Find Competitor PBNs In 2025
Linxact, the company behind the only competitor PBN spying tool in the world, is evolving rapidly. Today we are excited to unveil our newly redefined website after the major overhaul of the Linxact Lens UI at the end of 2024. But that is just the beginning. Our PBN index is set for a major update soon. Moving forward we are focusing on three key areas:
- Expanding link cloaking PBN coverage
- Minimizing false positives for even greater accuracy
- Laying the groundwork for faster and more cost-efficient dataset updates
Stay tuned. There is more to come.
Why Should I Know My Competitor PBNs?
If you want to outrank a competitor that relies on PBN backlinks to dominate the SERPs, you need to do one thing: build better PBNs than they do. It’s that simple.
A money site owner with a well-structured PBN has full control over both their primary site and the network of sites feeding it backlinks. That means they can manipulate their link profile and cloak their PBN links using .htaccess rules, WordPress plugins, or custom scripts. The result? Google sees powerful backlinks, while SEO crawlers (and you) see nothing.
This creates an enormous blind spot in traditional backlink analysis tools. Not all industries are affected equally, but especially in high-ticket niches (even the local ones) hidden PBNs are shaping search results.
By uncovering your competitors’ PBN networks, you gain an immediate advantage:
- Use them as a baseline. You now know exactly what you're up against.
- Outperform them with stronger PBNs. Build networks on higher-quality expired domains with better link equity and aged authority. There are many more aspects to improve upon.
- Implement stealthier link strategies. Avoid common footprints, use advanced cloaking, and diversify hosting and IPs.
Competitor PBN analysis isn’t about just seeing what’s there. It’s about using that knowledge to crush them at their own game. That's why I'm writing this article.
The 4 Best Tools To Find Your Competitor PBNs
I've compiled a list of all the tools available to uncover your competitors' PBNs because without the right tools, it's simply not possible:
2. Bing Webmaster Tools (Free)
3. HTML Search Engine: PublicWWW (Paid)
4. Competitor PBN Spying Tool: Linxact Lens (Paid)
In the following sections, I will present you each way.
1. Google Search (Free)
Let’s say you want to analyze your competitor’s website, bitterliebe.com. A basic approach is to use Google search operators to look for branded anchor text. Start by including the TLD (.com in this case):
bitterliebe.com -site:bitterliebe.com
This searches for mentions of bitterliebe.com while excluding results from its own domain. However, branded anchors are often used without the TLD, so running the query without it increases your chances of finding backlinks:
bitterliebe -site:bitterliebe.com
Pros
✅ Free
✅ Could theoretically find all types of PBN backlinks
Cons
❌ Mostly ineffective as heavily reliant on branded anchors
❌ Limited to what Google’s SERPs reveal
Why This Doesn't Work Well
This method is highly unreliable for finding PBN networks. It depends entirely on branded anchor texts, which many PBN owners avoid using. Even if a PBN links to the target site, the likelihood of discovering it this way is low. This approach is ultimately a hit-or-miss strategy and more often than not, it’s a miss.
2. Bing Webmaster Tools (Free)
Bing Webmaster Tools offers a key advantage over Google Search Console (GSC) as it allows you to analyze other websites' referring domains, making it a valuable method for uncovering competitor PBNs. Since search engine bots are typically whitelisted by PBN cloaking mechanisms, BingBot can sometimes detect backlinks that standard SEO crawlers miss.
However, sophisticated PBN owners are well aware of this vulnerability. To counter it, they often configure their PBNs to show outbound links only to Googlebot while blocking BingBot, preventing their networks from being exposed through Bing’s backlink data. This dynamic could shift as Bing gains more influence in AI driven search, especially with ChatGPT playing a role in brand rankings, which may push more PBN owners to reconsider their approach.
BingBot also has a limited crawling scope, often indexing fewer PBN domains than Google. For instance, in the screenshot below, bitterliebe.com has 390 referring domains detected by BingBot. To identify PBNs within this list, you need to manually inspect each referring site. If you are unfamiliar with how to spot a PBN, check out our PBN samples guide for key indicators.
Pros
✅ Free
✅ Easy to use
✅ Finds regular, visible PBN & some hidden PBN backlinks
Cons
❌ Only shows referring domains, not actual backlinks
❌ Limited in scope compared to Linxact
3. HTML Search Engine: PublicWWW (Paid)
PublicWWW is a code search engine with 468 million indexed pages in its paid version. Unlike Google, which focuses on text-based search, PublicWWW allows you to search for frontend code snippets. This makes it useful for uncovering hidden patterns, such as tracking codes, affiliate IDs, or even specific outbound link structures used by competitors.
PublicWWW is a versatile tool with applications beyond SEO. Even IT security researchers use it to find websites vulnerable to exploits. For backlink analysis, you can search for a URL and find all indexed pages linking to it.
How PublicWWW Helps With PBNs
Many PBN owners block SEO crawlers from detecting their backlinks but overlook PublicWWW's crawler, as it is not widely used for backlink checking. This allows PublicWWW to uncover both visible PBN backlinks and hidden backlinks that use crawler blocking. However, it does not classify them as PBNs, so manual filtering is required, just like with Bing Webmaster Tools.
Pros
✅ Finds both regular and hidden PBN backlinks that use crawler blocking
Cons
❌ Starting at $109/month even though not a dedicated competitor PBN spying tool
❌ Doesn't flag backlinks as hidden, visible nor PBN
❌ Does not detect PBN backlinks hidden via link cloaking
❌ Limited database size of 468 million URLs, which is far smaller than major SEO databases
Why It's Not Worth It
Despite its versatility, PublicWWW is not a dedicated PBN spying tool, yet its pricing starts at $109 per month. Considering that it still fails to detect backlinks hidden via link cloaking, it is an expensive workaround rather than a purpose-built solution.
4. Competitor PBN Spying Tool: Linxact Lens (Paid)
Linxact Lens is the only dedicated competitor PBN spying tool, designed to uncover even the most sophisticated PBN backlink manipulations. Our PBN index contains over 1 billion URLs exclusively from PBN root domains. This alone surpasses PublicWWW’s entire database, which includes all kinds of websites, not just PBNs. In addition, Linxact Lens classifies PBN backlinks for you, eliminating the need for manual filtering.
For example, as shown in the Linxact Lens screenshot below, bitterliebe.com has 428 PBN backlinks from 194 PBN sites, 93 of which are cloaking their outbound links from competitors.
Pros
✅ Easy to use
✅ Unmatched PBN backlink detection, covering all types of PBNs
✅ Automatically classifies PBN backlinks, removing guesswork
✅ Actively evolves based on user feedback to include edge cases
Cons
❌ Paid tool
❌ Does not include regular backlink data
Why Linxact Lens Wins
No surprise here as Linxact Lens outperforms Google Search, Bing Webmaster Tools, and PublicWWW for finding competitor PBNs because it is the only dedicated competitor PBN spying tool among them. Linxact Lens is the ultimate solution for competitor PBN detection. While it does not include regular backlink data, it provides the most comprehensive PBN analysis available, making it an essential tool for serious SEOs looking to outrank their competitors by building a stronger PBN than they do.
An absolute must-have for 2025 SEO, as more and more SEOs break Big G’s rules to stay competitive amid rising competition and increasingly anti SEO Google updates. Even in local SEO, PBNs have become a dominant factor. Many businesses ranking at the top aren’t just optimizing for Google, they are outright manipulating it through hidden networks.
👁️ Ready To Uncover Your Competitors' PBNs And Outrank Them?
Try Linxact Lens today to reveal hidden PBNs, analyze their strategies, and build an even stronger network.
