This question still bothers many bloggers: «What means Alexa ranking?», «What is Alexa ranking?»… I have met so-o-o many blogs arguing on this topic, that it is time for me to explain the value of Alexa web ranking, because I cannot imagine my blog’s niche without it.

The shortest definition of Alexa ranking is the potential of blog or website in numbers. That’s it. You can stop reading here. :)

…

Still reading? Then let me show you more detailed solutions on 5 problematic topics like:

1. How Alexa gets the traffic data of your site?
2. Is there any way to prevent your site’s traffic from being ranked by Alexa?
3. How you should be treating Alexa web ranking?
4. Why Alexa does not relate to Google Page Rank?
5. How to improve Alexa ranking and does Alexa toolbar improve it or not?

Before I will start answering the above questions, I should also mention the fact that many people ignore Alexa ranking, do not trust it and even hate it, because of its toolbar, which was considered by their anti-virus software as a spyware or a virus.

The summarized answer from the folks from Alexa on this problem was the following:

No, the Alexa Toolbar is not spyware.
Spyware is defined as hidden software that is installed on your computer without your knowledge.
It generally collects your personal information for advertising purposes, and provides you with no value in return.
The Alexa Toolbar is only installed when a user chooses to download it – it is not installed without your knowledge. The Toolbar is not hidden, it is prominently displayed at the top of your browser. In order to fill the Toolbar with relevant information, the URL of the page you’re on is transmitted to us and we return related information for that page.
The Alexa Toolbar can be turned off at any time.
If you feel that the features of the Alexa Toolbar are not of value to you, the Toolbar is easily uninstalled using Add/Remove Programs in the Control Panel of Windows.

This is it. Just add Alexa toolbar to your anti-virus software’s “trust list”, if such is present.

Now let’s get back to the 5 problematic questions.

How Alexa collects traffic data of your website or blog?

In the beginning Alexa Inc. was able to collect your traffic data only if you had installed their toolbar. Now, as you may have noticed, you do not have any toolbar installed and you still can see, that Alexa is ranking your blog or website.

Since early 1996 they have started using Alexa Crawl system, which works just like any other crawling bot.. e.g. google-bot. Currently Alexa’s crawling bots (or “crawlers”.. or “robots”) are gathering approximately 1.6 Terabytes (1600 gigabytes) of Web content per day. That is a huge number…

By today Alexa has gathered over 4.5 Billion pages from over 16 million sites, which is why if your site is only several days old, your Alexa traffic rank starts with ~16,000,000.

In other words, there are 2 ways, which Alexa is using to track your traffic:

1. Alexa toolbar, which you should install first. It gives you much more accurate data, than crawler’s work. So you better install it today. Download Alexa toolbar here.
2. The second way is Alexa Crawl system, which finds your site through external links pointing at you.

How to prevent Alexa ranking?

This is a very logical question. Of course, when your blog or website is still too young to show its “great” traffic data to the entire world, you want to hide it. This is why you may want to prevent your site from Alexa ranking.

In order to do that, first of all, you shouldn’t install Alexa toolbar. Uninstall it, if you already have it.

The second thing you want to do is to modify your robots.txt file:

1. You can allow or disallow specific robots from visiting part or all of your site. Alexa’s crawler identifies itself as ia_archiver, and so to allow ia_archiver to visit (while preventing all others), your robots.txt file should look like this:

   User-agent: ia_archiver
   Disallow:

2. To prevent ia_archiver from visiting (while allowing all others), your robots.txt file should look like this:

   User-agent: ia_archiver
   Disallow: /

That’s it. Only 2 ways. “Noindex” meta tag, probably, will not help you, because Alexa doesn’t mention it.

Treating Alexa ranking

I am not going to teach you how to treat alexa ranking, because it depends on your site’s needs. I will only share my own opinion on this problem.

Alexa traffic rank is my number 1 traffic analysis tool, because it really shows me the potential of a blog. It helps me to decide, whether to deal with the given website or not.

Alexa ranking can give you the general idea of successfulness of some site after 1 week.

Say, on monday I see, that the site’s Alexa rank is ~500k. Then.. I check its stats in the end of the week, and wow.. Alexa has changed to ~495k. This means, that the site is on the right road.

However, if Alexa has changed to, say, ~510k after the whole week, it means, that the author is not promoting his site anymore or doing it not properly. Moreover, I can say, that such site is getting ~15/20 unique visitors per day.. and it’s falling down.

Alexa does not relate to Google page rank

This is true, because Alexa uses its own crawler called ia_archiver. Google crawler’s name is… Googlebot. They are totally different, though they have similar algorithms, which is why a lot of bloggers and webmasters think that they somehow relate to each other.

To make it easier to understand:

1. Using Alexa, you can appraise site’s daily traffic;
2. However, with the help of Google page rank you can decide, if the outcoming links from some site are quality or not. Though you also should consider many many more factors, like keywords, dofollow/nofollow tags etc. Quality links improve your SERP.. simply reminding :)

How to improve Alexa traffic ranking?

Have you felt that?..

The question has the answer in it.

You need to get more traffic on your daily basis. But do not panic.. everything has its own time for it. If you are blogging consistently and promoting your stuff, your traffic ranking will be going up with each day. It only depends on how well you are doing those two things.

Well, as I have mentioned above, to get more accurate traffic data from Alexa you might need to install Alexa toolbar. But note.. it does not improve your traffic ranking, it only shows it more accurately.

For instance, when your watch is lagging for 5 minutes and you fix them (installing some toolbar :)… they become accurate. But the fact is the fact – they would have shown, for example 6:45 pm, anyway.

***

I think I have defined the meaning of Alexa ranking and have explained its ranking purpose.

