I’ve seen several “top blog directories to submit your blog to” articles, however these lists are often light on details or out of date. Here are 16 blog directories that I went to take a look at. Like regular web directories, some blog directories will only list you for a fee, and yet still more request a reciprocal link before they will list you. Some are rather sneaky about it, you don’t figure out you have to reciprocate or pay until you are a step or two into the submission process.
That being said, just like web directories, it might be worth paying for a listing in some of these blog directories, however that analysis (choosing which one to pay for) is for another day.
For some of these you should be prepared to create an account and choose a category that your blog belongs to. Some ask for a full profile. Some have validation/ownership verification processes. It WILL take more time than you expect. Many of these will have a human review the submission before publishing it. That’s ok, in fact it is good, as google looks more favorably on directories that have editorial review.
Here are the 16 I reviewed, I’ve grouped them into “Free”, “Paid”, “Reciprocal” and “Ugly”
Free
- Blog Catalog Once you create your account, Blog Catalog expects you to either put a link to blogcatalog.com on your blogroll or add a “Meta” tag to “verify ownership”. Unfortunately before I got around to adding the meta tag I was distracted by other priorities. When I came back to re-obtain the meta tag they had “deactivated” my account. I’ve requested reactivation. If I am able to complete the process I will update this post.
- Technorati More than just a blog directory. Technorati is a world upon its own. You can set up a full profile here and interact with other bloggers. To complete the submission process you have to write a blog post with a code in it to verify you own the blog. Here’s mine: 7QJWXUWT59VX
- BlogPulse Quick and easy, you can submit multiple blogs here. Click on the contact us link if you can’t find the submission link.
- Google Blog Search – When I checked my blog was already listed here, if yours is not you can submit it here.
- IceRocket Another straighforward submission, in this case I just added
http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/to my WordPress update services. - GlobeOfBlogs Tends more towards the personal blogger, expect to fill out a profile to submit your blog.
- bloggernity.com After you create an account, validate your email and then submit, it politely asks you to put their badge on your blog. Perhaps the link in this post is a good alternative.
- bloggapedia.com Also requests reciprocal link, not particulary clear if it is required
Paid
- eatonweb.com There is a reason it asks for a paypal enabled email when you create the account. $34.99 for a listing.
- blogsearchengine.com $14.99 for a listing
- bloggeries.com $49.99 for a listing
- blogarama.com $1.99 for a listing
Reciprocal Link
- ontoplist This was one of the sneaky ones. After going through the process, it became clear they will only give you the listing when you place a badge on your website or pay $29.99. I went ahead and added the badge (see under “recent entries”) so readers have a sense of what they look like.
- bloguniverse.com Reciporal link or paid listing
The Ugly
- superblogdirectory.com – domain is for sale
- spillbean.com – submit page has been hacked
There are many more blog directories, please feel free to comment on any I might have overlooked.
You did not mention http://www.trafficgeyser.com/. You get 100 submissions per month to 35+ top video sites, 12 social bookmarking communities and numerous blogs, blog directories and podcast directories. One of my partners claims that the service has saved dozens of hours of time and put videos at the top of the search engine rankings.
Rachel Lavern
Personal Transformation, Enlightenment and Development Coach
“Live without limits because nothing is impossible to you.”
There was lots of information here that I didn’t know about. Thanks for compiling this list Kathy. Great to work my way through at leisure.
Fiona Stolze
Inspired Art and Living
http://fionastolze.com
Hi Rachel. Thanks for the reminder. I forget that Traffic Geyser has expanded beyond being just a video distribution service, which is what I was when I looked at it a few years back. It is not really a blog directory itself but a service that will submit videos to the various video sites and your blog to blog directories which could be a real time saver .. and worth it if you are into videos. Of course Traffic Geyser is not free, there is a monthly membership fee. There are also other blog submission services out there, but I haven’t looked into them too much.
Hi Kathy,
Thank you so much for this post. I’m a new blogger and have been having fun, but had no idea all these places that I could look into. Having it in one place makes it so much easier. Totally appreciate this post!
Thanks Rachel for the added site.
Alara K. Castell
Your Sassy Spiritual Guide
Thanks Alara, The amazing thing is that there are many more directories. I just scratched the surface .. and tried to focus on the more well known ones! One additional thing to check it out is that there might be a blog directory for your niche. Eg. I found some personal finance blog directories for a client.
Thanks Kathy for the tip. I’ll have to search my niche 🙂
Alara K. Castell
Your Sassy Spiritual Guide
Thanks for taking the time and for passing on your findings, makes life easier for the rest of us. i had no idea about these places but I will be taking a look
Thank you for doing this work for me and the rest of us! I didn’t know much about this, and now I have a place to start. I really appreciate the info, particularly the warnings about paid sites and the “ugly” ones. Great info!
Judy Stone-Goldman
The Reflective Writer
Balance, Boundaries, and New Life Directions Through Writing
This is great information and thank you so much for sharing these blog directories. I can imagine a lot of time and energy went into it! Very good to know and I will print this list and start looking at them.
Laurie Hurley
Blogging Coach – The Social Networking Coaching Club
I am going to bookmark this and come back to it as way too busy setting up my licensed Social Networking Coaching Club site right now. Thanks for doing the homework!
Louise Edington
Finding YOUR Freedom
http://louiseedington.com
Thank you so much for sharing all this information you have spent time putting together! I am new to blogging and this is all a little overwhelming — just so much to think about and plan for. I am taking a deep breath and deciding to take one step at a time…so glad to have this to refer to and really appreciate the work you put into this post!
