 28, 30, 32
Site № 2 – 24, 29, 28, 31, 36
Site № 3 – 22, 26, 23, 31, 33
Sites very much shakes (even without links), if I put 1 anchor link, it will not give rise to 5-10 + positions, which means that I will not be able to estimate the real impact of the link. Because these requests and without references very much shakes.
The question is how you can track a positive result, if the position is not permanent. Thank you.
Hi Mike, pay close attention to the way I’m choosing target test sites. When a PBN hits these things, we’re talking massive difference in ranking.
It seems I understood what my mistake was, you wrote that you are adding several links, I thought I should add just one link.
Did I understand correctly that you add 3-5 links with test pbn on donor (in top 20-30), 1 link with home page (pbn), and 2-3 links from the internal pages (pbn).
No, I send one link from each PBN to each test site.
Thanks for the material meth.
Do you test for toxicity only pbn? What about other types of links, for example (guest posts, web 2.0, etc.), they can be toxic and give a minus? And why some of the pbn toxic? I don’t quite understand why some PBN give minus positions, if the domain itself is not under the Google filter.
If you can tell more details. These questions are very interesting. Thanks.
I only test PBNs because these are the links that I control and primarily invest in. Why are some toxic? The point of this article is that we don’t really know why. We can vet all we like but only testing will give a real answer.
Yes you are right. I mean, you did not conduct a toxicity test on other types of links (guest posts, web 2.0, etc)? It would be very interesting, other links too can be toxic or this toxicity concerns only pbn (dropped domains).
So yep, it seems like a PBN link had a negative impact on the SERP based on the graph that you showed. But have you tried testing that one against 5-10 other websites, and has it also only resulted in negative SERP impacts?
My doubts with this kind of data are in its inconsistency.
– Decided to go ahead and give 15 great, indexed PBNS that have a former history of Asian content and some even PBNS. Excited to see how many of them actually result in a positive result. If negative result I’m going to try pointing to 5 other properties and see.
– So you really see results from the link already after 2 weeks usually?
Regards,
Simon Treulle
– Usually I re-test a domain a second time before I throw it out.
– These days I can sometimes see a result in a week, but most of the time its 2-3 weeks+.
Hey Matt,
Is there any way to “recover” a PBN that is toxic?
I’d rather move on, cut my losses and focus on my topline.
Hi Matt,
thx as always, but quick question. Which way do you prefer:
1. Find a niche related site ranking on page 2 that might get some new links every once in a while (we don’t know).
OR
2. Use a site that featured an event e.g. in 2014/2015 that is long gone. The site does not get any new quality links placed for sure, but is NOT niche related.
Looking forward to your answer and best regards
D
of course I am talking about finding a site as test case
I go for #2.
got it. And if you go for #2, do you create a test blog post that is related to your niche or to the niche of the site you are linking to?
so let’s say PBN in home improvement niche that has to be tested, I found a testcase site about salsa festival in los angeles in 2014.
Would you simply write about the festival and link to it? Since you use $3 iWriter text, which you are going to delete after the test anyway or would that be a footprint?
Thank you my friend :)!
I find test sites with the criteria in the article. I don’t care about niche relevance as it is a non-factor because of the way I select the sites in the article. Best of luck.
I followed your article instructions precisely! But what about this part:
Quote:
“Identify a Testcase
Find a 3rd party website with the following criteria.
– It’s in your niche”
Looking forward to your reply 🙂 Cheers my mate!
What’s the question?
my question is, do I need to be careful when testing my PBNs, if I link out to a test-site that is in a completely different niche? I would delete the article after the test. Is that a footprint?
What’s your gut feeling?
Hi Matt,
I’ve follow your advice and tested my 20+ domains I had initially purchased to use as PBNs – after placing them on new hosting (following your other guide). Some were strong performers, some did nothing (2 months on) while others didn’t make the cut. Of the strongest performers – I linked 2 strongest PBN’s to 3 of my money sites – 1 exact match link each.
It’s now been a month and a week since I placed the new content and 3 links. Sadly there’s been no movement on any of the target serps. Just wondering if you have any advice?
Cheers
Check out this article: https://diggitymarketing.com/the-real-reason-why-your-backlinks-dont-work/
Shall do – thanks for that!
I guess you should be careful, because it’s an SEO-move… so how do you link out to an obsolete wedding registry site, if your PBN is not in the wedding niche? What is the topic of your article?
There’s always a way to make this work.
do you rebuild old page that have links or just redirect them to home page?what about content on PBN?It related to both PBN domain and money site or just related to money site?
For testing, I keep them very simple. No rebuilding of old pages. Sometimes I use old content, sometimes I repurpose, but the content is always within niche because I always maintain the same topic. If it was an auto site before, its an auto PBN after.
Hey Matt,
thanks for the article. What do you do with PBN that don’t do anything to the tested site? I am in the casino niche so finding niche related domains for a PBN is super hard… mostly I use non niche related domains… 30 to 40% work very good, 20% to 30% are toxic but lets say around another 30% don’t do anything positive or negative to the sites I test them on.
