Building a Blog Network
So far out of all the link building methods I have tried getting a backlink from a post on a blog with Google page rank (3+) seems to be the most effective. So after being told many times by people like those at Sitey.net it is worth the hassle to set one up I am going to give it a shot. Buying a post on other people’s blog networks is ok but it would be nice to have my own so I can control how long a post stays on the front page for. I could even sell spots on the network to raise a bit of cash. If I was doing SEO for hire then it would also be nice to be able to have access to my own blogs to get links from.
Getting the Domain
This is probably going to be the hardest part. I could either look into getting an existing domain with page rank (PR) and paying a premium or just registering a new domain at the standard rate (about $10). I’m not really sure where to look for existing domains, I have looked at dropped domains but not had much luck. What sort of prices do existing PR3 domain sites go for and where should I look to buy one? When it comes to buying a new domain and then building up a site which might get PR I’m a bit sceptical. I have quite a lot of sites now, some that are over two years old, and the last time I checked only a couple had PR and none over 1. This tells me that it will take ages and lots of work to get PR for a new site. Am I right?
Hosting the Site
This might get expensive too. Each site should be on a new IP I think. So this sounds like separate hosting accounts of at least paying for each site to be on a different IP. How much would this run to? At the moment I pay $10 a month for Hostgator or about £25 a year for hosting for my newer UK sites. Setup 10 sites and it starts to get expensive.
Building the Blogs
I’m not too worried about this as I have access to some pretty good content writers who would be up to the job of writing for some new sites. It could get expensive if I get too many sites though.
How Many Sites in a Mini Net?
So if I build a mini network of blog sites how many do I need? At the moment I am seeing results from posting to about 20 PR3 blogs. My posts and links don’t stay on the front page for long but the results are ok for what I pay, but not amazing. So how many sites would I need to make to get enough links to rank a site? Would it be cost effective? I’m not doing anything too competitive at the moment so there wouldn’t need to be too many sites. Off the top of my head about 20 sounds possible.
Cost of Setting up a Mini Network
- Domain: £7 (if bought from new)
- Hosting: £25
- Content: £20 (starting with 20 500 word articles)
- Backlinks: £50 (the blogs will need their own links)
I think that is about it. So for each site it would cost about £100 to setup, that is if I bought a new domain. There is also the chance that the site doesn’t get PR and isn’t worth anything. It also might make money of its own if I stick a few affiliate links on it (or is that a no-no?).
If you have lots of sites in the same niche this could work out cheaper as you could link to lots of you sites from the same set of blogs.
Anyone got any experience of building a mini net/blog network for backlink purposes? Do my costs sound about right? Was it worth it?






