What are PBN Links?
A private blog network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are used to build links back to a primary site, often one whose rankings the user wants to improve. While this method of link building has some short-term benefits, it also comes with the risk of incurring penalties from Google and a drop in search engine results. It’s also an expensive strategy that will quickly eat into any profits the target website might be making.
Using a reliable PBN links to manipulate search engines is a black-hat tactic that’s not only unethical, but it can actually cause sites to lose their organic rankings in the long run. This is because Google considers every link to a website as a vote of confidence in that website’s content. Using a PBN to artificially inflate this number is a violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can ultimately result in the site being punished.
How Search Engines Handle PBN Links in 2025
While it’s not possible to completely eliminate the risks of using a PBN, it is possible to make sure the strategy isn’t being utilized. The easiest way to do this is to use an SEO tool such as Semrush to check a site’s backlink profile. PBN links are generally easy to spot, as they tend to be low-quality websites that look suspiciously similar and have lots of exact-match anchor text.
If you’re considering working with a link-building agency, it’s crucial to vet them carefully and ask for samples of links they’ve built previously for clients. If any of these look like PBN links, be sure to take advantage of Semrush’s Network Graph feature, which makes it super easy to spot unnatural looking link patterns.