A blog directory and blogging community for Indians.

I received an intimation from Linkedin that said someone wanted me to accept his invitation to join his linkedin network. As usual, I first clicked on his (Vijay) profile, came to know about his blog directory for Indians.

I took a quick glance at blogbee.in and was very much impressed with the site. I accepted his invitation and sent a message to him that I liked his site and would try to promote it in my blog. So, here I am fulfilling my promise.

The Blog Bee (still in Beta) is more than a directory of blogs. The site looks pretty good and submission of blog, verifying it are easy.

What you can do in Blog Bee.

* Submit your blog under various category
* Submit your blog post URL
* Pickup friends from members
* Invite your friends
* Participate in the forum
* Your submitted blog posts can be automatically posted in your Facebook and Twitter
* You can tweet others' post and Facebook 'like' it.
* Search blogs by city and by category
* Suggest a category

My observation
*The FAQ is found her 'Guest posts' tab.
* When I searched for blogs under 'fashion' category my blog was not shown as listed.(I submitted under 'Fashion' category though I was also able to suggest 'Beauty and Makeup' category while doing the submission.
* The site's home page shows a slide show. It doesn't stop after the three slides and starts again. It is a bit annoying.
* There are only 23 members as on date. Since the site is young, it is understandable. Considering its usefulness, members should actively contribute towards it promotion.
* The site is a bit slow in loading.
* While updating the profile, the site is making the address fields compulsory which would not be filled up by all. Consequently, I was not able to say anything 'About me'.

Please join Blog Bee and spread the word. If you have time, share this blog post URL in your social media sites such Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest etc.

How to find blogs of your interest?

Often, my blogging trainees question me who I stay updated all the time in blogosphere. I tell them I read several numbers of blogs daily by subscribing their ESS feed. 

How to find such blogs in the first place? After all, there 

are millions of blogs on all kinds of niche. It would be a herculean task to filter-right?

With so many blogs currently available online it can be difficult to determine which blogs are worth reading and which are not.  Yes, this is definitely difficult. You can eliminate blogs of poor quality only by trial and error. There are no other ways.

Through this blog post, I will share with you my knowledge on finding and selecting blogs to read through search engines, blog directories, Google alerts, Yahoo! Answers and so on.

Using Search Engines to Find Blogs

Search engines are one of the most dependable resources for bloggers to find useful blogs. An Internet user who is looking for a blog on a particular subject can start the process of finding these blogs by entering relevant keywords or phrases into a popular search engine and carefully reviewing the results provided for this search. 

Blog Search Engines:

There are search engines exclusively for blogs.

·         Blogsearch.google.com

·         Technoratity.com

One simple way the Internet user can use search engines to find blogs relating to a particular subject is to include the word blog with the keywords or phrases entered into the search engine. This will help to filter the search results and may push blogs towards the front of search results. However, Internet users are better off searching for collections of blogs and then searching within these collections for ones of interest.

Finding Blogs on Message Boards

Many Internet users rely on message boards to find interesting and informative blogs. This is because many message board participants who have a blog often find ways to make others aware of this blog. This may either be through the process of incorporating a link to the blog in the message board user’s signature or, when appropriate, supplying the link to the blog directly in the message body of a post on the message board. 

Although many bloggers may take advantage of the opportunity to promote their own blog through message boards, those who are interested in finding new blogs will likely not have time to review all of these blogs. Therefore, it is wise for these Internet users to be somewhat discriminating about the blogs they choose to visit. One way to do this is to only visit blogs of regular forum posters who offer valuable information to the conversations on the message board. 

The Internet user may also wish to avoid blogs which appear to be posted as spam. This is important because these blogs are not only likely poor quality but also visiting these blogs only encourages the blog owner to continue to spam message boards with his link. 

Blogging Communities:

I have found some of the best blogs that I read regularly in several blogging communities.

