Update: Keeping in mind that PBNs still work, they currently have a history of being targeted by Google and likely are not the safest option. This is why we now focus on creating businesses that don’t solely rely on SEO traffic.
Why Privacy Matters:
When hosting your PBN there are a few things to consider. Your number one consideration – how to remain a PRIVATE blog network. Other considerations would be price and ease of use. You don’t want all your domains to be hosted in the same “place”. This could set off a red flag with Google that all the sites in your PBN could be owned by the same person solely for the purpose of artificial link building. A lot of time and energy can be spent building your PBN. So it is worth trying to optimize your hosting process to best maintain your PBN’s anonymity. In this article we will explore some options.
Topics we’ll cover:
- What is SEO hosting?
- What is an IP address?
- Cheap Web Hosting
- C-Class SEO Hosting
- Web Hosting Reseller Accounts
- A-Class SEO Hosting
- Conclusion
What is SEO hosting?
SEO hosting employs the strategy of masking the ownership of your online properties by hosting your multiple websites on different IPs with one hosting provider, a few main hosting providers or even on several cheap web hosting accounts. Google may slap one of your sites that it identifies as a blog network site and the traffic and link juice from that site would be lost. However, if your sites are all hosted in different IPs – at least your other sites in your network might survive another day. If they were all hosted in one place – the chances of all of them getting hit together would increase.
What is an IP address?
An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label assigned to your website. With IPv4 your typical web site would get an IP address assigned to it like this:
AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD
A Class Block
B Class Block
C Class Block
D Class Block
Google can block/slap an entire C class block in a data center that shows the signs of a SEO hosting company. In the example below – blocking the C class block 789 would block all of the spammy domains in that node. It seems likely that search engines punishes set ranges of IPs that it detects – as opposed to entire C-blocks.
123.456.789.001 – PBN Domain 1
123.456.789.002 – PBN Domain 2
123.456.789.003 – PBN Domain 3
123.456.789.004 – PBN Domain 4
123.456.789.005 – PBN Domain 5
Cheap Web Hosting:
One way to ensure you have a diversity of C Class IP addresses is to sign up for multiple cheap web hosting accounts. With cheaper and cheaper web servers and data rates, web hosting providers have been able to pass on the price savings to the customers. Web hosting can easily be found for only a few dollars a month.
You can find some here: http://www.top10bestcheaphosting.com
There are a few challenges with using multiple cheap webhosting accounts for your PBN. First – there would be multiple username and passwords. Next multiple billing arrangements would needed as well to maintain multiple hosting accounts. Finally the main reason they are so cheap – is because you probably won’t get world class service from them. Some may have greater server downtime and poor customer service. In the end – you get what you pay for… and cannot expect the world from a $1 a month hosting provider.
C-Class SEO Hosts:
Hosting providers saw an opportunity to serve SEOs by providing them multiple IPs for their various sites. These first providers offered multiple C-Class IPs.
Some examples are:
http://seohosting.com
http://www.seohost.com
The idea was that search engines award a higher ranking to a website that has links pointing to it from other websites (with content on a related topic) that are hosted on unique Class-C IPs. As opposed to having all their links from sites from the same Class-C IP – and raising suspicion that it is an artificial link farm. Owning multiple IPs for several sites lets website owners create links between their own sites without the search engines finding out… at first.
Reseller Accounts
While SEO hosting may have initially served its purpose well – eventually Google caught on to some. The more popular a SEO hosting provider gets – gaining new clients without diversifying its IP addresses with more data centers – the larger and more obvious foot print was left for Google to find.
The No Hat Digital team has had issues with an SEO host where their sites were delisted and no longer recommends any SEO Hosts. Instead they recommend using a reseller account. What a brilliant idea! While you may have no intention actually selling hosting to anyone – with a large enough provider, you will gain access to a large pool of IP address to use for your PBN sites.
The No Hat Digital team specifically recommends Host Nine. Their reseller packages range from $18.95 per month to $93.95 per month. While this may seem like a pricier option to start, as your PBN grows the ability to simplify logins, billing and site changes from one location will pay for itself.
Learn more about Host Nine’s reseller plans here: https://www.hostnine.com/hosting/reseller
The funny thing is their parent company, A Small Orange, also owns a SEO hosting service – http://seowebhosting.net. In any case they have many data centers all over the world and the team at A Small Orange is well known for their superior customer service.
A-Class Web Hosting:
Last I looked – there were about 5 different hosting provider offering A-Class web hosting. These companies are trying to address the weakness in the first generation C-Class SEO web hosting companies.
The first issue they addressed was the contiguous IP blocks used by C-Class hosts. Most SEO web hosting companies have large, sequential blocks of IP addresses. So your typically SEO host will assign you IPs from just one or two larger blocks, putting all your sites very close together for search engines to spot. By using higher level Class A blocks – your IP addresses are hiding in a much larger field of domains. This also alleviates the issues of “bad neighbors” in a shared hosting environment – who can inadvertently bring down your sites rankings.
The next problem A-Hosts address are the number of data centers. Other SEO hosting companies will have servers in only one or perhaps a few data centers. So like a cluster of C-Class IPs, the digital footprint left behind from a data centers location is also noticeable by search engines. The A-Class hosts address this issue by employing dozens of data centers to increase is location diversity.
Finally A-Class hosts help mask the IP ownership records. There is a registry system for IP space, just like there is for domains. Unlike the domain registry – there is no private registration for IPs. Search engines can use this public information to see the owners of those IPs and piece together a traditional SEO web host’s assets. A-Class hosts can address this issue by using IP addresses registered to hundreds of different owners. Their value add is negotiating with other hosting providers
One example of an A-Class host is Cloak Hosting.
Cloak Hosting offers 3 main hosting packages:
| 10 IP Package | 25 IP Package | 100 IP Package |
| $47 / month | $88 / month | $237 / month |
Learn more here: https://cloakhosting.com/technology
Conclusion:
As we stated at the beginning – our three considerations are privacy, price and ease of use. If you are just starting out you may opt to use the cheap web hosting option to host your PBN. This may also be an option if you only have one niche – and no need for a large PBN. However, if you are looking to rank for many keywords and need a larger PBN – you should look into a reseller account with a large web hosting provider or perhaps an A-Class SEO web host to provide both anonymity and ease of maintenance.