Thanks for compiling a comprehensive list. What is the #1 benefit for listing with a blog directory? Traffic?
Kathy Alice,
Great timely piece! I was just starting to explore some of these sites myself last night! What a timesaver to have them in one place!
Thank you!
Carrie Hansen
Snuggery Style
http://www.SnuggeryStyle.com
After reading many of the other comments, I’m relieved to know I’m not the only one who knew nothing about this. Thank goodness there is someone like you to educate us. I’m going to bookmark this post to come back to and research more. Thank you so much!
Susan Berland
A Picture’s Worth
http://www.susan-berland.com
Wow….I am new to all of this…so I had NO idea…there are so many! And you just scratched the surface…yikes. Happy to say, I will avoid the ugly….lol! This must have taken quite some time…saving the rest of us a lot of time:) Thank you!!! I look forward to learning more from you over time….as I continue on my wp/blogging journey:) Thanks again!
Rita Brennan Freay
@Rita4kids
ritabrennanfreay.com
Great to have a list of blog sites and real tried and true advice. The web can be a maze one can get lost in, so I appreciate your time and effort, very helpful.
Will definitely check it out, and find my niche.
Jennifer Duchene
Home Makeover Mixtress blending lifestyle laughter and Diva Dens
http://LYShome.com
Hi Alicia,
The reason you might want to get listed in a couple of blog directories is to get more incoming links to your website. These are called backlinks, and Google thinks of them as “votes” for your website, the more of them you have the better. I’m oversimplifying here but that’s the concept.
Kathy,
I can’t tell you how great it is when people like yourself do all the leg work for people like me. Thank you for going through all the countless old posts, etc and putting together this fresh list for us.
I’ve added this article to my favorites and will be sure to pass this along via Twitter.
Great post!!!
Thanks for putting this fab list together. I had only ever heard of technorati. I really appreciate hearing from people on their actual experiences, not just an information spew. I especially liked the “ugly” mentions – who wants to waste time?!
Pat Zahn, Photo Solutions Superhero
Hi – Amazing. There is a whole world of things to learn regarding blogger and I have yet to touch the surface. Thanks for sharing this cool information!
Debbie
Great list…I’ll have to check some of these out. Appreciate you organizing all that info for us!
Brandy Mychals
Speaker, Author, Communications Coach
Creator of Split Second Perceptions
Hi, Kathy Alice,
Enjoyed your post, and thanks for assembling this list. Impressive — just the beginning, you say? Have you subscribed to a few? Are they all about equally effective at what they claim to do? And really, how effective is that?
Would you seriously recommend any of them? I’ve been told that backlinks are desirable, so I’m curious to learn more about these blog directories.
Robbie
All good questions. Yes, incoming links, backlinks, are desirable to help your website rank better and get more traffic. Are you familiar with what PR (page rank) is? Google assigns a PR (ranges from 1-10 – the higher the better) to your domain and to each page on your site. So a link to your site from a PR 9 web page is much better than a link from a PR 1. So the value of the link depends on the site’s domain PR and the PR from the particular page that links to your site. There is more to it than that, but it’s a good rule of thumb to start with. So a link from a blog directory that has a higher PR would be more desirable. More info in this post about toolbars
Kathy,
Great blog list, one problem there are many new and popular blog directories out there , including my latest project Add Your Blog \ blog directory
This directory is free to submit and in the next couple of months we will be launching a huge blogger community…
Agreed, there are many blog directories out there. I’ve been meaning to do another post reviewing more, but it’s pretty time intensive so it hasn’t happened. Thanks for sharing yours.
Hi,
You can submit your blog in http://blorner.com as well. It is free blogs directory with hundreds of blogs.
Thank you.
Finding the best blog directories to submit to is not easy, thanks for the heads up!
Great post! Very interesting. I will bookmark this and share it to all my friends. 🙂
Hi Kathy,
Thank You from bottom of my heart for getting these information under one Roof.
It would have been a tedious process to go through the same if u wouldn’t cube them together 🙂
Regards,
Peter
Don’t waste your time on BlogCatalog.
Every link they have uses “nofollow”. What’s the point to using a blog directory if your links are all tagged “nofollow”. That tag is the single greatest roadblock to the growth of blogs.
Sadly, this site uses them as well.
Thanks for the heads up about BlogCatalog. Nofollow links are not completely worthless, every natural backlink profile has them, Rand Fishkin did a study that showed that backlink profiles with just follow links don’t do as well (the conclusion being that having just follow links is unnatural and Google notices that), that being said follow links are much better. nofollow is best used when you have limited control over the links that are created on your site. That’s one reason they are in use on social media sites and with blog comments.
Nice collection. Can you please add The blog directory to the list.
Thanks Kathy
I just submitted my blog on Google Blog Search & Technorati. Thanks again.
Hi Kathy
Blog directories mean traffic, either via ranking improvements, or via direct traffic, and links for traffic, have been underestimated for some time.
I think your list is a great resource, due to the fact that links, often are longlasting.
Lets say you get 500 links, from blogs, it equals 500 potential clicks every day, to your own site, right.
Thanks Kim, I think you are right, in chasing links for SEO we sometimes forget that those links are equally valuable as a traffic source. And in fact that Google prefers that is how you approach it. How much traffic are you getting from links from blog directories?