Web sources that were used except the mentioned above: Alexa ranking – does it matter? and Technology of Alexa.

***

Video Dessert: «Stop The Alexa and PageRank Obsession!»

Lisa Irby explains why you should stop being obsessed by Alexa traffic rank, PageRank and so on.

From this success story you can learn several very important things. It’s about blogging success and the way people (far not all of them) achieve it with a hard work.

Henri Junttila is a young man, a blogger. His passion is writing helpful stuff for people to inspire them.. well, at least, that’s what he’s doing in his last blog, called Wake Up Cloud.

His success story isn’t about a sudden success, it’s not about some kind of an overnight success neither. It’s about well-thought-out tactics. I love this kind of a success, because it’s about the real truth, that most of you, bloggers and website masters, are looking for.

You will never buy your website’s success. That’s another simple truth. Forget about SEO companies, which guarantee you high rankings for only 39,95$ :D Today most of these companies are more like jokers and comedians, rather than those, who can help you.

There is only one top ten results for a special keyword phrase in Google and other search engines. And if you wish to get there.. follow the example story of Henri Junttila. Learn something new for yourself or revive your memory of what matters.

Life of Henri Junttila

I’m not going to retell it word by word. He’s done it before on his “About page” at Wake Up Cloud. And I don’t have rights to do it, except quoting several key points.

1. My life really started when I got out of school at 18. I had worked a few lousy-paying jobs during the summers, which made me realize that I was not on the right track.

   - Very similar to my own story, and I bet that to some of yours.

2. I do not claim to have all the answers, because I am still learning and trying to figure things out, just like you.

   - And he’s doing it very well. But something still differs his view of how things should be done. Let’s find it out in a moment!

3. Something is not right with how things are done right now, so let’s change it!

   - I think, that each of you can feel, that something’s really wrong in this world. But it’s not just it, when you understand it and do nothing with it.

Have you felt Henri’s strength of will? That’s what helps him and moves him. And this is only one thing, that explains his success. Let’s find the others..

From Pagerank «0» to «4» in 21 days

This is how he’s managed to kick-start his blog “Wake Up Cloud”. It took him only ~4 weeks to jump from PR «0» to «4». His Alexa ranking is already ~113k and “Wake Up Cloud” has 2,500+ external links by Yahoo.

Actually, this is also the reason, why he recieved so much attention.

But let’s take a look at the tactics. This achievement isn’t sudden and unexpected at all. And there’s nothing impossible for you to make the same result on your blog or website.

The tactics Henri uses

Guest posts

I hope you guys know the meaning of guest posting. But do you know the strength of it, when it comes to writing guest posts more than your posts for your own blog? Especially, when you write guest posts for “big” blogs…

This way Henri has written 25 guest posts and 20 posts for his own blog in December.

This is one of the reasons of Henri’s fast success. But that’s not just it. There’s one more important thing. Will speak about it in a few moments. Now let’s take a look at his way of keeping beginning blog.

No annoying ads

Absolutely no ads. This guy perfectly understands, that ads would deter some of his first readers.

It’s very important to try to stay away from putting ads on your blog while your blog is still young and you have no strong and tight audience.

Single-style-design

“Wake Up Cloud” blog’s theme is Thesis, which is rather popular today and it has lots of myths about SEO features. But the only thing, that is true for sure, is that this theme’s code is very simple. And the theme itself looks simple and neutral.

Besides, Henri’s made his blog main color – blue, which is also neutral and calm. And it relates to his niche – self improvement.

Very strong «About Page»

By “very strong” I mean that Henri, probably, knows the importance of “about” blog pages. You can learn about this, I’d say, science from Skelliwag’s post about writing the perfect “about” page. Problogger has also a similar post, but Skelliwag wrote it with more details.

Almost absense of links in the text

This factor makes reading Wake Up Cloud a little bit more pleasant. I’m not sure, if it has some SEO strength, but I think it has the stregnth of keeping a sense of reading a book.

What was Henri’s the most crucial promotional step?

I have to warn you. This will not work unless you have something worthy to show, which is about to attract tons of website traffic.

Achieve what others want, and show how you did it

When Henri’s blog got PR 4 in 21 days, it was the perfect thing to speak about. And he did that, but as a guest post at Blogussion: «Leaping from PR 0 to 4 in 21 days without any connections».

Now think for a second of why he’s writing so many guest posts?

The answer is… If you’re sure, that your content is valuable and helpful, show it to people. Guest posting is the most efficient way, because at the early stage of your blog, search engines are not your friend.

As you’ll start to get unreal traffic from other blogs, where you’ve left guest posts, people naturally would like to know you… “How the hell he did that? Why he’s so special? What’s his secret?” This is what you want. This means, that your tactics did a good promotional job.

***

Sometimes, it’s very useful to analyze tactics of successful people and understand that the deal is not about the success. It’s about a real hard work, which sooner or later supposed to be rewarded.

Thanks to Henri for showing all of us the power of guest posting!

PS. I’ve forgotten to mention, that Henri also comments a lot. He’s got about 100 subscriptions in his Google reader. But.. I hope that this way of promotion isn’t new for you.

***

Video Dessert: «Jeremy Lynch on Britain’s Got Talent 2008»

Jeremy Lynch with his football freestyle audition on Britain’s Got Talent 2008, week 4.

When I was doing my latest post – Insane List of 140 Do Follow & Nofollow Blogs with CommentLuv 2010, I’ve noticed several strange things about do follow and nofollow blogs. Theoretically, a nofollow blog should rank better, than a do follow blog, because a nofollow blog doesn’t share its ranking in links. So, it means, that it stores it for itself. You know that. Nothing new. But..

