Many SEOs only track if their PBN sites are indexed or not, and that can be a huge mistake.
One trick I learned years ago was to track certain rankings for each of my PBN sites to determine how healthy the site is.
While you’re not trying to rank these sites for keywords and keep track of those rankings, tracking certain terms can work like measuring your blood pressure.
In this post, I show you exactly why this is important for PBN management, what you need to focus on, how to set it up using Xagio, and how to interpret the results you get.
Let’s start with an important question.
Why Track PBN Rankings If You're Not Trying To Rank Them?
This is probably one of the most common questions I get when I tell people to start rank-tracking their PBN sites.
The first thing to point out is that you’re not going to track keywords like you do for a client, lead-gen, or affiliate website.
It’s not about making any attempts to optimize for or rank keywords at all. That should never be your priority for PBN sites.
What rank tracking certain terms on PBN sites is useful for is determining how healthy the site really is.
Having a PBN site indexed in Google is only the first step. You also want to check whether it ranks well for different variations of the domain/URL.
If a PBN is ranking at the top of page one for its domain name, then that’s like having your doctor tell you that your blood pressure is good.
More on this shortly.
It’s also very helpful to see changes in these rankings over time. Weather they go up or down is a key indication of whether their health is improving or not.
Let’s now look at how I approach this.
What To Track To Get A Pulse On Site Health
I keep it quite simple and only track certain variations of the domain/URL.
The first thing you want to track is the full URL, including the https:// portion. This is essentially like checking the indexation status; if you’re not ranking in position 1 for this term, then you probably have some significant indexation and/or site health issues.
I’ll cover such issues in more detail below.
Next, start tracking the domain name without the https:// portion. Again, you should be in position 1 for this, but I wouldn’t be too worried as long as you’re in the top 3 places.
The third thing to check is the domain name without the TLD portion (e.g., .com, .net, .ca). You’re less likely to rank very high for this, unless it’s quite an obscure name. But if you do see your site on page 1, then that’s a very healthy sign.
Finally, check if the brand name in the URL ranks when you separate the words with spaces. Again, it’s less likely that you’ll rank high for this, but if you do, then it’s another great PBN health indicator.
Here’s how I set up my PBN rank tracking:
- Complete URL: https://chicagoplumberco.com
- Domain only: chicagoplumberco.com
- Domain without TLD: chicagoplumberco
- Business name from domain: chicago plumber co
I have a bonus tip for you here as well.
It’s quite common for business and website owners to use acronyms in their chosen domain names. An example would be “John White Car Sales” where the domain might be JWCS.ca, for example.
If you have such a PBN site, then add the actual original business name to your rank tracking and see whether it still ranks well.
Setting This Up In Xagio
Now, let me show you how easy and fast this is to set up in Xagio’s Rank Tracker.
Simply log into the Xagio Cloud App and follow these steps. Start by clicking on the “+” button at the top right of the Rank Tracker screen.
On the next screen, simply enter the domain and the four terms I mentioned in the previous section.
Click on the “Add Keywords” button and Xagio will take care of the rest. Simply check the ranking stats and graphs on a regular basis, and you can identify if there are any problems or even improvements with your PBN health.
Let me now show you how I interpret ranking changes.
How To Interpret The Results
Every time I set up a new PBN, I carefully check the ranking data for a couple of weeks before I start adding backlinks.
There are four situations that I look out for.
1 - Optimal PBN Health
Let’s revisit the above example again; I’m tracking these four keywords:
5. Complete URL: https://chicagoplumberco.com
6. Domain only: chicagoplumberco.com
7. Domain without TLD: chicagoplumberco
8. Business name from domain: chicago plumber co
If I see the first three are in position 1, the fourth is on page 2, that’s an extremely healthy sign that Google likes this site and is ranking it for important domain-related and branded terms.
You can have a bit of flexibility for the fourth one, as some PBN domains might have quite competitive keywords in them. Your goal isn’t to rank the PBN, so don’t worry too much if there’s an issue here.
Which brings me to a common scenario I see with PBNs.
2 - Good PBN Health
I’ll keep using the same example as above for https://chicagoplumberco.com, and in this case we see the first two terms (https://chicagoplumberco.com and chicagoplumberco.com) ranking in positions 1 and 2.
The third one (chicagoplumberco) is on page 2, and the fourth one (chicago plumber co) is on page 5 or lower.
These are still very healthy PBN ranking stats, and I’d be very happy to start linking out from such sites.
3 - Signs Of PBN Issues
One of the first things that would indicate to me that a PBN has some trust issues with Google is that the third and fourth terms (chicagoplumberco and chicago plumber co) are nowhere in the rankings.
But that alone could be down to them containing very competitive keywords.
But if the first two terms (https://chicagoplumberco.com and chicagoplumberco.com) are also on page 2 or lower, then this could spell some trouble.
How much do you think Google trusts a site that doesn’t even appear on page 1 for its actual domain URL?
I carefully monitor sites like this and am reluctant to start linking from them
4 - Major PBN Issues
The biggest issue with a PBN is if it doesn’t rank for the full domain URL (https://chicagoplumberco.com).
If the site isn’t ranking for this, then you can do one more thing to verify whether it’s indexed or not.
In the Google search bar, enter this exact search term: site:https://chicagoplumberco.com.
A Google search with zero results for this would indicate that the PBN isn’t indexed. You can drill deeper and see if there are manual or other penalties in Google Search Console, and even try submitting a sitemap.
But, the chances are that this PBN isn’t healthy. I monitor sites like this for a few weeks or months, but I wouldn’t risk adding any backlinks, as those could damage your money site’s rankings.
5 - Changes Over Time
Another important thing to point out is that this isn’t something that you check once and then move on. Just because you get positive results when you first set up a PBN site doesn’t mean that it’ll stay that way.
There are countless things that can go wrong over time, so get into the habit of checking your PBN rankings on a weekly or monthly basis.
Sometimes you’ll see improvements, and other times you could see signs that something is wrong.
The worst thing you could do is simply keep using PBN sites as if they’re healthy when, in fact, there are issues that could harm your money sites.
Start Tracking Your PBNs
Setting up rank tracking for PBNs couldn’t be any easier with Xagio.
Use this help guide with step-by-step instructions on how to add a site and tracking keywords on the Xagio Cloud App.
Once it’s all set up, Xagio will handle all the updates for you and you can easily review ranking changes over time in the visual graphs.
You’ll need a paid Xagio account or xBank Xags in your account to use this feature. But it’s one investment that could seriously save you from setting up harmful backlinks, or having unhealthy sites in your PBN.