Submission guidelines

A personal or small-team blog that is actively updated, where the writer keeps it because they want to, not to sell a product or rank in search. Any subject qualifies: the only requirement is that it is small and worth someone's time.

The things that actually matter

• A person behind it. One writer, or a few, with a point of view you could describe to somebody else. A blog that could have been written by anyone usually was.
• Still going. Something posted in the last six months or so. We are not counting posts per month: a blog that publishes three careful pieces a year is in far better standing here than one posting weekly filler.
• Worth the afternoon. The test we actually apply is whether we would send a link to a friend. It is a subjective standard and we would rather say so than dress it up as a rubric.
• Readable. It loads, it works on a phone, and the writing is not buried under interstitials and newsletter pop-ups.

What does not matter

Traffic, follower counts, design polish, how long it has existed, or what platform it runs on. A plain blog on a free host that somebody has kept up for six years is exactly what this directory is for. Blogs in any language are welcome, though our reviewers read English best and a non-English blog may take longer to get through review.

• Company blogs written for SEO or lead generation. The tell is usually that every post ends by pointing at a product.
• Blogs that are mostly affiliate links or sponsored posts. The occasional disclosed sponsorship is fine; a site whose business model is the posts is not.
• Dormant blogs. Nothing in the last six months, with no sign it is coming back.
• Content farms and generated content. Including sites where the writing is largely machine-produced. Using a tool to help write is not the issue; a site with no person behind it is.
• Aggregators, link dumps and republishers. The directory is for people writing things, not for sites collecting what other people wrote.
• Anything that breaks the acceptable use policy, meaning unlawful, harassing, deceptive, or infringing content.
• Sites that are not really blogs, such as a portfolio, a landing page, a documentation site, or a shop with a news section.

Being declined under any of these is not a judgement on the writing. It usually means the blog is a fine thing that this particular directory is not for.

The form asks for a name, an address, a category and a short description. The description is the part that matters, and it is worth two minutes.

• Say what it is actually about, concretely. "Notes on repairing bicycles in a small flat" tells us more than "a personal blog about life and hobbies".
• Say why it is worth reading. A specific post you would send someone is the single most useful thing you can give us.
• Write it like a recommendation, not a pitch. Marketing copy makes a blog read as commercial even when it is not, which works against you.
• Keep it short. There is a limit of a couple of sentences, and we may edit for length, clarity or house style before publishing.
• Pick the closest category. If none fits well, choose the nearest and mention it, because categories change based on what gets submitted.

You can submit your own blog or somebody else's. Recommending another person's writing is genuinely welcome, and always has been. The one thing not to do is imply that a blog is yours when it is not, because only a blog's submitter can later buy a placement for it.

A person on the team reads the blog itself, not just the submission form. That means opening it, reading a few posts, and forming a view, which is why it takes days rather than seconds.

Until it is reviewed, a submission sits in a pending state and is visible to nobody but you and us. It does not appear in the directory, in search, or in the category you chose.

Most submissions are decided within a week. A backlog can push that out, and a blog in a language none of us reads takes longer. Either way you hear back: an approval and a rejection both produce a notification. It is not a black hole.

We do not accept payment to review something faster, and there is no queue to jump.

An approved blog appears in the directory straight away: on the main listing, in its category, and in search results. We fetch its icon from the site itself at that point, so the listing carries the blog's own favicon rather than a placeholder.

From then on, visitors can save it, endorse it, and follow the link through to the blog itself. We count those outbound clicks, using a one-way hash rather than storing anybody's address, so that we can tell a blog's owner how much traffic the listing sent them.

We do not re-review approved blogs on a schedule. If a listed blog changes into something we would not have accepted, or simply goes dark, the report control on the listing is how that gets back to us.

In rough order of how often it happens:

• The blog has not posted in a long time and looks abandoned.
• It is a company blog, or the writing exists mainly to sell something.
• It is a good blog but not a blog in the sense this directory means: a newsletter archive with no site, a portfolio, a shop.
• It is already listed. Check before submitting; a duplicate is declined rather than merged.
• The address was wrong, the site would not load, or it was behind a login.
• It broke the acceptable use policy.

A rejection is not a permanent verdict, and it is not a mark against your account. Nothing stops you submitting a different blog the same day.

If something material changes (the blog picks back up after a quiet spell, or grows into something that fits better) you are welcome to submit again, and we will look at it fresh.

What does not help is resubmitting the same blog unchanged in the hope of a different reviewer. Under the acceptable use policy that counts as repeat submission, and it slows down the queue for everyone.

If you think we simply got it wrong, that is worth an email rather than a resubmission. Tell us which blog and why, and a person will look at it again.

The guest-post directory is a separate listing, for blogs that accept posts from other writers. It is reviewed the same way, by the same people, against the same standard for the blog itself.

A guest-post listing additionally carries a contact name and email address, and your own guidelines for pitching. Those contact details are shown only to signed-in members, and are never included in the page a signed-out visitor receives.

They are there so that a writer can pitch you a post. Using them for anything else, such as a marketing list or a bulk mailing, breaks the acceptable use policy, and we act on it.

Once a blog has been approved, the person who submitted it can pay to book it into a sponsored position by the week: the Sponsored section of the homepage, where it also takes turns in the sponsored positions of the directory and search, or the first position on its own category page.

Featured placement does not change the editorial bar. Only an already-approved blog can be featured, so paying is not a way to skip review, to influence it, or to be reconsidered after a rejection. It is a paid position for something that already got in on its merits, and it is labelled Sponsored.

We will not make a blog's placement a condition of approval, and we do not offer it to a blog we are about to decline. The refunds policy covers how placements are paid for and cancelled.

If a listing's details are wrong or out of date (the address moved, the description is stale, the category no longer fits) email hello@wordfolk.app and we will fix it.

If a blog you own is listed and you would rather it were not, we will take it down and you do not have to explain why. The content removal page sets out that process, and how to raise a copyright or legal complaint.