Ok, let’s compare several pair of blogs from my list of blogs with CommentLuv. In this case, the “pair” is a do follow blog and a nofollow blog with similar Google pagerank and Alexa ranking.

Do Follow VS Nofollow: Round 1

blog.hichamaged.net (will be “A”) and www.jhsiess.com (will be “B”). Their Google pageranks are both 4. And both of them have appr. 219,000 of Alexa (by the 21st of Dec. 2009). A is a nofollow blog and B is a do follow blog. Ok with that.

Niches

A’s niche is “life, personal, psychology” and B’s niche is “life, death, personal”. Well.. the same boring, I guess :)

Compete Ranks

Use popuri.us to check my work. So.. A has 825,263 and B has 263,443. The lower means the better. Seems like B is winning. Let’s go further.

Yahoo backlinks

A has 18,449 and B – 18,120. Almost the same, so nobody wins this time.

Archives

A’s archive and B’s archive. Don’t count the total amount of their posts. You can visually decide, that A’s got twice more, than B.

Wait a minute.. A is nofollow and it has so many posts! This blog lives longer and it should be ranked better, than B. But considering the fact, that they have pagerank 4, B wins with less posts, because it has gained its rank faster. And it has better Alexa ranking, which means there is more website traffic running on this blog.

Summary

www.jhsiess.com, which is B and a do follow blog, wins.

Do Follow VS Nofollow: Round 2

eblogtip.com (as “A”) and www.andrewkeir.com (as “B”). Both of them have Google pagerank 2 and Alexa – ~176,000. A is a do follow and B is nofollow.

Niches

A’s niche is mostly “blogging, design”, B’s niche is “blogging, money etc”. Almost the same.

Compete Ranks

A has N/A. B has 238,011. Technically, B wins.

Yahoo backlinks

A – 6,466, B – 744. It’s clear, that A wins.

Archives

B has about 185 posts and the first one was posted on October 19th, 2008. A has twice less – 98 posts by today, and the oldest post was published on Sept. 28th, 2009.

Summary

A wins, because it has twice less posts, it is younger and it has much more of backlinks. Remember, that A is a do follow blog?

Do Follow VS Nofollow: Final Conclusion

No doubt, that do follow blog is better, because you get high-ranked much more faster. Why? Maybe it’s because the majority of your visitors are those, who wants to comment. Or maybe those, who comment, eventually do some kind of an external promotion, which surely do the best for you and your blog.

What do you think?

Are those parameters, that I’ve used, enough for a total comparison of do follow and nofollow blogs? Maybe there is something else, that should change the final result of this experiment?

I’ll gladly accept your opinions.

***

Video Dessert: «Dramatic Cat»

Insane dramatic cat… watching TV and then…

Alright! At last! 4 full days or about 36 hours of searching and filtering and now it’s done. Simply insane list of 140 do follow and nollow blogs. Moreover, I’ve sorted all of them out. Now you are able to pick those, which are better.

How are they sorted?
By Google pagerank, Alexa ranking, and this time I’ve added some notes, that will help you to search those blogs, that relate to your niche.

How this list supposed to help you?
You can get lots of external links from other blogs to your site. The only thing you have to do is to leave good comments. Don’t spam :) It is useless and pointless.

What is CommentLuv?

This is a wordpress plugin, that adds a link to the latest post of the comment’s author. More about CommentLuv.

Why is this list so perfect?
Well.. First of all, it’s compiled from about 900 websites. I’ve found them on the first 15 pages of Google search with the following phrase – cumment luv do follow. I’ve looked for all the most valuable lists.
It was really hard, because the most of provided links were dead. But.. a little bit of patience and everything’s done now :)

About notes
As you can see, I’ve added some notes, but not to every listed blog. Why is that? That is because those blogs, that don’t have any note, relate to my niche and I will, probably, use for commenting.

Why notes are so short?
I save your time :) It would be better for SEO to make several-lines-notes, but that wouldn’t look compact.

What’s my niche?
Look under my logo above :) It says “Speaking about website traffic & promotion”. Well.. Of course it’s not so easy to fit my niche for so many blogs. But I’m going to use also “make money online”, “tech”, “blogging tips” and “internet marketing” blogs for commenting. Rather close, isn’t it? Anyway, I think it’s my targeted traffic :)

Why 2010 again?
Because these do follow and nofollow blogs will, probably, work in 2010, as most of them do now.

What means (+/-;+/-) in your scheme?
Example 1: “michaeltorbert.com – (-;-) – 5 – 201,471 – rare”. From this example you can see that michaeltorbert.com author’s link in comment is “nofollow” and the CommentLuv’s link is also “nofollow”. Google pagerank is 5 and Alexa ranking is 201,471. The note says, that this blog publishes new posts rarely.
Example 2: “inkthinkerblog.com – (+;-) – 3 – 1,305,531 – tech, writing, very rare”. From this example you can see that inkthinkerblog.com author’s link in comment is “do follow”, but CommentLuv’s link is “nofollow”. The note says, that the current blog relates to the niche about technologies and writing. “Very rare” means, that the author of this blog publishes new posts extremely rare >.<, so there won't be much work with commenting on this blog.

So.. I hope I’ve answered most of the possible questions.

