The best links are those links that grow organically – i.e. some one else finds and likes your content and links to it. But – getting people to find your content in the first place probably means “cheating,” and creating a few links of your own.  Most Internet marketers (myself included) have several blogs which they use to post links at. I keep a number for my clients to use, and there are any number of free blogs and sites that are available. I realized I had built a list of free sites and this is that list.

Do not simply dump garbled content on these sites. If you treat them with respect and add value to their site by adding decent content – they will treat you with respect by not deleting your account. I have also added a few article directories – the same applies – treat them with respect and do not dump spam links. Enjoy.

• http://wordpress.com/
• http://twitter.com/
• http://www.weebly.com/
• http://www.typepad.com/
• http://www.blogger.com/
• http://www.livejournal.com/
• http://www.tumblr.com/
• http://www.webs.com
• http://www.squidoo.com/
• http://my.opera.com/
• http://viviti.com/
• http://multiply.com/
• http://www.xanga.com/
• http://www.yola.com/
• http://www.blogsome.com/
• http://edublogs.org/
• http://www.jimdo.com/
• http://knol.google.com/k
• http://www.blogspirit.com/
• http://www.opendiary.com/
• http://www.blogdrive.com/
• http://www.tblog.com/
• http://weblogs.us/
• http://blog.com/
• http://www.blog.co.uk/
• http://diaryland.com
• http://www.bigadda.com/
• http://www.20six.co.uk/
• http://www.terapad.com/
• http://typolis.net/
• http://zoomblog.com/
• http://home.onsugar.com/
• http://nireblog.com/
• http://business.blinkweb.com/
• http://www.insanejournal.com/
• http://blurty.com/
• http://www.free-conversant.com/
• http://freeflux.net/
• http://tabulas.com
• http://www.sosblog.com/
• http://upsaid.com/
• http://home.onsugar.com/
• http://www.soulcast.com/
• http://www.wordcountjournal.com/
• http://www.yousaytoo.com/
• http://www.netcipia.com/
• http://www.blogeasy.com/
• http://www.busythumbs.com/
• http://www.journalfen.net/
• http://www.memebot.com/
• http://www.blogabond.com/
• http://www.blog.ca/
• http://www.aeonity.com/
• http://blogstream.com
• http://blogwebsites.net/
• http://bloghi.com/
• http://blogigo.com
• http://blogstudio.com
• http://blogtext.org/

A selection of the top article directories:

• http://ezinearticles.com/
• http://www.suite101.com/
• http://www.helium.com/
• http://www.articledashboard.com/
• http://www.articlesbase.com/
• http://goarticles.com/
• http://www.webpronews.com/
• http://searchwarp.com/
• http://www.buzzle.com/
• http://www.isnare.com/
• http://americanchronicle.com/
• http://www.articlecity.com/
• http://www.ideamarketers.com/
• http://www.site-reference.com/
• http://www.articlealley.com/
• http://www.thewhir.com/article-central
• http://www.articlesfactory.com/
• http://www.selfgrowth.com/
• http://www.amazines.com/
• http://www.articlesnatch.com/

Have I got something for you – the biggest, baddest list of free blogs in the known universe. These are the best free blogging sites currently.

For some reason, there seems a fascination with getting a free blog and the amount of free blog sites has mushroomed along with the blogging phenomenon. Free blogs are appearing left right and center. But – beware – some of them do not stay free, some of them offer revenue sharing that mysteriously stops with your account closed and some of them will be gone tomorrow or the day after. There is a danger of losing your work should you choose to use a free blogging platform instead of your own hosted blog, but – they also serve another purpose. You can use them to create links back to your own sites and if you set up accounts at multiple free blogging sites, this means links from multiple, geographically varied sites, which is crucial if you are making money blogging.

So, after much wandering around the internet, setting up accounts at dozens of free blog sites, I have decided to compile a list of free blog sites that I consider to be trustworthy and likely to be around for a while. I will not be including article writing sites such as Squidoo or Hubpages – this is for blogs only, and may well turn into the biggest, baddest list of free blogs in the known universe. Or – I might get bored half way through because there is a lot of them. Just kidding – this is the definitive (until next Wednesday) list of free blog sites. The criteria I have used to compile this list is that each site needs to:

1. Have an intuitive interface
2. Be search-engine optimized
3. Have good page rank
4. Cost no money
5. Give the impression they are here to stay

Of course – I could be wrong and some of these will go broke taking your hard work with them – but I personally would not put anything on a free blog that I could not afford to lose. You have been warned. I am not affiliated with any of these blogs and I see them solely as a means of networking and building links back to my personal sites. Some of them have a specific focus, others not. Some of them offer revenue sharing, some of them do not, but none of them will cost you a penny unless you upgrade to a premium service. You can also open multiple accounts at them, although I recommend using several different email addresses if you are using them solely to promote another site.

