Is it possible to leverage the power of private blog networks without actually building one?
The answer: “YES!”
The strategy that I’m about to show you is white hat, safe, and if you want, will allow you to never have to use a PBN again.
Let’s start:
The Strategy
You’re going to leverage the links that make expired domains powerful. The only reason anyone even considers using expired domains is because of the tier one links going to the domain.
Here’s how it works:
Topically relevant links -> Expired Domain -> Your Site
With this model, you have to buy the expired domain, get hosting, get content and take all kinds of measures to eliminate footprints. More importantly, this model doesn’t allow you to get 100% link equity because the expired domain acts as a buffer.
Here’s what we want:
Topically relevant links -> Your Site
Tier one links are the most powerful because you get almost all the link equity.
I’m going to warn you:
This strategy is not cool or glamorous…
It will take hard work and time.
You may want to consider outsourcing some of these tasks because of the time investment necessary.
Now that I’ve scared you, let’s talk about what tools you’ll need.
Tools for the Job
Use the following websites to find expiring domains:
https://www.domcop.com/
http://www.expireddomains.net/
http://www.freshdrop.com/
You will also need Majestic and Ahrefs to analyze the links. You can use Open Link Profiler as well since it’s free.
Why This Strategy is Evergreen
There is a good chance that Google could devalue expired domains altogether or use some type of sandbox in the future. With this strategy, you’ll never have to worry about the effectiveness of your private blog network. That’s because you’re not actually using one! You’re just snatching up the links that make the expired domains powerful in the first place.
The first expired domain resource that I’m going to show you is DomCop. This is one of the best because it emphasizes Topical Trust Flow. As you know, the safest and most effective link building strategy is to acquire links from sites that have a relevant Topical Trust Flow to your website.
1. Open up DomCop and click “Simple Filter”
2. My settings: DA = 20 +, Trust Flow = 15 +, only common TLDs (.com, .net., and .org)
3. Search and sort by Majestic Trust flow
4. Now go down the list and look at the Topical Trust Flow for each domain
5. When you find a relevant one, click the colored number and it will take you directly to Majestic
From there, you can start looking for link acquisition opportunities. After you’ve sifted through Majestic, you should also run the same expired domain through Ahrefs. We just use a simple Google doc to handle all the link data. Don’t over-complicate this!
Keep in mind:
The only way you’re going to have success with this strategy is if your site has valuable content. The site owner isn’t going to replace the old link with some trashy one page affiliate site you made. They will want to replace the dead link with something of value.
Content Replacement
One way to increase your reach out success rate is to replace the content that was originally linked to. For example, let’s say I found an expired domain that used to be a blog about SEO.
I would look at its link profile and discover that it has links going to a blog post about “On-Page SEO“. I could either leverage an article I already have or just create a new resource knowing that there are links just waiting to be acquired.
The beauty of this strategy is that you know that the original content/topic was well-received and “linkable”. All you have to do on your side is create a better resource than the original and reach out. You should consider looking at Archive.org to see if you can find the original article that acquired the links.
Worst case scenario, you created a resource that you know is popular based on the link history of the expired domain.
Reach Out
There is no secret to reaching out. Just be genuine, compliment their work, kindly notify them that they are linking to a dead resource/website out of business, and give them an amazing alternative (your website/content) to replace the broken link. Personalize the email as much as possible, but the reach out process needs to scale. So you should test templates until you come up with one that has a high response rate.
Hint: if you have a female who works for you, have her participate in the outreach. Females tend to get higher response rates.
Success Rate
This strategy isn’t easy and it will certainly take more effort than just buying the expired domain. On average, you will probably be able to secure around 20% of the links you reach out to. The key to having a higher success rate is to only focus on opportunities that are highly relevant.
So, for Gotch SEO, I would need to find an old Internet Marketing and SEO blog that I could leverage. It wouldn’t make sense for me to reach out to real estate websites or something outside of my niche.
