TheBoBs is a directory, so our editorial work looks different from a magazine’s. We don’t publish articles about the news; we publish judgments about blogs. This page walks through how a blog ends up listed here, what happens during a review, and what to do if we got something wrong about yours.
Where listings come from
Roughly two streams feed the directory. The larger one is our own research: editors working through a category — say, travel or personal finance — hunting for blogs readers keep recommending to each other. The smaller one is the submission form. Both streams end up in the same review queue and get the same treatment; submitting doesn’t speed anything up, and nobody can pay to skip the line.
The review, step by step
- An editor opens the blog and reads. Not just the latest post — a handful of recent ones and a few from deeper in the archive, enough to tell whether the quality is consistent or a lucky sample.
- We establish the basics on the blog itself: what it covers, who writes it, how often it publishes, whether the site works properly on a phone.
- We look at how the blog sits in its field — whether other writers cite it, what readers say about it in comments and forums.
- The editor writes the listing in our own words and assigns the five scores described in Our Rating Score Principle.
Blogs that don’t clear the bar simply aren’t listed; we don’t publish negative reviews.
Tools and automation
Finding candidates across thousands of blogs takes software, and we use it — including AI tools — for discovery, for gathering public information, and for first drafts of listing copy. What software never does here is decide. A person reads the blog, a person sets the scores, and a person signs off on every listing before it goes live.
If your blog is listed and something’s wrong
Descriptions go stale: blogs pivot, move domains, go quiet, come back. Email [email protected] with the listing link and what’s changed, and we’ll update it. If you want your blog out of the directory entirely, write from an address at your blog’s domain so we know it’s really you, and we’ll remove it — no questions, no fee. If you think a score is unfair, tell us why; a second editor will re review it.
Advertising
The site is supported by advertising. Ad relationships are handled completely separately from the directory: no advertiser sees a listing before publication, and none has ever changed a word or a score. The day that stops being true, this page will say so.
TheBoBs.com is an independent site run by Lucy Munger and a small team — more on the About page, including the story of this domain’s previous life as an international blog award.