Indian blogging scene in 2026, and how ‘Indian Top Blogs’ evaluates blogs

[Before you go further: This document discusses the Indian blogosphere consisting of English blogs in traditional formats, not image/ video sharing, social networking and instant messaging web entities. Observations on Hindi blog scene are published separately.]  

A. OBSERVATIONS ON THE STATUS OF THE INDIAN BLOGOSPHERE

When we started compiling the Directory of Best Indian Blogs, way back in 2010, blogging was supposed to be the ultimate tool in the hands of people- the one that gave the common man a voice beyond newspapers, magazines and TV channels. Unlike the mainstream media (newspapers, magazines, and television channels), blogs allowed two-way exchange of views, and this, in fact, had made some media-watchers believe that blogs would one day dominate the media scene. Social networking and media sharing platforms were gaining popularity, but blogs were taken as more substantive than other social media.

Those in middle and higher ages would recall that early blogs were text blogs, with facility to add images too. So, you could open a blog on a political or social theme or just keep posting your poems, sundry thoughts and random events. They were true to their name: blog= web diary or web log.

Today too, traditional text-image blogs, when well-maintained, are taken more seriously - in certain respects - than channels on YouTube, pages on Facebook and LinkedIn, reels and visual posts on Instagram and Pinterest, or posts on X/ Telegram. Within the traditional media portals too, they have become a valuable platform for serious discussion. On business and institutional portals, they have become hubs for content marketing and engagement with customers and learners.

We are not contesting that other web or web2.0 platforms are not as rich or even richer (e.g., in terms of instant communication and visual content) than the blogosphere. When it comes to sharing knowledge, it cannot be A or B, but A and B. So, in their own ways, traditional-style blogs have been contributing towards enriching the web.  

Counter-intuitive as it may sound, but despite the flood of social networking, visual content, and now AI-generated content, traditional blogging not only has survived but is thriving. Talking of AI-generated content, the trend of using such content is increasing- more so among professional and organizational blogs as compared to blogs that are maintained by persons and institutions with passion to create fresh, original content. 

Yes, there has been a perceptible decline in the number of personal/ hobby blogs in favour of other social media platforms.

B. ABOUT OUR BLOG LISTING- THE DIRECTORY OF BEST INDIAN BLOGS

Our Directory listing of ‘top blogs’ too has evolved over the last more than one-and-a-half decades, but a few things have remained constant:

i. We never charge for including a blog in the Directory.

ii. We curate the Directory manually, not basing our selection on data regarding popularity or monetization or any SEO/ popularity indicators.

iii. We look for (i) content and (ii) the passion towards blogging. That is,  how much the blog is contributing to the knowledge on the web and how much devoted to blogging the blogger is. In practical terms, it translates into good content that is regularly updated.

iv. The range of blogs in the Directory is as wide as it can be: from basic blogs on the free Blogger/ Wordpress platforms to those maintained by techies and portal teams. 

Many of the blogs that enter the Directory of Best Indian Blogs are personal blogs in which the blogger posts about his/ her thoughts and events but not as a professional or expert. 

Among the professionally maintained blogs, some are maintained by news portals, some by institutions, and some by professionals and experts. Professional/ expert blogs mostly have a monetary intent. Many such blogs are on tour and travel, beauty and fashion, health and fitness, cooking and food, technology, finance, legal matters, charity, and books. 

Interestingly, a few blogs included in the blog listing are being maintained in niche areas, without much thought to money-making. Though such blogs, which used to be prominent in the Directory a decade back, have become very irregular or are dead. You will still find a blog on radio technology and one on geology maintained by individuals with passion.

v. We are glad to find that many top hospitals maintain high-quality blogs. We are sure these blogs lead to a better connect with the hospitals’ existing and prospective clients, besides enriching the web with quality content on health matters. This needs highlighting because the web and social sharing platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.) are full of fake news on health and fitness topics. 

vi. We do not include  blogs with legally and socially inappropriate content - content that promotes vulgarity, fake news, hate and crime. However, you would understand that we cannot guarantee only appropriate content in the blogs in our lists because such content could be hidden, missed by us, or included after our scrutiny. 

vii. We keep the Directory regularly updated, unlike many prominent blog lists you would find on the web in which the blogs that might have been good at one time have decayed or have even been discontinued.

viii.    We have been asked whether it is wise to have blogs with highly professional content and those with light or casual content in a single blog list. 

In fact, initially we used to release a category-wise list after the release of the alphabetical blog list. We discontinued it for many reasons, the main being cross-categorization. At one stage, we also had listings of news blogs, institutional blogs, etc. We found that we ended up spending a lot of energy but with not much results for the information seeker. To meet the need for lists of top blogs in different categories, we periodically release lists as linked below. However, we have not been as regular in updating them as for the two directories- the Directory of Best Indian Blogs (list of top English blogs) and the Directory of Best Hindi Blogs (list of top Hindi blogs).

You can see these lists of top Indian blogs in different categories (in English only). Presently, these cover top blogs in these categories: literature, lifestyle, beauty and fashion, economy and finance, food, photography, travel and craft.

ix.     Let us also share how we differentiate blogs from news portals, feed aggregators and web magazines. 

We feel that a newspaper or any other portal that keeps updating many times a day is way beyond a blog, even if it posts entries in reverse chronological order as a blog. Most such websites also have many other sections including blogs, columns and opinion pages. 

In some newspaper or television portals there are sections for including articles by reporters/ columnists. Such article aggregator pages and individual sections within such portal are taken as blogs. In some cases, prominent columnists also have a webspace of their own, and it serves as a blog maintained by that person. 

When a website is regularly updated with news in its niche, but is not big as a newspaper, it is taken as a blog by us. Some examples are- an electronic gadget reviewer website, a website giving regular updates on news relating to stock exchanges, or one that keeps updating with news and articles on legal matters. Examination-related websites are taken as blog if their regularly updating content is richer than just the news feed. 

While taking portal sections as blogs, we have taken only sections that give news on uncommon topics; thus, political, economic and sports news sections have been omitted unless they have rich content in the form of in-depth analysis, articles and opinion.

Magazine websites that regularly publish new articles as their primary content are  included as blogs. 

x.    When a portal or big website has regular updates/ feed/ news and also sections that provide analysis/ detailed information, we tend to link (within our blog listings) the more substantial section rather than the website homepage. 

xi.    Purely commercial websites or those behind paywall too may have some content that is available to the public. Such sections are taken as blog and included in the Directory of Best Indian Blogs. We are also OK with websites charging or asking subscription for premium content. However, we cannot include a blog in the blog listing if all the content is available only on subscription/ payment/ reciprocity or the website seeks visitor’s information before proceeding further or the website is so full of promotional stuff that the free, good content is lost in the crowd.

Owners of normal websites who find value in getting listed in the Directory of Best Indian Blogs (or the Hindi blog listing) may please send us the URL of the most relevant section of their website that has quality content and is maintained like a blog. Bloggers and website owners might also consider showing their blog archives on the homepage or blog page. That adds value to the blog while also helping visitors easily navigate the archives. We are advising this, because we are unable toinclude many good 'blogs' in our listings if the posts do not have timestamp or there are no archives or sitemap to reveal regularity in updation of the blog content.

That is all from us for now. 

Keep publishing useful, rich content on your blog. All the best!

[This is not a comprehensive commentary on the Indian blogs. If you are interested in knowing our perspective on how the contours of the Indian English blogosphere have changed over the years, please browse our earlier observations on the Indian blog scene linked in the sidebar of this website.]