37 PBN Footprints

As private blog network owners, we often find ourselves having tinfoil hat
conversations about how Google are out to find us.

In this short PDF, Ive listed 37 footprints for you to look out for on your network.

But Ill be straight with you, this was mostly clickbait. While these footprints may
help you to be cautious, avoiding footprints is rather simple - Dont be lazy, mix
things up. If you use different hosts, different registrars, different content, different
setups, and actually put effort into your PBN sites - youre good.

Heres the list:

Domains
1. Always using the same registrar
2. Registering all domains on the same date
3. Using the same email address on all domains
4. Using the same whois information (inc. fake)
5. Purchasing from public sources that clearly show the domain to the whole
world
6. Using custom nameservers too much (not natural for small sites)

Hosting
7. Bad IP neigbourhood (especially SEO hosts and low reputation cheap hosts)
8. Bad nameserver neighbourhood
9. Same IP address owner for several sites
10. Same nameservers across several sites
11. SOA record reveals email address
12. Using Reverse proxies too much (i.e. CloudFlare)

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Simple fix for all of the above: Use popular/reputable shared hosting providers like
HostGator, BlueHost, etc.

Site Setup
13. Mass redirecting all 404 pages
14. Bot blocking (technically, but extremely low risk, dont worry about it)
15. Using the same plugins every time
16. Using the same theme every time
17. Any other patterns i.e. same layout or widgets every time
18. Using Analytics or tracking that leaks owner or is the same inc. the same
affiliate id if you want to add affiliate links
19. Blocking backlink analysis tools by robots.txt
20. Exact same username or author name for every site
21. All your sites just look like 2 minute setup PBNs (hard to describe, but if you
can tell within 2 seconds its a PBN, its not well setup)

Site Content
22. All posts contain a link to your money site(s)
23. No links to authority sites
24. No inner page links
25. All posts on all sites following a length pattern i.e. all 500 words
26. Duplicate or badly spun content (tip: skip spun content altogether)
27. Having zero pages, or the exact same ones every time
28. Having the exact same amount of posts on every site
29. Using the same images or videos across multiple sites
30. Missing pages basically every site has (contact, privacy policy, and about as
examples, but depends on niche)
31. Posts all made on the same day

Site Linking
32. Always linking in the first post (or similar patterns)

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33. Always using a certain amount of links to your money site (i.e. 1 image, 1 exact,
1 brand)
34. Having all PBN sites in completely irrelevant niches to your money site (this is
totally fine for link juice, but is a footprint in quantity)
35. Having a several PBN sites with matching outbound link profiles i.e. 10 PBN
sites all link to the exact same 5 money sites (not a huge deal for smaller
networks, try to mix it up with authority links, and build PBN clusters)
36. Linking your PBN sites to each other (duh)
37. All links using exact match anchor texts (especially unnatural ones i.e.
plumbers london rather than plumbers in london)

Or rather than sit their in paranoia about what youre doing wrong, focus on what
you should do to setup your PBN right.

Check out my PBN guide here: http://lionzeal.com/pbn-guide/

Its the best free PBN training youll find on the web - in my biased opinion. And
has over 122 comments with feedback and additional questions/answers, so its not
just me that think so.

Cheers,
Daryl

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