Free Blog Directories

If you have just started a blog it can be difficult to get it off the ground. There are so many blogs on the web. According to Technorati, around 133 million have been indexed since 2002 . However, most  people tend to be creatures of habit and there is only so much time in the day or so much that a person can take in. The result is that most people have a few blogs that they read on a regular basis and these tend to be the same blogs that everyone else reads.

Everyone has to start somewhere and with the intense competition for links,  blog directories offer a service which can help get your blog off to a good start. Some of the larger blog directories require payment but it is not necessary to pay for a listing as there are many free blog directories.

Free Blog Directories

• Blog Hub – blogs are quickly added to their directory and can be voted on.
• Blogged.com -quick submission, review within 1-2 days. An account is required to submit a blog.
• IceRocket – uses the Icerocket blog search.
• Blog Catalog – requires a user account.
• Globe of Blogs – allow you to choose five categories  for your blog to be to be indexed under. Easy to submit without signing up an account.
• Blog Universe
• Bigger Blogs
• Bloggernity
• Bloggapedia

Don’t think that you will be swamped by traffic by adding these links but it will help get your site indexed and perhaps listed for a few long-tail queries searches.

The are many other directories  you could submit your blog to and there are even directories of directories sites which list them.  However the quality of these can be quite variable so it is worth checking the site by looking at the PageRank and the MozRank. Usually, they are in agreement by +/- 1. Since MozRank considers just the links without the Google penalties this may be an indication of ability to pass PageRank.

Check the how many site are listed in a category.  If you blog will reasonably fit into several categories, add it to the category with the least number of  links as the amount of PageRank passed is inversely proportional to the number of links. More links, means less PageRank as passed per link.

Look at the websites that are already listed. Are they of good quality? The original idea behind directories being good quality links was that the sites submitted were reviewed by humans and accepted on merit. However, this has largely gone out the window and with so many directories there is little chance of traffic or PageRank coming from them.

My advice would be to use directories but use them sparingly. In the same way a good diet has food from all the major food groups: fat, sugar, salt and caffeine,  your link profile should contain some links from a wide variety of sources.