Sometimes I test them 3 or 4 times with different longtails (4-5 words) from the casino niche… but there is no clear test result either in the positive or negative way.
Thanks for your opinion on this.
I throw them away.
Hi Matt, thanks for the stuff, I really need your advice.
I repeated your experiment, but ran into a strange thing.
I spent 2 experiments with the same domains, in the first experement they gave good growth, in the second all the domains gave a big minus.
In the first test, all domains gave (+ 10-30 positions), in the second, the same domains yielded (-10-30 positions).
Why do you think this happened? Why did the same pbn give rise first (+) and then fall (-).
As a result, what conclusion should be that these domains are good or bad?
I don’t know how you’re choosing your test sites. If they’re chosen according to my criteria in this post (https://diggitymarketing.com/how-to-test-your-pbns/) then the only reason you should be having issues in round #2 might be random documents algorithm.
Hey man,
Great article. I have a few related questions:
1. Sometimes I see ranking improvements or damage within 3 or 4 days ( so before a week). Is that sufficient time to draw any conclusion?
2. If nothing happens to the test and it stay in the same position after a week. Would you consider that a pass or a fail?
Thanks
1) Sure. Just make sure its a genuine ranking increase and not just SERP noise.
2) Give it as long as 30 days.
Matt- More great stuff here. One thing that I see as a common theme in some of your testings is that you have to be sure to start with 100% neutral a condition. Eliminate any out side factors that can influence findings.
It’s kinda like looking for a bug or say if you’re working with WordPress and looking plugin conflicts. Strip everything away and address individual topics. One step at a time. Again very good info here and precision testing. A valuable reference to Iwriter to. I love that fact you don’t have to pay until satisfied.
Thanks for the detailed studies, I’ll be utilizing this for sure.
Hi Matt,
2 quick questions.
1. What if the test domain doesn’t have any links, would it still be good for testing?
2. Not sure what you mean by your 4th criteria “All other related keywords are also on page 2.”. Could you please explain this?
Thank you!
1) Sure
2) You just want to make sure you’re not sending links to a site that’s jammed up in high-competition land.
Hey Matt, great article, the problem starts if the website on second page already has an exact match anchor from a PBN that you can’t see using AHREFS.
Don’t choose SEO sites for testcases. Chose “innocent” ones with no backlinks or very few at that.
Hello Matt, while having positive results I usually have 1 big jump e.g from position 20 to position 10 in a day. However for some sites ranking increases like 1 position a day (I would call it climbing). So it takes around 10 days from the day it started moving up (position 20) till it reaches position 10. Is this still ok and we can assume the test result is positive?
Both sound positive.
Hi Matt, thanks for all this mind-blowing information. I have some doubts regarding this method:
1. Is there any change for this method in 2017, like the use of supporting articles, word count of the article, etc.?
2. Do you post the article and wait 36 days before adding the link?
Thank you very much, I really appreciate all the help you give us all.
1) Still works the same for me.
2) I post the link right away when the article goes up. Like 99% of the rest of the world.
Would it make sense to look up in google for some made up KW like “dog eat pencil drown floor” ranking on a 2nd page as a test site and measure whether it hits place #1? Or it must be some legit KW with monthly searches?
That’s one way to do it. Just make sure it hits all the criteria.
Great article Matt. That helps explain whats going on with some of my videos that have tanked after linking out from some new domains. I believe a lot of domains have been dumped prematurely because of lack of testing before linking out. I want to ask your opinion on something. I have a few domains that I have tested in this way, where after a month or so, there is no movement either way in the SERPS. However, the domain itself is ranking on page 1 for the article title. For instance I have one article titled similar to “the value of plumbing repair” ranking number 5 on page 1, but not helping site that it is linking to. It would seem that if you had a bad domain it would not rank for anything. Your thoughts?
Maybe you’re choosing your testcases incorrectly. Revisit that. If the domain itself ranks, then it should be able to supply good juice to what it links out to… that is… if the target site is good for it.
Hey Matt.
Grt stuff already removed removing 2 links. It really rocks. Bad domaines does not.
So if you test and its passive nothing happened you will test again and then see ?
Usually, yes.
I see you replied to another question. Sorry about that.
But thumbs up, it’s really powerfully, my network has slowly and steadily decreased the last 6 months.
It’s coming back ain I finally found the reason, and i have been lokking so hard for so long. Thes is some of the most vital info I ever got. I never trught i was in my well placed pbns.
Its incredeble how much damage one site can do. And good to, if its working.
Thanks Matt
Matt are you 100% sure if a site ranks it still not toxic ?
I have tested several sites with negative result. I will try to dubble test, but stil.
What’s the definition of toxic? If we’re assuming that toxic means exhibiting a result that deranks what it links to, then a positive ranking result will refute that.