Blog.com @ http://blog.com/

Blog.com sell themselves as “the choice for almost two million bloggers. Join the fray, and observe the world, from the smallest details to life-changing events.” Entertainingly, thay also say “A blog is your best bet for a voice among the online crowd.” Which – if you think about it – is utter bullshit. 2 million blogs and you can be a voice heard amongst the 2 million? Not a hope in hell. Still – it s free, easy to use and they make their money by placing advertising on your blog. Like many of these platforms, it is filling up with millions of short promotional posts which link back to another site. If you want to pay $30 a year – they will remove the ads.

Blogger @ http://www.blogger.com

This is google’s free blog platform. As such – they are unlikely to be going anywhere, and I would suggest that this is as good as it gets. There are some limitations, but you are free to monetize these using google adsense  and have recently integrated Amazon affiliates. Easy to use, simple interface and very search engine friendly.

Bloghi @ http://bloghi.com

Bloghi make money by running google adsense of your pages, although you can disable that by paying. They do have an attempt at making it possible to find your blog in their directory, but with this many blogs you are often lost in the morass of promotional posts.

BloggersBase @ http://www.bloggersbase.com/

This one is interesting. Not only is it a free blog site, but there is a community aspect, including a job board which charges people to advertise. As I have mentioned in previous articles – beware certain so-called jobs. Throwaway email address + wants a free sample = lying sack of shit looking for free content. Never, ever send a free sample to a disposable mail address. Personal experience…….

Bravenet @ http://www.bravejournal.com/

Another community with free blogs, competitions, plus website hosting and drag and drop site builder if you want. The idea is interesting and they call their free blogs, “journals,” as do a few other sites. You can get quite complex here, and combine a blog with a website.

Doodlekit @ http://doodlekit.com/home

I rather like this setup – free web hosting with a blog. Pretty easy to use and you can build out quite a substantial web property. Once again they make money advertising on your website, but if you choose a paid option, the ads go away. I must be a sucker for a cute cartoon.

Easyjournal @ http://www.easyjournal.com/

Nothing outstanding here, although they have a pretty good Alexa and google page ranking. They have been around since 2004, so are in no danger of vanishing, although I do not see how they make money> The only obvious income I see is the shop that sells easyjournal T shirts and other stuff, so who knows?…..

GoogleSites @ http://sites.google.com/

Not just a blog, this is google’s site builder that works in similar fashion. You are free to build as many sites with as many links as you like, although most of the “SEO” names are loooong gone. What you end up with is http://sites.google/site/yoursitename/ . Very intuitive, lots of free templates and really easy to use.

InsaneJournal @ http://www.insanejournal.com

I rather like these guys because they appear to actually be insane, calling their blogs ” asylums” . The main thing here is they dare to be different. Although I am a big fan of wordpress, it is good to see something else. Insane Journal is built on open source software from Danga Interactive.

LiveJournal @ http://www.livejournal.com/

One of the original free blogs, LiveJournal has 25 million blogs and communities. Sometimes I wonder how anything gets found on the internet – ever. 25 million blogs just on one site? Phew!

WordPess @ http://wordpress.com/

Speaking of OMG how the Fuck does anything get found on the internet ever? And now I know why google has all the money – wordpress are claiming 288,644 bloggers, 257,636 new posts, 382,086 comments, & 58,323,268 words today on WordPress.com. Today………..Good grief! Seriously though – Wordpress is awesome. They monetize themselves with horrible pop up boxes and selling space to store photos and videos. Free basic member ship and after using them for a while, you will want a blog all of your own. Love ‘em.

Zimbio @ http://www.zimbio.com/

These guys call themselves an “interactive magazine,” and you can set up a blog under them. Heavily celebrity oriented, and a pretty stunning Alexa ranking of 386. Guess people must like looking at photos of celebrities. Goodness knows why.