Scheme of the list: “URL – (+/-;+/-) – Google pagerank – Alexa ranking – Note”

Working Do Follow Blogs with CommentLuv

1. ariwriter.com – (+;+) – 5 – 97,532;
2. blog.hichamaged.net – (+;-) – 5 – 236,956 – self-improvement;
3. www.blogussion.com – (+;+) – 4 – 21,690 – (!);
4. www.johncow.com – (-;+) – 4 – 24,350;
5. kikolani.com – (+;+) – 4 – 32,497;
6. www.smartbloggerz.com – (+;+) – 4 – 35,903;
7. www.junkdrawerblog.com – (+;+) – 4 – 36,585 – life, personal;
8. niceblogger.com – (-;+) – 4 – 38,848;
9. thesisthemehq.com – (+;+) – 4 – 56,858;
10. www.luvemorleavem.com – (+;-) – 4 – 68,886 – life, personal;
11. potpolitics.com – (+;+) – 4 – 73,276;
12. bloggingwithoutablog.com – (+;+) – 4 – 96,227 – personal, internet, advices;
13. www.animhut.com – (+;+) – 4 – 97,186 – twitter, design;
14. weblogbetter.com – (+;+) – 4 – 130,051 – raised from PR 0 to PR 4 on the 2nd Jan. 2010;
15. nthambazale.com – (+;-) – 4 – 145,021;
16. exclusive-executive-resumes.com – (+;+) – 4 – 173,815 – finance;
17. www.brandonacox.com – (+;+) – 4 – 209,215 – personal;
18. www.jhsiess.com – (+;+) – 4 – 211,474 – life, family;
19. dougchampigny.com – (+;+) – 4 – 277,653;
20. stopdropandblog.com – (+;+) – 4 – 366,836 – life, personal;
21. theboldlife.com – (+;+) – 4 – 398,621 – life;
22. www.minthegap.com – (-;+) – 4 – 436,854 – life;
23. www.extremejohn.com – (+;+) – 3 – 25,866;
24. www.howtospoter.com – (+;+) – 3 – 33,100;
25. tycoonblogger.com – (+;+) – 2 – 39,206;
26. www.serradinho.com – (+;+) – 3 – 40,077;
27. blazingminds.co.uk – (+;+) – 3 – 45,354 – twitter, “do follow” for good commentators;
28. www.chotoan.com – (+;+) – 3 – 47,468;
29. myblog2day.com – (+;+) – 3 – 49,044 – money online, good;
30. www.technogati.com – (+;+) – 3 – 62,537;
31. www.forcedgreen.com – (-;+) – 3 – 59,812 – life;
32. tucsonseosolutions.com – (+;+) – 3 – 81,400;
33. www.growmap.com – (+;+) – 3 – 83,377;
34. website-in-a-weekend.net – (+;+) – 3 – 83,912;
35. wassupblog.com – (+;-) – 3 – 97,456;
36. damonday.com – (+;+) – 3 – 117,047 – finance;
37. www.seomkt.com – (+;+) – 3 – 129,100;
38. mikepaetzold.com – (+;+) – 3 – 146,762 – ugly design;
39. www.nothingbutrandom.com – (+;+) – 3 – 155,986 – good;
40. www.betterbloggingforbloggers.com – (+;+) – 3 – 168,635;
41. www.tech-mania.com – (+;+) – 3 – 191,669;
42. www.suzannefranco.com – (+;+) – 3 – 202,860;
43. www.waynejohn.com – (+;-) – 3 – 203,492 – personal;
44. learningfolder.net – (+;+) – 3 – 212,162;
45. extremeezine.com – (+;+) – 3 – 216,746;
46. johnlagoudakis.com – (+;+) – 3 – 259,126;
47. expressiveworld.com – (+;+) – 3 – 525,843 – art, psychology;
48. angesbiz.com – (+;+) – 3 – 571,174;
49. chattydm.net – (+;+) – 3 – 597,620 – gaming;
50. captain-affiliate.com – (+;+) – 3 – 869,585;
51. psychicgeek.com – (+;+) – 3 – 1,501,939 – life, personal;
52. tycoonblogger.com – (+;+) – 2 – 39,206;
53. www.dragonblogger.com – (+;+) – 2 – 41,209;
54. www.untwistedvortex.com – (-;+) – 2 – 50,428 – life, personal;
55. eblogtip.com – (+;+) – 2 – 120,259 – nice;
56. mylifethinking.com – (+;-) – 2 – 123,977;
57. theblogabouteverything.com – (+;+) – 2 – 128,314 – about everything;
58. www.novicebloggers.com – (+;+) – 2 – 155,603 – raised from PR 0 to PR 2 on the 2nd Jan. 2010;
59. www.makingmoneyonline.com – (+;+) – 2 – 204,653;
60. www.miscbytes.com – (+;+) – 2 – 334,373 – life, personal;
61. www.oestsetnoc.us – (+;+) – 2 – 444,526;
62. socomsales.com – (+;+) – 2 – 908,037 – money;
63. jronaldlee.com – (+;+) – 2 – 988,552 – photography;
64. themixingdj.com – (+;+) – 2 – 1,340,450 – music, dj;
65. www.mostlyblog.com – (+;-) – 1 – 138,177 – fast;
66. tech18.com – (+;+) – 1 – 222,527;
67. introvertzone.com – (+;+) – 1 – 248,387 – psychology, world;
68. www.gupshupblog.com – (+;+) – 1 – 300,876;
69. nobogies.com – (+;+) – 1 – 940,677 – twitter, golf;
70. bradblogging.com – (+;+) – 0 – 69,107;
71. www.sandierpastures.com – (+;+) – 0 – 272,236 – life, travel;
72. athleticalley.com – (+;+) – 0 – 497,278 – sports;
73. bloggingwire.com/podcast/ – (+;+) – 0 – N/A – Blogging about Podcasting;
74. bloggingwire.com/msileanespeaks/ – (+;+) – 0 – N/A – Twitter, Blogging, Podcasting;