·         Blogcatalog.com

·         Bloggers.com

·         Blogfrog.com

Making Use of Yahoo! Answers.

Yahoo! Answers is an excellent source to ask for anything. Highly knowledgeable members would be eager to provide answers which are invariably very good.  

Blogs Avenue-a blog directory.

I was sent an email that contained a link to Blogs Avenue, a new blog directory that has Google page rank 4.

The web site is not all that attractive but loads fast. I tried to submit my http://income-opportunities.blogspot.com and succeeded though I am not satisfied to submit it under 'business' category. It is the nearest category available in Blogs Avenue.

I wish there were more subcategories to choose from. Visitors who land on a blog directory will stay long and get what they were looking for if they can navigate deep.
That is why demoz.org is such a popular web directory.

Blogsavenue.com has no solid information about its promoters.

Their FAQ and Sitemap links produce '404' error.

How blogher.com can help women bloggers?

Would you consider blog directories as blog search engines? I was thinking both are different till I read an article in about.com where it is written blogher.com as a blog search engine where as it is a blog directory.

Nevertheless, it serves the purpose of finding blogs on our topics of interests. It is an important aspect of blog promotion to find and connect with blogs on similar niche we blog about.

This would greatly benefit every blogger in several ways:
* You will know how and what others are blogging on the same topic
* Where their blogs stand in SERPs for the relevant keywords
* You can exchange guest blog posts and blogroll links to increase visibility of our blogs.

I use blogher.com extensively to find great women bloggers. Blogher.com has neatly arranged the blogs under various categories and then further put them alphabetically.

If you are a woman blogger, get your blog listed in blogher.com without any delay.

Spillbean blog directory.

After a long time, I visited a new blog directory called Spillbean. Very odd name for a directory of blogs-right?

It is a simple one with friendly user interface. Adding my blog was easy. However, due to a bug, it was not added. For free listing, you must provide a link back to Spillbean.com I gave a reciprocal URL as demanded and obliged the spam filter exercise.

But it kept saying that I made an error with the spam filter task.

Hmmm.. a new kind of bug!

Submit your blog here.

I just found out a simple blog directory maintained by Hannah, a fellow member of mybloglog.com
She maintains a blog in blogger: http://directoryforblogs.blogspot.com/

In a neat and clear template, she publishes blogs that are submitted with a screen shot of the blog's image. Blogs are organized under suitable labels for easy navigation.

There are 857 blogs as of now. Out of them, I was surprised to find 23 blogs on horses, my favorite animal.

To submit your blog, just send an email to hannasdesign@gmail.com with your blogs' details. Please spread the word.

A blog directory for moms.

When I started blogging in 2005, I was ashamed to reveal my age. I didn't expect moms to blog. But, how mistaken I am!

Now, even, I know so many bloggers who are older than I. There are communities for moms in just about every field in the Internet. So, why not a directory for mom bloggers?

Yesterday, I found out The Mom Blogs, a directory of blogs maintained by moms and also a bloggers' forum that is not yet very active.

To add your blog in the directory, you need to register first. Password will be given by them that you can change it anytime. Backlink is required from you in order to get your blog listed in the directory.

The color of the template indicates that the mom blogs is maintained by a woman but when I registered myself with them, I was not asked of my gender.

I submitted one of my blogs and it is awaiting their approval.

New blog directory.

Blog Adda is still very young. Oh, I calculated it's age by the density of the tag cloud at its home page pointing to the blogs in its database.

I already submitted three of my blogs including my latest blog-Oceans of Resources. I sent a rather sarcastic feedback to the webmaster of Blog Adda that was very kindly responded to. I felt ashamed.

They asked my date of birth while registering; then their system showed that it is poor in calculating the number of words in a tag. (They have this peculiar condition: the tag should not have more than three words.) Ok, it is their prerogative but their website is rejecting tags with 3 words. I think it is adding the comma (,) after the three worded tag and hence the confusion.

Well, their approval time is pretty fast.

