Guest Posting Vs PBN’S – Free Link building Beginners Guide

How Are Guest Posts Different From PBN'S ?

PBN-Link-BuildingIf you own a website or do SEO for websites you will have undoubtedly come across PBN'S on offer for link building services or what has recently pretty much taken over PBN'S that is guest posts.

Many SEO services often have to look for as many different avenues when it comes to link building and many are even asking " does link building work in 2022 and beyond "  and does Google frown upon link building ? What about the differences between guest posting vs PBN'S ?

There are loads of SEO consultants around and even when it comes to local SEO, link building is still utilised and guest posts and PBN'S are still used for link building.

Guest post services have popped up all over the web offering link building services.

Being located in Sydney, even most if not all SEO Sydney experts in some way shape or form utilise either Guest posts or PBN's for link building, even if it is against Google's terms of service.

If you want links in a timely manner for the purposes of rankings and are not afraid of Google, Guest posts and PBN's in your SEO campaign will go a long way in improving rankings. It is and probably will remain to be part of a link building arsenal in all SEO company's strategies for building.

So you have decided to go the PBN or guest post route. Which do you choose, which is safest and which is better ? You'll be surprised how in reality there is very little difference between the two. Paid link-building is paid link building, whether it is through guest posting or PBN links, Google will not be too happy.

Guest Posting Vs PBN'S

Guest Post Features

  • Usually, Live Traffic Sites
  • Paid Links
  • Only One Link Allowed
  • Can Be Very Expensive
  • Can Take Up To A Month To Obtain Link
  • You Do Not Own The Site
  • You Can Not Structure The Article For SEO Purposes They Way You Wish
  • Some Can Can Carry High DA But Not Always High TF And CF
  • Not Always High Quality Content Sites

PBN Features

  • Expired Or Dropped Domain Usually Purchased And Relaunched With Related Content.
  • Expensive To Purchase High-Quality Domain
  • Not Usually A Live Site
  • Domain Usually Purchased By Owner
  • Paid Links if Outsourced
  • Controlled Content By Owner
  • Content Can Be Structured Best As Possible For SEO purposes
  • Can Be Built Into A Professional Looking Website
  • As Many Links Can Be Placed By Owner At No Charge
  • One-Off Purchase Price During Purchase Of Domain
  • Can Be Used For Multiple Site Links
  • Usually Not Revealed

It has long been debated if guest posting is still frowned upon when it comes to obtaining backlinks from highly relevant sources.  Also, are PBN'S frowned upon by Google ? When it comes to guest posting and PBN'S there really are only some minor differences between the two.

Is Guest Posting Against Google's Terms Of Service ?

Any link building that is sourced through means of remuneration or obtained for the purposes of manipulating rankings goes against Google's terms of service.  Google released a report that for the purposes of using guest posts that it now requires that all guest posts links be set to no-follow. This is to satisfy Google that links being built are not built for ranking purposes.

Whether it is another website or a guest post from a guest posting service. Most guest posts, however, are actual live sites with real traffic. Some with no traffic but they are actual live websites and many of these websites will gladly accept guest posts from writers or authors.

Now is guest posting ok with Google? Sure it is, as long as you have not paid for that link and it has been obtained through genuine measures and not for the purposes of rankings manipulation.. If it is a paid link, it is strictly against Google's terms of service and any link from guest posting is required to be a no-follow link. If you insist on using do-follow links, you will not be in Google's good books.

Are PBN Links Against Google Terms Of Service ?

Absolutely they are. PBN'S are purely for the manipulation of rankings but it is not totally a bad plan of attack if you can source links from high-quality PBN'S that actually contain highly relevant information and do not want to take forever to rank.

Strong domain PBN links can rank sites very quickly. It goes without saying that most SEO services today still use them because sites can be ranked relatively quickly as opposed to repetitive email outreach.

As time goes on, even PBN's become fully-fledged websites containing very valuable resources and information. The difference here between a PBN and a guest post is that most PBN'S are basically expired or dropped domains that are purchased and content built on these websites.

These sites are used for the purposes of building-related content to a given niche and links placed within them which point to money sites. Although the majority are generally non-traffic websites, they can contain better quality ( and many do ) than Actual guest posting services and many actual websites.

The only complication is that Google is against this link building process because it is intended purely for rankings.

To start with, when it comes to backlinks, it can be a very tedious process to obtain links naturally through related sources that are 100% white hat.

There is a lot of emailing involved, you sometimes have to go through admins to reach the head guy in charge of the site and this can take what seems an eternity to even receive a response.

The process is very tedious and in most circumstances can exhaust a great deal of time in sourcing these links. In most cases, most small business owners do not have the time or the manpower to do so. In many instances like this, the process of link building is often outsourced to SEO service or dedicated SEO Experts

Clients all have the one same question....' HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE YOU TO RANK ME "....and no client wants to hear 12 months plus because email link building outreach can take this long or longer to obtain high-quality links and all for 100 percent white hat.

This is where Guest Posting and PBN'S come into effect. Provided all else is in order, these methods of link building still work and work well if you really are not particularly too concerned about stepping on Google's toes.

So what happens when someone tells you .." It is against Google's terms of service and one day they may catch up with you ".....In cases like this, it would be recommended that anyone building links for manipulation of rankings that Google analytics not be part of their SEO strategy campaign for tracking purposes.

Google Analytics has always been a great tool but any SEO specialist would know that no two different types of software ever return the same results and not even Google is 100 percent accurate. There is however one difference between Google Analytics and third-party software like Semrush or Ahrefs.

Google Analytics is free, third-party software is not.

In our experience, when it comes to link building, we have always engaged the services of third party software and Not Google Analytics.  Google Analytics is free for a reason. It is there for Google, not the web developers looking to escape a monthly analytics charge.

Why Is Google Analytics Free ?

The primary reason Google Analytics is free of charge is so that Google can track all link building efforts of web developers.

What can be better for Google than a Google engineer to log into your account and have at their access a full clear cut map of all your link building works in progress. Link building footprints are a giveaway to Google that manipulation of rankings could be taking place. Even if it is white hat SEO.

Regardless of how you may read Google's updates about what SEO Google is looking for, Google loves ADWORDS, not SEO. One of the reasons it updates algorithms so often today is to shake up SEO practices alongside improving UX.

Most website owners carrying out link building as part of their SEO campaign are without a doubt going to display a footprint within their Google Analytics account that is going to be picked by a random Google inspection.

This is the issue with Google Analytics. Google has access to your account at all times making it very easy for a random inspection of any link building work.

Take Note

If you have practised link building in the past and have been penalised repeatedly on different occasions with different domains, do not be surprised that it is happening because you may be using Google Analytics.

For anyone intending to build links for the purposes of manipulating rankings, it would be good advice to always use third-party services like ahrefs or Semrush for analytics tracking rather than Google Analytics.

It matters not that you are utilising Guest posting, PBN'S press releases, articles, bookmarking or whichever your methods may be, there is nothing better than Google NOT knowing your business when it comes to link building and how you choose your link building tree to be structured, regardless of whether it is white hat, grey hat or black hat SEO.

Google loves Adwords, not SEO. Hopefully, this answers some questions about guest posting vs PBN'S and the what not to do methods of keeping your links under the radar

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