Working Nofollow Blogs with CommentLuv

1. www.marketingpilgrim.com – (-;-) – 6 – 11,759 – 5+ posts per day;
2. thebloggess.com – (-;-) – 6 – 53,272 – personal (incredible);
3. blog.2createawebsite.com – (-;-) – 5 – 10,154;
4. techie-buzz.com – (-;-) – 5 – 11,220;
5. www.searchenginepeople.com – (-;-) – 5 – 25,071;
6. dadshouseblog.com – (-;-) – 5 – 91,980 – parents, life;
7. blog.hichamaged.net – (-;-) – 5 – 136,956;
8. blog.dk.sg – (-;-) – 5 – 470,021 – tech;
9. www.collectiblescornertv.com – (-;-) – 5 – 558,788;
10. beyond-school.org – (-;-) – 5 – 960,373 – life, ideas;
11. www.tricksdaddy.com – (-;-) – 4 – 33,320 – tech;
12. asnio.com – (-;-) – 4 – 74,430;
13. www.shankrila.com – (-;-) – 4 – 115,391 – tech, life;
14. www.joetech.com – (-;-) – 4 – 125,134;
15. www.nomeatathlete.com – (-;-) – 4 – 494,867 – sports, health;
16. www.jarsofcute.com – (-;-) – 4 – 7,743,917 fashion glamour, Alexa fell from 1,837,648 to 7,743,917 by 3rd Jan. 2010;
17. www.caroline-middlebrook.com – (-;-) – 3 – 24,807 12k+ subbed;
18. www.kimwoodbridge.com – (-;-) – 3 – 38,546 – social, development;
19. www.bloggingwithchris.com – (-;-) – 3 – 56,447 – good;
20. anime2.kokidokom.net – (-;-) – 3 – 57,559 – anime, japan;
21. www.blogrpro.com – (-;-) – 3 – 61,854;
22. techgenuine.com – (-;-) – 3 – 61,975 – raised from PR 0 to PR 3 on the 3rd Jan. 2010;
23. www.niharsworld.com – (-;-) – 3 – 70,333;
24. jaypeeonline.net – (-;-) – 3 – 71,871;
25. teenius.com – (-;-) – 3 – 103,060;
26. nblog.newmediabloggers.com – (-;-) – 3 – 113,113 – nice beginning;
27. technology.johnsamuel.in – (-;-) – 3 – 114,656 – tech;
28. www.standoutblogger.com – (-;-) – 3 – 116,535;
29. softwarecritics.info – (-;-) – 3 – 149,130 – design;
30. sem-group.net – (-;-) – 3 – 158,058;
31. www.threestyles.com – (-;-) – 3 – 164,140;
32. www.earthtoholly.com – (-;-) – 3 – 187,164 – twitter, nature, life;
33. www.losethattyre.co.uk – (-;-) – 3 – 207,452 – health;
34. technobuz.com – (-;-) – 3 – 219,629;
35. www.domainmarvelous.com – (-;-) – 3 – 256,716 – domains;
36. www.chidimar.com – (-;-) – 3 – 310,704;
37. bleedingespresso.com – (-;-) – 3 – 490,527 – life, personal;
38. www.evilwoobie.com – (-;-) – 3 – 522,442 – dating, relationship;
39. davidnotes.com – (-;-) – 3 – 580,943 – life, personal;
40. kestrelsaerie.us – (-;-) – 3 – 1,496,047 – life;
41. www.techcats.net – (-;-) – 2 – 55,806 – raised from PR 0 to PR 2 on the 3rd Jan. 2010;
42. www.directsaleswebmarketing.com – (-;-) – 2 – 116,404;
43. zebida.com – (-;-) – 2 – 139,042;
44. www.pallab.net – (-;-) – 2 – 160,097;
45. tmtips.com – (-;-) – 2 – 529,723 – personal, internet themes;
46. www.andrewkeir.com – (-;-) – 1 – 153,752 – design, blogging;
47. www.softpoint.in – (-;-) – 1 – 214,103;
48. www.datmoney.com – (-;-) – 0 – 100,681 – money;
49. shankerbakshi.com – (-;-) – 0 – 108,509;
50. www.juliesjournal.com – (-;-) – 0 – 141,251 – woman, personal;

Barely Active Nofollow Blogs with CommentLuv

1. michaeltorbert.com – (-;-) – 5 – 191,328;
2. www.stephanmiller.com – (-;-) – 4 – 41,260;
3. techshali.com – (-;-) – 4 – 149,584 – last post: september;
4. www.lauraroeder.com – (-;-) – 4 – 175,864 – weekly;
5. www.blog.exxcorpio.com – (-;-) – 4 – 203,337;
6. forthelose.org – (-;-) – 3 – 77,232;
7. sensitivitytothings.com – (-;-) – 3 – 1,026,661 – life;
8. www.dedestruct.com – (-;-) – 2 – 235,975 – design;

Barely Active Do follow Blogs with CommentLuv

1. www.lostaddress.org – (+;+) – 4 – 531,721 – random nonsense;
2. www.jtpratt.com – (+;+) – 3 – 43,551;
3. www.ewriting.pamil-visions.com – (+;+) – 3 – 116,355 – rare, but long;
4. www.idowebmarketing.com – (+;+) – 3 – 164,566;
5. your-dailyword.blogspot.com – (+;+) – 3 – 189,920 – bible, life;
6. legacymarketingservices.com/wk – (+;+) – 3 – 1,317,024;
7. inkthinkerblog.com – (+;-) – 3 – 1,685,461 – tech, writing;
8. www.nicolasprudhon.com – (+;+) – 2 – 127,836;
9. biznz.org – (+;+) – 2 – 414,070;
10. twentyten.com – (+;+) – 1 – 779,627;
11. codeyhugo.com – (+;+) – 1 – 986,635;
12. crayonwriter.com – (+;+) – 0 – 293,479 – personal, writing;

Updated on 3rd Jan. 2010

A lot of work, right? Basically, because I started blogging not so long time ago, I’ve made this list for myself :) So you can see, that I didn’t regret my time. 4 days! Damn..