The blog directory being young, will be advantageous for us to submit our blogs. Get in now!

Yahoo Blog directory.

It is a news to me and must be to you too. I passionately compile blog promotion ways and blog directories naturally is my top priority.

In this blog itself, have written a few times about list of blog directories that I have found. Today only, I happen to know about a list of blog directories published by Yahoo! I stumbled across this useful information while reading a blog post by Catch the Posts.

There are 58 blog directories listed by Yahoo! headed by the giant Technorati. Apart of all the popular blog directories, I have a quite a few new blog directories such as BlogMatcher.

Another new directory is BlogTorrents.com that is said to contain fresh torrents from millions of blogs.

Shout your site.

I woke up at last. After procrastinating for several months, I woke up and started submitting my blogs in blog directories.

Also, in the process I have started compiling good blog directories that are bugs free and easy to submit to.

Since April 28th, I am submitting to at least three blog directories on alternate days. I find it interesting and really geared up.

Yesterday, I submitted 6 of my blogs to Shout Your Site. All were approved in less than 24 hours and received emails intimating that they have approved my blogs. Shout your site has Google PR3 at present.

It is free and you can choose up to 3 categories for your blog.

Do directories follow us?

Two days before, I wrote about my bitter experiences while submitting my blogs to blog directories.

I wanted to speak about another important point to consider while submitting to directories. The main purpose of submitting to directories to get some useful backlinks but what if the directories don't pass on link juice by implementing 'No Follow' attribute?

I feel the directories should indicate this on their home page.

Here is a comment my blog received regarding blog directories.
"If you want an up-to-date list of the Top 101 Blog Directories & Submission Sites, I maintain a list on my blog: TrafficNymphomaniac.com ".

I just had a quick glance of the list and it seems I may find something new. Thanks buddy. But you won't be able to know that I appreciate because you won't allow me to comment on your blog post unless I register and login. Oh, what an annoying thing!

New blog directories.

Well, they are new for me. I found about 6 blog directories that are not in my list of blog directories so I call them new but they must have been online for some time now.

What is the most distressing thing while I submit my blogs to blog directories is the reciprocal link checking. Almost every blog directory has this bug.

See, I don't mind linking back. In fact I want to link to them. But there is a bug that is always there in most of the directories that says, "A link to the directory cannot be found in the URL you have specified" but the link that I placed is very much alive.

Another annoying factor is there won't be any way to let the blog directory owner about the bug because there won't be a 'Contact us' link. They are blissfully unaware of their directory's short comings.

What an inefficiency!

One click submission to 1000 directories.

There are 1145 directories to be exact in the database of this amazing directory submission tool.

Every webmaster and blogger's dream is to get their website or blog listed in as many directories as possible. Till now, there is no clear estimate on the number web directories in the Internet because, every day, more than 50 directories are being made and not all get immediately crawled by Google.

That is why it is not possible to know how many directories are there. Still, getting listed in about 1000 directories is a quite good achievement. If we manually submit, it will take about 60 days to complete the job.

But this directory submission tool will do it for us in about an hour. I think so but I am yet to try this software.

Alert to Women bloggers.

In this predominantly male dominated world, there are still a few special privileges for women.
If you are a woman and run a blog and maintain it and if you want a surge of traffic to it, then sign up for free with the women blogger web ring below.

There is a condition; you must be an Indian but can live anywhere in the world.




The entire process of joining and validating is bit elaborate and the time they take to review your blog is also long. My blog which has been validated on 2ND Jan 2008 is yet to be verified. I don't know what is meant by it but I think only after the verification, the blog will be listed with other blogs by women.(directory)

I quote them:
"The WomenBloggers webring is now on an automated system to make it possible to more easily maintain a ring with hundreds of sites in it. The previous ring was known to have up to 1100+ sites in it at any given time (when it stopped accepting new members, it had 1000+ sites in it; at the time the WomenBloggers ring was founded, the previous ring had 700+ active sites). "

Are you up to it?

