Is building a Web 2.0 Private Blog Network (PBN) Worth It?

[harrydev]

The content in one of my blog niches is highly educational, but there is almost few IN ARTICLE backlinks even for the Wikipedia pages. So, almost all the blogs in my niche is lacking quality backlinks.

But my competitors still manage to have manual backlinks from many different resources (I've checked using Ahrefs). So, my website is struggling to rank on Google. As per content quality, I'm in TOP 2-3, but most of my pages are in the second page.

I tried few methods,

Guest posting: I've contacted almost all the sites, related to my website. Only few have even replied to my email and some of them even ask for money for it. However, I wrote few guest posts. But I stopped doing it for two reasons. First is, since I need more than 10-20 backlinks per article, it seems like not enough. The second thing is, it's really exhausting for me to write guest posts.

Skyscraper Technique:This one seems better for me. But as I said earlier, when I looking at my competitors backlink profiles, those are not from good contents. Most of their backlinks are from sites, which seems to have spinned articles.

TLD PBN (Top-level domain Private Blog Network) Method: Building an unique blog network costs a lot, according to my calculations. Even if I made an one, all those blogs need to renew each year, and I need hosting for each of them. So, if I couldn't renew them, I'll loose many backlinks, and it can negatively affect my rankings in the future.

So, I decided to build a Web 2.0 Blog Network

Since it has NO renew fees, web 2.0 seems nice for my project. But when I searching on internet, and I couldn't find any trustworthy resources posted in 2021 that confirms it's effectiveness.

Is web 2.0 PBN still works in 2021? What are the SEO disadvantages compared to TLD PBNs?
What are the techniques you used to give some authority to web 2.0 network.
And, what are the other SEO techniques that I can used to build more backlinks.

[goodroi]

Domain renewal fees should be the least of your worries. We are roughly talking $10 per site, so if you had 50 sites that would cost $500. A good PBN can generate more than $500 profit in a single week.

As for Web 2.0, there is definite potential for profit here are well. The profiles might be free but they cost plenty in time and effort plus you don't control them. The platforms can ban your account at any time so plan accordingly.

In general, if you want good SEO value be ready to invest a good amount of money, time, & effort. Expecting free money is not realistic. A good PBN isn't easy to build and a lazy PBN usually doesn't last long or won't provide enough value.

[NickMNS]

First of all the what exactly is a Web 2.0 Blog network?

Domain renewal fees should be the least of your worries.

I fully agree...

so if you had 50 sites that would cost $500

If you have 50 sites, you need to create content for 50 sites, that will certainly cost you far more than 10$ a year. That then begs the questions, if you invest that much into creating content for 50 sites, wouldn't you simply be better off investing those resources into creating higher quality, more interactive, higher value, or simply put better content for the main website?

[JesterMagic]

Web 2.0 usually refers to a website that generates content from its users.

And here is the problem Google has created for themselves and why the internet has turned into a large garbage dump of information with only a few bright spots (relatively speaking).

Unfortunately PBNs do work. A number of my competitors use them to push up their own spammy sites. Instead of making their main sites better they create 20+ barely acceptable sites that have extremely poorly written content from non english speaking writers or AI spun articles

[NickMNS]

Web 2.0 usually refers to a website that generates content from its users.

That is how I understand it as well, but the problem is that most these platforms (specifically the free tiers) tend to no-follow outbound links, and those that don't are likely ignored by Google. I'm not sure how a "web2.0" PBN strategy could be effective.

[aristotle]

the internet has turned into a large garbage dump of information with only a few bright spots (relatively speaking)

Reminds me of the well-known comment made by then-Google CEO Eric Schmidt in 2008 when he referred to the Internet as a "cesspool" at the annual American Magazine Conference.

with only a few bright spots (relatively speaking)

Those "bright spots" must be reflections from thin layers of cream that float on top of the cesspool.

[tangor]

Shortcuts to riches are usually found out pretty quick, resulting in new algo updates. Even if it works for six weeks, it will be pretty useless after that, no matter how many times one tries.

[JesterMagic]

They are usually found but most private ones I find take a couple of years. These PBN are used on sites that get 100,000 UV a month so are the middle of the road and hidden within a million other similar sites of the same traffic level. Even if I report the sites within a month of finding them, it will take 2 years to disappear from the SERPS (and who knows maybe it was for other reasons).