What are your thoughts on buying PBN links?

[RikkiElliott]

My current employer was using one previously, at my previous employer we never bought PBN links. Are there certain companies that are safer than others?

[PatrickDelehanty]

Hi there

Google actually penalized sites using this technique back in 2014. I'd say, don't do it, that's just my vote based on history. You're better off investing your time and resources elsewhere.

Hope this helps, good luck!
Patrick

[dohertyjf]

Don't do it. I have friends who have owned PBNs but came under so much heat from Google and others that they ended up selling them and getting out of it.

Things like this are always caught eventually. It may work for you short term, and if you're in that business of churn-and-burn sites and they're your own (not a client's) then I see no harm in it really. It's your own choice.

But if you are building a longterm business, this is a short term tactic that will only hurt you in the long run. Time and money better spent doing real marketing activities to build your traffic and brand over time.

Good luck.

[MikeGracia]

Personally I wouldn't do it. No way. At the end of the day this would be very clearly against Google's terms (not to mention low-quality work), so effectively you'd be placing a bet with your site's reputation on if Google's engineers successfully catch you.

If it's a business that wants to do well in the long term online, I wouldn't take the risk of a bet like that against someone like Google, who have 'one or two' decent engineers actively trying to catch this sort of thing.

Pattern spotting is likely to catch you out and end up with you in hot water, it's just not worth the risk (in my opinion).

As John points out, for a churn & burn website this may work I guess (not something I'd be involved in tbh!), but at the end of the day if you get caught, you're a bit screwed... Plus it'd just be contributing to more crappy content out there on the web - not something any of us need!