There is another incentive for us. We can earn small money to refer people to this web ring.

Join now.

Latest news about New York bloggers.

Where one can find the latest news about New York? Obviously you can them in blogs about New York. But where do one find bloggers from New York?

One can visit http://www.nycbloggers.com/news.asp

This is not only a place to read what is happening in New York city but it is an ideal place for New York based bloggers to submit to the directory.

New York City probably has more bloggers per square mile than anywhere else in the world. NYCBloggers.com is an effort to put those bloggers on the map.

They have have a huge listing of resources too that includes places to eat, places for entertainment and so on. Even job openings in New York are posted in their web site.

It is a pretty busy place and a nice hub for New York bloggers.

Blog directory for video blogs.

Since the launch of YouTube, I have become an addict for watching video clips online. My first choice is always birds and animals followed by natural scenes.

I do also browse the top picks. I too wanted to start a video blog but I don't have a camera! (Smile)
A video blog is the new hot way for people to stick their personal lives on the internet! Not just simple words, static pictures, or grainy audio. They invite you to join them where-ever they go; meet their friends, their family, go on vacation, fall in love, and all vicariously from the comfort of your home computer.

Watching video blogs, I think people upload videos can be segregated as follows:
*Show off their skill.
*Genuine interest in sharing what they liked.

Here is a great directory for video blogs called Vid Blogs.
This directory is mainly categorized as per country.

Thank you Vid Blogs. I enjoyed my stay with you.

One more Blog Directory.

Blog Dumps is a blog directory plus a blogging community.

A lot of discussions are going at present about several topics that include link exchange, blog directories, networking, uploading and sharing videos, Music and photographs.

I found out this blogger group in Blog Catalog. They say that this group is for the discussion of blog resources, blogging tips and ways to increase your blog traffic.

But there is a bug in the submission process. After pressing the 'Add Link' button, nothing happened. I have intimated this problem to them an hour ago.

PS: I just received an email from the admin of Blog Dumps and he informed that the submission is working fine. Yes, I submitted this blog. Thank you Wolfbernz.

Submit blog related articles.

Every top internet marketer opines that the best or one of the ways to get visitors and link popularity is to submit articles to article directories.

I differ slightly here. While I agree that articles directories are a good source for increasing the number of visitors, I suspect no one looks for blog related articles in general articles directories. Well, I don't look for anything related to blogging tools and blog promotion in general articles directories.

I look at various other places such as blog directories and social bookmarking web sites. Today I learnt that Blogarama accepts blogging related articles. Blogarama is a big name in the blogosphere with Google PR7.

I submitted one of my blog posts and awaiting their approval. Once approved, I will be encouraged to submit more blog related articles there.


Blogarama - The Blog Directory

A blog directory cum social bookmark.

It is very unique-One India Blogs Directory, because it is both a blog directory and a social bookmarking website.

I don't remember when I submitted my blog but I received an email from them today that my submission is approved.

I thought I could submit my other blogs but I am not very much satisfied with the available categories. The webmaster should browse several blog directories to gain knowledge in this aspect.

The submission is free and easy. But I feel they are asking for too many details while registering an account.

As far as the social bookmarking is concerned, there won't be any traffic but we may expect some link popularity after a few months.

Important: Your blog must be Indian related. (?)

Free and new blog Directory.

It is alright if this blog directory Blogara.net has no Google PR at present.

Every one starts with PR0-right? As an internet marketer, I never hesitate to support a directory that has just been launched. When I started my general web directory, many people submitted in it. After more than a year, it has PR3. In fact, it started with PR4, then dropped down to PR2 and increased to PR3 now.

Blogara.net is very fresh. There are no ads yet. Obviously so but will sure bear ads when it becomes popular with at least PR4. The ubiquitous Alive Directory is listed there.

Please suppot Blogara.net