PBN RELATED TOOL LIST

PBN RELATED TOOL LIST

This is a straight forward list of tools that I use whenever I may be doing anything PBN related. As some of you might be aware, over the last few months I've scaled up my PBN set up process hugely and these are the tools that have assisted me along the way.

I'm not going to bother listing all the hosts I use, etc as I'll be here forever. I'll simply list the tools and services I've used that I think are worth mentioning.

DOMAINS

Hammerhead Domains - One of the first few sites I used back in the day when I was searching for domains for my earlier networks. You can sign up for a free account and try your luck at finding some domains but the best way to find some gems is to sign up to their paid plan. Here's the best bit - sign up to their 7 day trial for $1. This gets you full access to approx 80+ domains per day. Simply cancel your subscription on the 7th day. By the time your trial ends, you'll have received 500+ domains. Out of those 500, at least 20+ should be "good enough" to go into your network. Rinse and repeat. It would only cost you an investment of $4/month. If you don't want to pay the $1, their "free" access is restricted to 10 domains a day + a maximum of DA 19 (although metrics on its own don't mean much!). You might be able to grab 1 or more decent domains per day if you're lucky. Please do your own due diligence if you decide to use their paid plans as I am not affiliated with this site.

Expireddomains.net - Everyone has probably heard of this site. Probably a good place to start for anyone who is new to PBN's.

FakeNameGenerator - Comes in handy when you're creating lots of WHOIS profiles and you'd rather have all the information in front of you to just copy/paste into your registrar.

EasyBlogNetworks (pricing page) - I do not recommend hosting all your domains with them, but from all the other services I've tried for "all in one PBN domain management" - this one is probably the easiest to use in terms of interface/quality. If you're just starting out (10 or less domains) and you're looking for a service that'll allow you to take care of all your hosting/management needs in 1 place.. this is probably it. I do have a bunch of domains added with them, but as I mentioned above, don't get lazy and just start dumping all your domains to them. If you're considering using "IP Networx" - avoid them.

404 to 301 Redirection - Quite self explanatory. Allows you to redirect all your broken links/404 links to your homepage or wherever you want. This allows the juice to flow through.

Block Backlink Crawlers - If you're looking to block backlink crawlers, then the best way to do this would be via htaccess. There are plugins around that claim to block bots and even if they work, they can sometimes leave silly footprints. The htaccess code I've provided is pretty simple/basic but it should do the job.

Managing Your PBN/Domains (virus scan) - This is a pretty nice Excel sheet to help you manage your PBN/domains/other stuff. This is for those who like to manage everything in a spreadsheet. I downloaded this sheet from another site/course I read a while ago.

Web Hosting Talk - You'll probably find some cheap offers for hosting here. 

RESEARCH TOOLS
Majestic SEO - Don't need to say much about Majestic. Been using this daily for the last few months. I prefer this a lot compared to Ahrefs when it comes to researching and analysing domains. Also mainly used to check TF/CF/etc. It does everything I need it to do. No idea what I'll do without this.

Ahrefs - Whenever my data is looking odd/dodgy, I always go into Ahrefs to double check/verify. Ahrefs is probably better in terms of how much data and information it's able to process and produce, but I still prefer Majestic for their ease of use.

OpenLinkProfiler - Don't have access to Majestic/Ahrefs? This is your best free alternative.

Wayback Machine - This is another tool that is vital for my PBN set up process. For those of you who don't know what the Wayback Machine does.. it basically allows you to view archived "versions" of a particular page during its existence on the Internet. This allows you to enter in a domain, check all its previous versions and see whether or not the domain was clean (was it used as a PBN before? is the content foreign? was the site spammed in the past? was it an adult/pharma/gambling site? etc).

Screenshots - Another handy tool that allows you to view "screenshots" from the past for a page/website. Similar/same as the Wayback Machine. I like to use this to try get more results with the archives if the Wayback Machine doesn't bring the expected results. 

OpenSiteExplorer - An alternative to Majestic/Ahrefs, although I don't use it that much. Mainly use it to check DA/PA/spam scores sometimes.

Did you know Blackhatworld looked like this in 2006?

PBNLab - This was probably one of the first domain scraping tools I used. Works fine providing you know how to use it correctly. Sometimes it can take a while before you find some decent domains, but the tool works. If you expand the filter settings with more harsh metrics, it'll probably take longer before you find domains you can use in your network - but there is a higher chance those domains are going to be a lot stronger.

Grump - If a lot of your PBN's have just been deindexed OR if a lot of sites you used PBN links on have been penalized/dropped in rankings, the 'Grump' tool should give you a rough idea why. It measures the activities in the algorithm on a daily basis to look out for anything out of the ordinary. If you see a huge amount of activity in 'Grump' and you realise your sites that you used PBN links on have dropped.. then there is possibly a connection between the two. Maybe a new update.. or a refresh.. or a core algo change.

Mozcast - Pretty much similar to 'Grump' but Mozcast is more well known.

99WebTools - A collection of some basic SEO tools (such as bulk DA/PA checker, live link checker, etc). 

SEO/LINK BUILDING TO PBN
Social Signals For PBN/PBN Posts - In my opinion, PBNButler are probably the best on the market just now in terms of quality. You can send these directly to your PBN's or your PBN posts. Just be careful not to cause any obvious footprints. I am not affiliated with PBNButler so make sure you do your own due diligence before buying from them.

iWriter - Although I now have a full team for content writing on my PBN's, iWriter is a site I used a lot in the past. A nice to use interface and the quality of the content isn't too shabby!

