How We Build SEO Networks in 2025

Foreword

I remember over 10 years ago building "mass page" sites with a plugin for Excel. I cobbled together various shortcodes and HTML to varying success — but I soon found SEO automation a passion of mine, and that has only grown since. Since then, Google has changed a lot, and I'd argue for the better, interestingly more recent changes have proven to revive certain strategies.

I'm talking about SEO Networks, an improved alternative to PBNs. With the explosion of AI content and AI automation came a challenge for Google — "now that content is 'easy' to write, how do we choose who to rank?" — which it has addressed (and continues to do so) with things like EEAT.

At Menterprise, we're focusing on tooling for the A of EEAT, authority, a metric understandably overlooked by many smaller agencies as there aren't many diverse strategies tackling the A.

Let's look back for a second. When I used to onboard a client, let's say a local client, I'd audit their GBP, improve their site in various ways for the EE and T, and start buying some citations for the A and T.

Sound familiar? Nothing has really changed in that process for most agencies even today other than what optimisations they make on-site or to the GBP.

‍This is a problem.

If you're doing the exact same thing as your competition and expecting *better* results you may want to look up the definition of insanity... but it isn't your fault. Or mine, back then. There just isn't a lot of strategies for that "next step" or to stand out without delving into skeezy backlink packages, Fiverr gigs from unknown networks or directories/PBNs with more outbound links than Forbes.

For some, they're building their own PBNs or SEO Networks to provide their own authority — I'd like to say I'm one of them, and I've found great success personally and within Menterprise working with our customers. Let's look into the specifics of how I build them in 2025.

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The Goal

For the rest of this article, I'm going to go through how I do it and how to get good, quality results that don't disappear after an update. In reality, there is a lot of strategy that goes in and I'd like to dive into that now. You'll walk away with another strategy, and of course I'll introduce how Menterprise makes this process much easier, safer and performant throughout, so you may walk away with another tool to stand out :)

At the end, we'll be able to send authority anywhere, to multiple clients and to any/all of their properties: GBPs w/ embeds, location pages with matching locations, products, services, etc. A study in mid 2024 revealed that 84% of SEOs rate "relevance" as the top metric from a link, and 68% chose DA. We'll be able to do both!

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Structure

My networks are always agency-based, used between clients, with niched down, medium DA sites.
Different niches sit beside each other on dedicated subdomains. Therefore, I can fit dozens of niches on a single domain (we'll go into why later). This structure looks like:

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To guarantee some DA and therefore value of the links we build we'll need interlinking. Interlinking is the part of network building that makes or breaks the network and is usually the most labour intensive part of building campaigns for clients going forwards. However, if you're using Menterprise, interlinking is one of the easiest parts and takes almost no effort outside of strategising — it's automated and you're able to drag and drop site groups or content across your network visually and have them elastically linked. If you're using WordPress or something else, you'll want to focus on the direction of links (forwards only or cyclical) and keeping the content relevant and build the links by hand. At the end, you'll have something like this for each client:

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Building with Menterprise + Examples

I'm going to take a quick aside on using Menterprise specifically for a moment as that is my day-to-day. Interlinking is automatic with Menterprise, so instead of hand building interlinking, my main focus is content types and the direction.

An example of content types would be informational (reviews) towards transactional (sale). This is accomplished by dragging and dropping the content (also produced within Menterprise) onto different tiers, like so:

Linking & Content

An example of link direction is the different sites/domains used, niches used, and the "terminating" group. One specific example could be a set of "home services" sites on domain group B (30 domains) and "HVAC" sites on domain group A (20 domains). Combining both content and direction we get a home service listing backlinking a HVAC review, possibly linking to our HVAC client. To do this in Menterprise drag and drop the destination groups like so:

Leadgen (Ranking In-Network) Domains

When I'm designing networks I usually retain the same domains on my account or my client's account, anywhere from 20 to 100 domains. As mentioned above I'm working on niche-focused sites primarily, sometimes local but usually niche, and as many subniches as I can fit in. With Menterprise you can fit 100 subdomains on average on each domain so I'll usually segment 10 each niche over every domain. If I'm focusing on leadgen or ranking my Menterprise sites I'll chuck in a few extra domains per client as the top tier, like this:

Local Clients & GBPs

If I'm going local I'm focusing on the terminating groups matching locations with my client. In Menterprise this is done by leveraging a location table on a site level (e.g, miami.example.com & tampa.example.com) or on a page level (if you're interested in a deep dive about this, check out the article here). I also focus on embedding their GBPs, specific reviews with a link (you can find that by clicking "share" on a review), and any of their YouTube videos. At the end the client will have contextual backlinks from the terminating group — a very powerful asset and often ranks their GBPs quickly and their sites after a bit of time.

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What to Expect & FAQ

When setting up SEO networks there are always a few concerns so let's run through them now and then start talking about the positives and some personal results.

• Will this survive algorithm updates? I put in so much work!
  If you built a network by hand this is a major concern. If you focus on reasonable scale and diverse content you'll usually be fine. Leadgen sites within a network are most likely to get hit. Authority "background" sites (e.g for local linking) are usually very safe, personally I've never had a penalty and some of mine are 5 years old.
  If you're using Menterprise you don't have to worry as much as you can build networks in a few minutes — this means better quality. How? If you are swamped stuff to do the first thing you, or your team, will sacrifice is quality.
• Can I "blow up" my client's site with links?
  Totally! So don't send too many! These days referring domains is #1, and contextualized links is #2, you don't need thousands of links generally. It's pretty hard to mess this up but do plan your numbers.
• How long does it take before the DA starts rolling in and the links are valuable?
  Usually 1-2months+, but I send the links pretty early anyway.
• How can I build this for my agency?
  Of course I'm gonna recommend Menterprise as truly it'd take a few hours to do, if you're overwhelmed we can jump on a call with you, and there really is no better way. It's faster, safer & the quality is higher.

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Conclusion

Building SEO networks is a valuable asset for your clients. If you're not doing it, I highly recommend it, it's often what makes the difference when everyone is doing the same thing.

Building them by hand is a pain, so check out Menterprise (shameless plug)— it'll auto-build it for you, let you test out different strategies, and allow you to focus on strategy. If you'd like to see some examples for your business before jumping in, you can book a call directly with me here.