PS: “Almost dead” changed to “Barely Active” :)

I’ve spent about 6 hours filtering this list of 55 blog directories. I’m sick of it now :)) But.. at last – the list is ready. All of the provided directories are totally free and don’t require reciprocal link. Somewhere you can put their link/banner to your website/blog, though that’s not necessary.

Difference between a usual website directory and a blog directory?
Well.. there is no special difference. But, I think that it’s more like an advantage for blogs. Because your blog can be submitted to both types of directories.

Why Working Blog Directories?
Because there are tons of trash blog directories, that don’t work today. They are still in the top of Google search queries. And I hope, that this post will beat them.

Why 2010?
Because today is the 13th of December. Got it? :)

As always, I’ve included Google pageranking and Alexa web traffic ranking. This will save your time, if you want to submit your blog only to free quality blog directories.

Scheme of the list: URL – Google Pagerank – Alexa ranking

• www.bloglines.com – 9 – 2,129;
• www.boingboing.net – 8 – 1,801;
• blogsearch.google.com – 7 – 1;
• www.blogcatalog.com – 7 – 309;
• www.blogs.com – 7 – 1,419;
• www.blogburst.com – 7 – 32,445;
• www.bloggernity.com – 7 – 34,203;
• www.globeofblogs.com – 7 – 44,024;
• www.zimbio.com – 6 – 392;
• blogs.botw.org – 6 – 4,838;
• www.blogged.com – 6 – 5,741;
• www.icerocket.com – 6 – 6,791;
• www.blogrankings.com – 6 – 18,597; jumped from PR 4 to PR 6 on 3rd Jan. 2010;
• www.blogpulse.com – 6 – 23,302;
• www.bloggapedia.com – 6 – 29,055;
• www.bloghop.com – 6 – 35,942;
• www.bloghub.com – 6 – 38,784;
• www.crayon.net – 6 – 119,629;
• truthlaidbear.com – 6 – 120,520;
• www.jewishblogging.com – 6 – 445,352;
• www.minnesota.com – 5 – 185,146;
• www.today.com – 5 – 6,058;
• searchsight.com – 5 – 9,392;
• www.loadedweb.com – 5 – 23,303;
• www.blogexplosion.com – 5 – 23,854;
• www.fybersearch.com – 5 – 30,984;
• www.blog-directory.org – 5 – 72,896;
• www.blogdirectory001.com – 5 – 162,108; jumped from PR 0 to PR 5 on 3rd Jan. 2010;
• www.blogscholar.com – 5 – 188,290;
• www.blogflux.com – 4 – 8,113;
• www.blogarama.com – 4 – 24,077;
• www.info-listings.com – 4 – 25,526;
• blogville.us – 4 – 46,363;
• www.lsblogs.com – 4 – 67,555;
• www.blogoriffic.com – 4 – 85,322;
• www.sarthak.net – 4 – 93,507;
• www.submitblognow.info – 4 – 145,463;
• www.flookie.net – 4 – 186,911;
• www.mvblogs.com – 4 – 206,850;
• www.myblogdirectory.net – 4 – 225,809;
• seattle.blogmob.org – 4 – 499,988;
• jenett.org – 4 – 637,114;
• www.webworldindex.com – 3 – 15,437;
• www.bloggernow.com – 3 – 51,925;
• www.blogs-collection.com – 3 – 61,650;
• www.bloglisting.net – 3 – 63,624;
• www.blogbunch.com – 3 – 102,027;
• www.blogfolders.com – 3 – 186,405;
• blogfinds.com – 3 – 207,984;
• www.blogsrating.com – 3 – 214,523;
• www.blog-collector.com – 2 – 116,097;
• www.blogobbler.com – 1 – 229,421;
• www.allforblog.com – 0 – 223,363;
• www.blloggs.com – N/A – 132,410;
• directory.blogaz.net – N/A – 241,512;

Updated on 4th Jan. 2010

RSS directories?
Did you know, that there are also RSS directories? That’s right. I think, that they are much more useful for you blog rankings, though that doesn’t mean, that you shouldn’t submit your blog to usual and/or blog directories. They are simply another advantage of having a blog, but not a common website :)

There are website directories, there are article directories.. and guess what. You can submit your RSS feed to RSS directories.

Cool, huh? And this way, every time you publish a new post, those directories are being updated. Most of them… Sometimes you have to update’em manually. But that’s OK, right? Do we want to get some extra traffic and external links? Sure, we do. And this is another way, that needs just some of your time.

It took me about 3-4 hours to submit my RSS feed to the following list of RSS directories. I bet that you’ll do it a lot faster, because all of these RSS directories are quality ones and work 100%. They are also up-to-date by December, 2009 (by January 2010 now). That’s why the topic says “2010″.

So.. check out my top RSS directories 2010 with Google pagerank and Alexa ranking. Notice also that I didn’t include such RSS directories, that demand you to put a backlink or banner for them. Be sure, that the list is perfect for today.