Link Building - Send some links to your PBN sites! It would be sweet if you can get them ranking which brings in some nice organic traffic. Remember - the only way your PBN is going to last a long time is by making sure it feels like a real, legitimate site. I'm not telling you to go out and buy $200 SEO packages for each site you own. Instead, find a service that's affordable for you and build some links to your PBN. 

Index Checker - Check if your PBN sites are indexed every now and then. If you're someone that has over 100 PBN sites, then you might want to use another index checker such as the addon on Scrapebox (that's what I use).

PBN Setup - If you cannot be bothered making the PBN sites yourself, get it outsourced! This guy charges $5 for a full Wordpress site with your typical Privacy Policy/Contact page, etc. For an additional $5, he'll also create relevant social media accounts for the site. That's $10 for a PBN site setup (most people on the market charge an average price of $30-40 per site). I have personally used this gig before for some testing and he did a fairly decent job for the price. But remember - you get what you pay for. Do your own due diligence before buying.

Copyscape - When you start ordering lots of content from your content writer, he might start getting lazy and start slacking. Use this to make sure the content he sends you is unique. I learnt this the hard way after placing a bulk order of 300 articles, only to find out that over 80% of them were duplicate. 

FreePik - High quality vector/illustrations/images to use in your PBN posts. 

OTHER
Themelord - I sometimes use this to find nulled/premium Wordpress themes. It's not exactly practical to be buying a $50 theme for every website.. so this site does come in handy. Be sure to run the files through a virus scanner to make sure it's clean.

Mafiashare - Another site for nulled/premium Wordpress themes. If you don't find your desired theme on Themelord, give it a try on this site. Again, make sure to double check the files you've downloaded are clean. The last thing you want is a nulled theme caused the destruction of your entire PBN. 

Ahrefs/SEMRush/Majestic For $5 - This is for those who don't want to pay the full price for Ahrefs/SEMRush/Majestic, etc. If you do decide to purchase this, take into consideration that the things you search for inside the account may be seen by others also accessing the account as its a "group share/buy" type service. For example, if you're doing some keyword research/domain research inside SEMRush, anyone else who has access to the account will also be able to see the things you did.

Blackhatworld - Surprised? You shouldn't be. This is the best forum to learn anything related to PBN's. If you have a genuine, legitimate question, post a thread and I'm sure someone will help. There is literally so much content related to PBN's on this forum this year already (and it's only been 2 months since 2016 started!)

SumoMe - This is such an underrated plugin. With SumoMe, you can add in a social media sharing widget, email pop up, welcome bar, and all sorts. These widgets alone can make your site that extra bit more legit/genuine.. and it only takes about 30 seconds to set up.

MadMimi - A friend of mine told me about this. MadMimi allows you to add an opt in form to your site in literally seconds. Sign up for an account (they require no "activation" - so you get instant access to your account), create an opt in form with their template edit, copy your embed code and paste it into your Wordpress widgets section. In about 2 minutes from signing up, you'll have a beautiful and professional opt in form on your site. Again, these make your site that extra bit more real. There are other email marketing services on the market as you're aware (Aweber, Mailchimp, Getresponse, etc).. but MadMimi is by far the easiest and quickest in terms of signing up and embedding an opt in form to a site.

Remove/Edit Wordpress Default Footer - It still annoys me like hell whenever I see a PBN site that still has the "Powered By Wordpress" footer. Get it edited or removed!

Free Privacy Policy Generator - This is the one I use the most. I do like to mix it up though to avoid any sort of footprint - although it's not really a huge deal. There are thousands and thousands of sites using similar privacy policies and Google knows that.. so don't worry too much about using "similar" privacy policies on all your PBN's. However, just to be safe make sure to use a few other ones too.

Moat - This site allows you to find previously used banner images from advertising campaigns. Search for your niche/topic, find a few images and download them. You can then upload them to the sidebar of your website to give it that "genuine" feel. You won't need to add an OBL on the ad.

HootSuite - Manage all your social media accounts for your websites in 1 place. Update all your profiles with the click of a button. This can save you a lot of time, especially if you have 50+ PBN sites and you can't be bothered logging into each Facebook/Twitter/G+ to create a update/post.

Akismet - Don't let your PBN sites turn into a place for spam. If your PBN sites end up getting organic traffic, moderate your comments or disable comments. Don't let others take your juice.

Contact Form 7 - Easiest contact form plugin for Wordpress in my opinion. Takes 30 seconds to set up.

W3 Total Cache - Make sure your sites load as fast as possible.

Free Logo Creator - Always add custom logos to your PBN sites wherever possible. This tool allows you to create some awesome logos in minutes. You can then just screenshot it and then remove the background/make it transparent using any decent photo editing software. Won't take you longer than 15 minutes for a logo. Get it done!

Wayback Downloads - If you'd rather "restore" a site, then this may be perfect for you. Plug in the URL of the site you wish to restore, and that's it. However, it's not exactly "cheap" and I'd still prefer creating the sites fresh rather than restoring it from an archive.

Widgets - Some extra widgets you can add to your site in the sidebar to make it more genuine.

Free Logo - Quite self explanatory. Get a free logo (you actually get a pretty nice logo!)