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Updated as on 14th October, 2019. We have been compiling the Directory of Best Indian Blogs for nine years and have made a number of changes in selecting blogs for the Directory .  Starting with a complex formula that used Google PageRank, Alexa position, pageviews, etc, we changed to manual picking and have humanized our criteria progressively over the years. We believe that blogging is both a personal and social activity, and we do not hold a case against blogs on very personal matters as long as they meet our selection criteria. So, while a spirited, well-composed and regularly updated blog on one’s kid, dog or garden may get included, an extremely dull blog with copy-pasted newspaper columns, not allowing any sharing or interaction and not caring to provide any archive would get left out even though its content prima facie might look substantive. If we find great blogs, we’d not bind ourselves to a maximum number of blogs in the Directory . However, we intend to ha...

Blog meaning has changed over the years Blogs and traditional websites are subsets of the web world Websites have been in existence since the advent of the World Wide Web, and blogs came much later. The early blogs were true to their literary meaning – web log or web diary – but slowly they turned into full-fledged websites. Over time, the difference between a website and a blog has blurred to the extent that they look the same. The saying that was popular once – that a website is static while a blog is updated - does not hold good anymore. Technically speaking, blogs are a subset of web spaces or websites. In this assumption, all blogs are websites but not all websites are blogs. Loosely speaking, you can call a website with blogging features as a blog and a blog with lots of static content (that does not refresh) as a website. Both blogs and other websites have a homepage and a number of other pages. Web designing these days does not require writing each line of code, and ...

Thoroughly updated in November 2020 This is the last post in a 3 -part series on the use of images in blogs and websites. The first post dealt with basic considerations while putting images on blogs and websites  and the second one was on image editing concepts and tools . The present one deals with best practices in use of images on blogs and websites .   Types of image elements on blogs, other websites Images (and other visual elements such as color patterns and videos) are used on websites/ blogs for many purposes: Images are used as elements in web designing. They are an essential part of the theme/ template, background, title background,  pictorial headers and footers, navigation schemes etc.  They are put on posts/ articles to supplement the text. They can be featured images, normal images or thumbnails. In photo-blogs or photo-features, images are the dominant content of the blog. Images are also used for adding secondary visual elements, e.g. favi...

Updated in November 2020 This post is second in the 3-part series on the use of images on websites and blogs . The first post dealt with basic considerations in the use of images on the web. The present one deals with image/ photo editing basics. The next one covers the best practices in the use of images on the web . Let's go! As a blogger or website content creator, you must know how to edit your photos like a professional blogger. That does not need a high level of expertise, but knowing the photo editing concepts helps a lot.  Quality of blog images Quality of images used on websites and blogs depends on a number of parameters taken together. I will talk here of the most important quality factors.  Brightness.  When an image is not bright enough, shadows and poorly-lit areas look too dark. In too bright images, shiny objects lose details and turn white. Manually increasing brightness in an image makes it look whitewashed unless some other att...

Thoroughly updated: November 2020 On websites/ blogs/ social media accounts, we use pictures in various forms - photos, sketches, paintings, computer graphics, backgrounds and just background colors. We believe that images make the website beautiful and add value to it. In fact, many studies have confirmed that when there are images on blog posts, websites or social media posts, people stay on the page much more than when there is no image. This helps in better SEO and traffic, and eventually more earnings. But, do you ask  what, which, how many, why, how  and  where  before putting images or you just put a picture there because a photo is better than none?   When we use a picture on the blog/ website with due consideration to various factors, the picture gives great value to the blog. On the other hand, pictures and colors that are put aimlessly add little value. They even make the blog unattractive, add clutter and reduce readability.  The discus...