Scheme of the list: URL – Google Pagerank – Alexa ranking

• www.codango.com – 7 – 21,836;
• publisher.yahoo.com – 6 – 3;
• www.redtram.com – 6 – 1,734;
• www.feedage.com – 5 – 6,849;
• www.feedcat.net – 5 – 20,356;
• www.millionrss.com – 5 – 27,643;
• www.plazoo.com – 5 – 29,250;
• www.rssmountain.com – 5 – 43,697;
• www.feednuts.com – 5 – 136,069;
• www.oobdoo.com – 5 – 144,528;
• www.rss-spider.com – 5 – 152,118; PR changed from N/A to 5 on 3rd Jan. 2010
• www.blogdirectory001.com – 5 – 162,108; jumped from PR 0 to PR 5 on 3rd Jan. 2010
• www.feedmailer.net – 5 – 202,322;
• www.5z5.com – 4 – 14,367;
• www.feedmil.com – 4 – 27,344;
• www.feedest.com – 4 – 30,008;
• www.2rss.com – 4 – 32,460;
• www.leighrss.com – 4 – 33,805;
• www.jordomedia.com – 4 – 43,004;
• www.goldenfeed.com – 4 – 70,190;
• www.feedgy.com – 4 – 118,456;
• www.greenprofs.com – 4 – 322,138;
• www.feedmap.net – 3 – 55,317;
• 4guysfromrolla.aspin.com – 3 – 66,165;
• www.rssmotron.com – 3 – 77,972;
• www.feedsee.com – 3 – 84,453;
• www.blogbunch.com – 3 – 102,027;
• www.solarwarp.net – 3 – 145,176;
• www.feedbomb.com – 3 – 178,615;
• www.feedlisting.com – 3 – 186,658;
• www.newzalert.com – 3 – 210,904;
• www.1800rssfeeds.com – 1 – 211,088;
• www.rssmicro.com – 0 – 40,150;
• www.readablog.com – 0 – 66,709; with Google pagerank update fell from PR 4 to PR 0 on 3rd Jan. 2010
• www.feedboy.com – 0 – 100,170;
• www.rssmad.com – N/A – 92,235; PR changed from 3 to N/A on 3rd Jan. 2010
• www.automotive-links.mustangv8.com – N/A – 117,630;
• en.newsxs.com – N/A – 273,043;

Updated on 3rd Jan. 2010

I’m going to update the list in several months, so that you can come back and look for updates.

As a bonus, try this free submitter, that submits your RSS feeds to several services at once.

This post is a logical continuation of my previous work, where I’ve been talking about top web directories and top social bookmarking sites. This series of posts consists of the most fresh stats and links upon November, 2009.

Today, it’s time to have a look at proffesionals of blogging, that are worth your time.

Warning!
Stop wasting your time on low-rated blogs.. like mine :). Begin commenting and gaining new & fresh traffic from high-rated blogs.
You know what…? That really doesn’t sound quite normal. Because talking about this is kinda “personal” for each of us. But still..
Here’s my list of the best of the best.. with Google pagerank and Alexa of course.

Scheme of the list: URL – Google Pagerank – Alexa ranking

• www.techcrunch.com – 8 – 391
• www.readwriteweb.com – 8 – 2,232
• www.googleblog.blogspot.com – 8 – 2,856
• www.getmiro.com/blog/ – 8 – 22,850
• www.mashable.com – 7 – 412
• www.seomoz.org – 7 – 1,915
• www.blog.searchenginewatch.com – 7 – 2,875
• www.thinkprogress.org – 7 – 10,305
• www.seobook.com/blog/ – 6 – 1,179
• www.problogger.net – 6 – 2,353
• www.copyblogger.com – 6 – 4,742
• www.toprankblog.com – 6 – 9,832
• www.mattcutts.com/blog/ – 5 – 4,431
• www.davidnaylor.co.uk/blog/ – 5 – 20,324
• www.seobythesea.com – 5 – 25,229

If that’s still not enough, check these out also. Or.. Technorati’s top.. But why I don’t like Technorati’s top is because almost every single blog isn’t suitable for promoting…

My recommendation:
Use only some of my list and focus on what you comment and how you comment. That would save your nerves and attention.

That’s right. I’ve decided to publish my top free web directories list, that I use to promote my website. This list consists of the most pageranked websites, that offer to submit your website for free. I’ll include Google pagerank and Alexa ranking, so that you could see its value. Since I’m using this list myself, I’m going to update it monthly or more often.

Now, below are 3 basic tips why you need to submit your website link:

1) Get you first traffic!
- Very common reason. There are lots of opinions about that. Most of them tell us that we need to write more often and more precious content. It’s actually right. But when we begin, we can’t wait. We need the result as faster as possible. I feel the same right now. I really want to see, that my website is being visited. One of the things, that can help it, is adding your website link to high-ranked web directories.

2) High-ranked web directories will raise your PR.
- That’s it. But be careful choosing those web directories. Pick up only quality ones.

3) Mostly it’s all because of traffic.
- Don’t you think that only submissions will do your PR like 5-6 or more, right? So don’t. It’s just another way to bring you some of targeted traffic.

Scheme of the list: URL – Google Pagerank – Alexa ranking – note

• www.ipl.org – 9 – 16,855 – ipl2 is the result of a merger of the Internet Public Library (IPL) and the Librarians’ Internet Index (LII).;
• www.dmoz.org – 8 – 748 ;
• www.gogreece.com – 6 – 119,942 ;
• www.politicalforecast.net – 6 – 136,128 ;
• www.pegasusdirectory.com – 5 – 14,565 ;
• www.turnpike.net – 5 – 19,600 ;
• www.canlinks.net – 5 – 21,080 ;
• (?)www.illumirate.com – 5 – 23,215 ;
• www.somuch.com – 5 – 25,835 – jumped from PR 3 to PR 5 on 3rd Jan. 2010;
• www.tsection.com – 5 – 26,592 ;
• www.cultuurtechnologie.net – 5 – 35,255 ;
• www.taranganews.com – 5 – 43,976 ;
• (?)www.mavicanet.com – 5 – 49,963 ;
• www.jayde.com – 4 – 5,155 ;
• www.info-listings.com – 4 – 25,526 ;
• www.businessseek.biz – 4 – 29,199 ;
• www.freshtv.com – 4 – 54,355 ;
• www.2yi.net – 4 – 105,988 ;
• www.webworldindex.com – 3 – 15,437 ;
• www.allthewebsites.org – 3 – 35,096 ;
• www.busybits.com – 3 – 37,921 ;
• www.wowdirectory.com – 3 – 50,726 ;
• www.spheri.com – 3 – 110,478 ;
• www.directory.vxbox.com – 3 – 195,717 ;

