Remember when Google targeted a bunch of private blog networks and then Matt Cutts mocked them?
Well, I find it interesting watching "black hat" SEOs talk about when these PBNs succeed or fail. The bottom line, in many cases, they fail when the link value within them are poor.
A Black Hat World thread has one responding to a "newbie" at PBNs who explained:
Before answering all of your questions, are you sure your PBN actually has any link juice? I see noobies setting up PBN's with "PR6" domains, that were in fact just redirected domains that had nothing of value to begin with.Does your network have links to your PBN with value?
Which again brings back the question I had when Google targeted PBNs a month or so ago, that they received thin content penalties and not unnatural link notifications instead?
In any event, it is interesting watching them talk about PBNs.
Forum discussion at Black Hat World.
This post was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today. FYI, I am offline today, so if Google does a Penguin update - I won't get to it until Monday.