If PBN passes the test I can use it for other sites as well, right? No need to test on the second niche for example and another industry competitor?
No need.
Hey Matt, do you track your potential test cases before sending the link? Seems like you might get a false positive/negative, if you send a test link to a site that’s bouncing around the serps.
Yes, I do.
Hey there, so I’ve tryed the testing method with a few new expired domains. The thing is, a week has passed by now and the links didn’t move the serps either up or down althouh the blog posts are indexed. Should I wait longer or does it mean that every expired domain is acquired is useless? (Which would make me wonder, because the expireds have some really nice authority links)
Wait a month.
Would you consider this one to be toxic PBN? https://prnt.sc/h4goc1 It’s been 11 days though, I’ll wait 1 month fully, but to me, it looks like it’s toxic one and this one, for example, looks like a winner http://prntscr.com/h4gqfd
Give it the full 30 days.
Is there any software you use or something that you can recommend to track and test this results? Manually it’s nightmare
I don’t use software for this. VAs.
Hello sir,
I have created account on postlinks.com and backlinks.com for selling links but when I added my website on these site at the beginning my all website domain authority is above 45 after one month it becomes DA30 after two months it becomes DA15 and after three months its lower than DA10 so how to maintain DA constant if any idea to maintain DA constant plz share me …
You need to buy domains whose links are not going to get pulled after you buy them. This normally doesn’t happen with truly white hat sites. It tends to happen when you buy sites that are artificially inflated by the seller.
So, If we buy domains from the auction that are not expired/dropped domains, we don’t need to test them right? Imagine if you are paying $300-500 per domain and they turn crap somehow, who can afford such a thing but huge companies and super affiliates?
You still absolutely need to test them. Price does not guarantee that they’ll work.
Hello,
This a great article on PBN testing.
Thank you for this great article
Hello,
I have read the article & it give me a lot about PBN. Due to this article I am able to recognize which is PBN.
Thank you for increasing my ability.
systematically testing all my new pbns now and it works like a charm. Thanks
I dont want to go through the process for all my old pbns which are up for 3 yrs+. Still I want to know if the pbns are good or toxic.
Question: I rank #9 for “dog training videos”. One of my pbns sends an anchor “pet outdoor training videos”.
Now I find that I rank
#1 pet outdoor training videos (= anchor)
#5 dog outdoor training videos (= mix of target keyword + anchor)
Is it reasonable to assume that the pbn is good based on these rankings?
Hi Alex… no that is not enough hard evidence for the PBN being good.
Isn’t it essentially what Adrian described in his comment above (September 17) with his “dog eat pencil drown floor” example?
I’m having a hard time getting to the bottom of your question… I had first read it as “I sent a PBN a long time ago to my money site and now I’m ranking #1. Is the PBN good?”
To that question, I say its not enough evidence. How do you know if its not the other links you sent, or your site’s age, or many other things that might have gotten you to #1?
Stick to my criteria for testing. It covers all the bases.
Hi Matt
I use rental PBN links from different providers. Most of the times they dont disclose the complete url, and show some basic metrics, like DA, UR etc. How do I test them in that case?
In my opinion, if you’re renting links, then its considered to be a premium provider. Then you shouldn’t be having to the testing yourself. They should be doing that and guaranteeing it for you.
Renting influence links via PBNs gets very pricey very quickly. Better to just own and manage my own network but that is a monumental headache…
Great article – much respect to your knowledge.
Great article Matt. I have 2 PBN questions really need your help.
1) First questions is about ‘Test My PBNs’->’Create the Link’. You created new 300 word post from Iwriter.com. It is okay but maybe better results for PBN domains will be when I add link to homepage?
2) I got negative (neutral) result for one of my expired domain. You wrote that this domain is not good. I did some new test. I created a lot of links from my friend PBNs and after that I once again tested this domain and now it is positive result. What should I do with this domain?
1) Correct. THat’s a given.
2) Test the first neutral result again. A lot of times its a fluke.
Great article, I’m building my own PBN for a travel website and I confuse a lot. Thanks for your help.
Thank for your writting. I will check my own PBN immediately.
Hi Matt,
What about sites like seo.domains – do you recommend using their service to buy expired domains?
Haven’t used them but heard great things.
Matt,
I have been following your posts and doing many tests in my pbn.
Recently a set of my pbns got hit and links placed in those sites dropped in rankings.
Before 30 days I removed all those links and also submitted to disavow.
It was ranking well for years, and only because of these links I got hit.
Can u advise how much time will it now in 2020 to recover?(its already 30 days)
Thanks
I’m assuming by “hit” you mean that some got deindexed. In that case, they already don’t exist anymore as far as Google is concerned. There’s no need to disavow. But you need to replace that link juice. In general, you’ll want to replace each PBN with about 2.5 outreach links. That’s about the equivalent power.
But don’t sleep on the million other things that could be going wrong with the site. There’s a been multiple algorithm updates per month lately.