There are thousands of domains that expire every single day, which means there are thousands of opportunities for you to secure links for your business.
Other Benefits of This Strategy
What I really love about this strategy is that you can uncover all types of different opportunities. When you begin your research, you’ll find the dead links going to the expired domains, but you’ll also uncover content ideas, other dead resources/sites, and all kinds of different link opportunities.
Just the intel you gather from researching old domains should be more than enough for any link builder to put this strategy in your arsenal.
Have you ever used this link building strategy? Let’s talk in the comments.
Thanks for reading!
– Gotch
Wouldn’t it be easier to just buy the expired domain – see what links went where and use 301 redirects to the “new content” on your site?
Hi Chad,
Good question. Anything that’s “easier” in SEO is typically more dangerous. Having multiple 301s is highly fishy, so scale would be a problem. Just having the links is way more safe/effective. Plus 301’s don’t pass 100% link equity, so you would be losing out on power. Hope that makes sense and thanks for the comment!
You can get away with this for a couple of times, but if you start mass redirect “rainbow marble” domains to “green marbles” it will, eventually, raise a flag; if not manual then automatic/algo penalty will apply. Better success rate with relevant domains but also tread easy. Another thing – if you just bluntly redirect expired domain, you will lose a lot of those links soonish. Been in PBN biz for last 5 years. Do a careful research in each and every domain history before you buy it, might be surprised how many spammed and dropped “very old and good” looking domains expire each day. Some of them don’t even get second chances in GWT with new owners (wonder what you gotta do to get that hard a slap).
Thank you for the good insights Andy and I agree!
I have reconstructed literally hundreds of domains and never encountered one that didn’t get a “second chance” i’ll bet that you didn’t do proper due diligence, because if you would have this would not be a problem at all.
Well-done on this article, Nathan!
Domcop.com is a great website for expired domain names. The founder, Akash, is also a great guy and very helpful!
Thank you sir!
Yeah, great idea — def reminds me of Brian Dean’s Moving Man method
I recall in a previous post by you, you had dismissed the need to use a proxy IP to set up something similar (I think it might have been your web 2.0 post). Would you still agree with that with this strategy? On a side note, I would love to see some of your outreach email samples that get you a 20% success rate! That would be awesome to see!
Dan,
Thank you for the comment! Using proxies is safe measure, but isn’t necessary on web 2.0s because Google can’t see who is signing up. I definitely will share some high-converting email templates
Anyone claiming that SEO and link building in particular is an easy task should read this one in order to understand how much work is needed even to acquire a simple “good” backlink. I wish it was easy to explain that to customers who want “serious” SEO services with £100/month. Thank you Nathan
George,
Thanks for the comment! “Good” backlinks aren’t easy to get, but they are well worth the effort. £100/month!? That’s insanity
Fantastic SEO strategy Gotch, thank you so much
Thank you!!
Yeh its good idea… I hope its working for me
Keep Sharing
Thank you sir!
Great Stuff again! Mr. Nathan…. Thank You Once again!
Regards..!!
Thank you for the comment!
Hey Gotch, what an excellent post, I have two questions:
1. Profile links are good for tier 1?
2. Web 2.0 single paged based websites are indexed faster, how much tier 2 links we should build, like I usually use YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion and some social sharing sites to get links and it gets indexed, but the problem is, I don’t get my posts ranked with web 2.0’s, so please tell me how much tier 2 links I should build on my web 2.0, Thanks in advance, waiting for your reply, please respond soon, I know you will help me because you are the only one who solves other people problems, Thanks
Hi George,
Thanks for the comment.
1. Branded profile links are great for building trust. Read this post: 10 Ways to Build Brand Signals for SEO
2. For indexation you should consider reading this post
Ok thanks gotch, I understood, now just tell me that profile links are considered as naked links or what?
Thanks in advance.