More? :) (Note: There are lots of mistakes on www.wmtips.com . So be ready to check the real stats of listed web directories on www.popuri.us)

Updated on 4th Jan. 2010

My personal advice:

Don’t waste your time on submitting to thousands of web directories. That’s not worth it.. Focus on some hot web directories and just stop. Want to know why? Then watch Lisa’s video about this.

The easiest way to get your first (or extra) external links is to submit your pages (links) to social bookmarking websites. But then come several problems. What are the best social bookmarking sites? What’s better: “no follow” or “do follow” links? I’ve prepared the answers..

Firstly.. what means “nofollow” and “do follow”, right?

1) No follow – this means, that the search robots will not follow and will not index your link. The posted link won’t be counted as an external link.. though it’ll bring you some fresh direct traffic! Cool, huh?
How do they look like?

2) Do follow – actually, there is no any “do follow” metatags. But that’s how is called a link, when it hasn’t “no follow” metatag. The good news is that the search engine robots will index your “do follow” links and that will raise your position in search results according to PR of the website, where you’ve submitted your link. Confused about that?
Check out this example.

OK, I hope the above info is clear enough. Now meet my collection of the best social bookmarking sites divided into “no follow” and “do follow” categories.

Scheme of the list: URL – Google Pagerank – Alexa ranking – note

24 Nofollow Social Bookmarking Websites:

• www.slashdot.org – 9 – 1,286 – “noffolow” in author links;
• www.digg.com – 8 – 106 ;
• www.delicious.org – 8 – 382 ;
• www.mister-wong.com – 8 – 3,377 ;
• www.diigo.com – 7 – 2,116 ;
• www.blinklist.com – 7 – 4,109 ;
• www.bibsonomy.org – 7 – 5,714 ;
• www.2collab.com – 7 – 32,238 – due to spam attacks registration is closed;
• www.jumptags.com – 6 – 1,671 ;
• www.faves.com – 6 – 4,416 ;
• www.simpy.com – 6 – 9,763 ;
• www.netvouz.com – 6 – 22,557 ;
• www.url.org – 5 – 5,907 ;
• www.dropjack.com – 5 – 8,061 ;
• www.clipclip.org – 5 – 16,192 ;
• www.bookmarks.com – 5 – 38,856 ;
• www.linkarena.com – 4 – 8,385 ;
• www.getboo.com – 4 – 22,014 – currently downtime with the database;
• www.dnhour.com – 4 – 44,096 ;
• www.groxx.com – 4 – 116,017 ;
• www.humsurfer.com – 3 – 1,650 – India, slow page loading;
• www.newscola.com – 3 – 16,355 – India;
• www.pr4links.com – 3 – 32,119 ;
• www.wirefan.com – 0 – 8,035 – fell from PR4 to PR 0 on 3rd Jan. 2010;

Updated on 4th Jan. 2010

36 Do follow Social Bookmarking Websites:

• www.slashdot.org – 9 – 1,286 – “do follow” in posts;
• www.reddit.com – 8 – 360 ;
• www.mixx.com – 8 – 631 ;
• www.folkd.com – 8 – 1,441 ;
• www.propeller.com – 7 – 1,792 ;
• www.metafilter.com – 7 – 2,068 ;
• www.wikio.com – 7 – 2,709 ;
• www.current.com – 7 – 3,470 ;
• www.connotea.org – 7 – 5,364 – nice, but complicated a little;
• www.tipd.com – 7 – 15,423 ;
• www.dzone.com – 6 – 2,625 ;
• www.clipmarks.com – 6 – 3,162 ;
• www.sphinn.com – 6 – 6,553 ;
• www.buddymarks.com – 6 – 8,257 ;
• www.kirtsy.com – 6 – 10,991 ;
• www.kwoff.com – 6 – 16,033 ;
• www.buzzflash.net – 6 – 17,073 ;
• www.spotback.com – 5 – 7,554 ;
• www.linkatopia.com – 5 – 48,299 ;
• www.ngopost.org – 5 – 63,813 ;
• www.smallbusinessbrief.com – 4 – 10,866 ;
• www.quadriot.com – 4 – 12,915 ;
• www.rambhai.com – 4 – 12,940 ;
• www.postonfire.com – 4 – 14,121 – strange admin’s activity;
• www.blurpalicious.com – 4 – 14,591 ;
• www.blogmarks.net – 4 – 23,267 ;
• www.memfrag.com – 4 – 29,776 ;
• www.momshare.net – 4 – 229,500 ;
• www.socialogs.com – 3 – 10,638 ;
• www.totalpad.com – 3 – 21,057 ;
• www.plugim.com – 3 – 27,967 ;
• www.sweepsgoat.com – 3 – 30,058 ;
• www.sturvs.com – 3 – 70,881 ;
• www.overflowlegal.com – 3 – 131,219 ;
• www.binarylaw.com – 3 – 146,989 ;
• www.top-travel-articles.info – 3 – 607,198 ;

Updated on 4th Jan. 2010

If you’re a real psycho – visit insane list of 700+ social bookmarking sites.

<< Got something to add to the above list? Please, comment or just let me know. >>