There are two main ways people get PBN backlinks.
One option is to build your own network. In this case, you’d keep the PBN low-key and strategically link back to your own sites. If done right, this approach can give your site a temporary boost.
The second way is to buy PBN backlinks from someone else’s network. This allows you to get a lot of links quickly, but it comes with risks. These sellers often aren’t careful about hiding their network’s connections—they might even openly share which sites they own.
This makes such networks risky and often ineffective. In many cases, they’re just link-building scams, tricking buyers into paying for backlinks that won’t do much good.
Not Every Website Network Is a PBN
Lots of people own multiple websites and link between them. For example, we do this ourselves, linking from our main site to our PPC service, PPC Genius.
And that’s totally fine—as long as the links are relevant and not overdone. A group of websites only becomes a PBN if it’s specifically created for linking to other sites.
In fact, interlinking between owned sites is a common practice among big players. Just look at the navigation bar on Gizmodo; it links to 11 different sites, all pulling in massive search traffic.