George,
Yes, you should only be using branded anchor text on your branded profiles. Naked links, branded anchors, etc.
Hi Nathan,
I don’t get it, maybe I should read it one more time. Do you need to buy the expired domain and contact the webmaster who links to the expired domain?
I would just contact the webmaster who linked to the expired domain and tell him: the domain and business is expired and ask him to link to my niche site.
Please reply Nathan. And thanks for taking the time to write down this wonderful piece of content.
Hi Gabriel,
Thanks for the comment and sorry for any confusion! This strategy is all about contacting the webmasters who are linking to dead resources (expired domains)
Great article, but I’m slightly confused. Wouldn’t the link just stay and all you have to do is recreate the link URL with some decent content or from Archive.org (as mentioned).
What is the idea behind contacting the person who is linking to you? I don’t think 98% of website owners go back and look at their old outbound links. By notifying them, aren’t you in essence guaranteeing that 80% of them will drop you by your math?
I think I’d rather take my chances that they forgot they linked to the site.
Am I missing something here?
Thanks in advance for taking the time to answer my question.
Chris
Hi Chris,
Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the comment! The strategy you’re implying is to create a private blog network. The point of this article was to show you an SAFE alternative to creating a PBN. Yes, you won’t recover many of the links you reach out for. However, the links you do recover will be much more effective because they will be sending link equity and relevancy directly to your website. More importantly, this strategy is 100% safe. PBNs are not.
* Important note: I’m not “hatin” on PBNs. I’m just trying to show some alternatives for people that don’t want to take on the risk.
The tactic that you are outlining here is a method of Broken Link Building. But is one that I haven’t thought of previously. I’m going to use this when I get to broken link building for the current SEO campaign I’m working on.
Hi Brad,
It sure is broken link building! Thanks for the comment
Hi gotch you didn’t answered:
Ok thanks gotch, I understood, now just tell me that profile links are considered as naked links or what?
Thanks in advance.
Hey Gotch,
Maybe this is a little unrelated, but I would like to know:
Can you create a PBN-esque setup with web 2.0s such as wordpress, weebly, etc?
Thanks in advance.
Thanks for the comment!
You certainly can, but out of the gates, PBNs are better because you get immediate authority. With a web 2.0 network, you have to increase the Page Authority through tier two links for it to be effective.
Yes .. Its also remind me the brian sir. moving man method.. This post is also amazing . Please sharing How to rank images on google search..
Thanks for the comment Jessica!
Good article. I’ve read about broken link building many times but haven’t ever implemented it. Have you ever put together a full scale broken link building campaign? Can we see that email template you mentioned you’d share?
Tyson,
Thanks for your comment! Yes, we use broken link building as a go-to technique. I’ll update the article with some templates soon
Broken link building is a time consuming, yet very powerful form of SEO. This is an expansion on what people have been doing with Wikipedia for years. Great post on the subject! We all need to find, or at least use our own twist on PBN’s, as the blatant footprints are getting easier to detect.
Danny,
Thank you for the comment! It’s definitely time consuming, but totally worth it
Hi guys,
I am currently in a process of building backlinks for my niche site and was looking for an alternative to PBN and web 2, as I am totally freaked out because of google penalties to PBN and web 2 linking sites…I am not sure what will work out for me, but will try Gotch’s tech definitely.. thanks for the tip…
Hi Sophie,
Thanks for the comment! You should also consider reading this: https://www.gotchseo.com/how-to-build-tier-one-backlinks/
Thanks for the help, I’ll proceed step by step and will see if I am able to build a strong and reliable seo strategy on my own, and I am hopeful getting more helpful tips here..
thanks again
Also please let me know about the broken link technique, I wish I could learn it here…anyone has tips? have you shared any detailed article on the topic? or can I learn it through any websource or article?
Hi Sophie,
This is essentially a broken link technique, but I will be publishing a more in-depth guide soon
Thanks…I’ll be looking forward for your next post on the subject…