Recent Blog Entries
Round 7 Accepted Sites
Written by Tyme White on September 3, 2008
Well, it’s that time. Below you will see the accepted sites. You’ll notice the list is short. It will most likely expand over the next month. Once again we had sites that were too young to add now but we had a slew of sites that had good content but finding something on the site was ridiculously hard. Why? The person picked a bad theme and the theme doesn’t help the end user browse the site…enjoy the site. Everyone does this sooner or later. I’ve paid for themes that didn’t accomplish the job. It’s a learning experience. Suggestion: if you get spam look at some of the spam sites. See what theme they are using. If your theme matches theirs, stop using it.
The other major reason: the content lacked depth. If you are doing reviews the more thorough the review the more the reader benefits from it. This does not mean it should be book length, but it should be thorough. “I watched the Eureka premiere. This is what happened. OMG, he’s gone! Overall I liked it.” lacks depth. Stretching those sentences into paragraphs doesn’t give depth.
Scrivs and I were talking about doing a chat or stream so we could talk to multiple people on these types of issues. Point out why some sites made it and why some didn’t so it can be a true learning experience. Don’t feel bad if your name isn’t on the list…that doesn’t mean your site won’t sport the leaf. 
Other reasons why sites weren’t accepted:
- The site was new: We require at least six months of consistent posting. Please resubmit your site in November so the guys and I can drool over them again. I cannot stress enough to resubmit.
- No focus: The author of the blog used their blog to randomly dump information. Every blogger has their own style but our readers are looking for more focused content where the blog has a clear direction on the content being published.
- Inconsistent posting: If you only write a couple of articles a month or write sporadically the content can be superb, but it would be lost on our site. Especially in the larger communities.
Those are the main reasons. For the sites we had questions on, I’ve already sent out the emails. I will be contacting the new members NEXT WEEK - NOT THIS WEEK - NEXT WEEK. Yes, that’s right, I said NEXT WEEK to get your sites set up. After I get everyone set up I’ll go back and open it up for those that weren’t accepted to find out specifically why, working with them. We always have sites that weren’t accepted get added - that’s one of the reasons why there is a gap between rounds. It gives me time to work with sites.
Ok…here’s the list…CONGRATS!!!!
http://9to5ers.ultracrepidate.com/
http://www.adventures-in-motherhood.com/
http://www.adventuresinparenting.org/
http://www.afrigadget.com/
http://www.alexshalman.com/
http://baglady.dreamhosters.com/
http://www.balkhis.com/blog/
http://www.barrywise.com/
http://www.bitheway.co.uk/
http://www.blackzedd.com/
http://blog.charlenechua.com/
http://blog.miragestudio7.com/
http://blog.ivman.com/
http://blog.mastykarz.nl/
http://www.bloggerbuster.com/
http://www.bloggingtips.com/
http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk
http://brainblogger.com/
http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/
http://chenpn.com/
http://christianpf.com/
http://chuboi.com/
http://condomunity.com/
http://www.concretebadger.net/blog/
http://conflictzen.com/
http://www.designer-daily.com/
http://discoveringdad.net/
http://experimentsinliving.wordpress.com/
http://www.flakphoto.com/
http://freelancefolder.com/
http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com/
http://www.getelastic.com/
http://www.guitarnoize.com/
http://www.happiness-project.com/
http://www.heyitsfree.net/
http://www.highlighthealth.com/
http://www.idiotsguidetoblogging.com/
http://www.ipatrix.com/
http://jamesmckay.net/
http://www.jefflittle.ca/blog/
http://jen-sized.net/
http://www.marcofolio.net/
http://mwcfootball.wordpress.com/
http://myillusion.net/itsumo/
http://www.neverhappen.com/
http://nicethingsbaddebt.blogspot.com/
http://onefusedlife.com/
http://ourfourpenceworth.com/
http://parentingsquad.com/
http://perishablepress.com/
http://www.phoenixcentre.com/blog
http://www.problogdesign.com/
http://punditmom1.blogspot.com/
http://putthingsoff.com/
http://www.puttingblogsfirst.com/
http://scrumptious.animeblogger.net/
http://www.shankrila.com/
http://www.showyourpony.com/
http://www.simplehelp.net/
http://www.simplemarriage.net/
http://simplemom.net/
http://spaceagesage.com/
http://sparklette.net/
http://www.thehealthylivinglounge.com/
http://theredzonereport.com/
http://www.thiswomanswork.com/
http://www.tutorial9.net
http://vividlamp.com/
http://www.webrampage.com/
http://www.whatgeekseat.com/wordpress/
http://www.wine-girl.net/
http://www.wisebread.com/
http://wilcosworld.co.uk/
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:17 pm
Owo Congrats to everyone!
I am blogging about it, in my blog….
Great work 9Rules, you really Rule
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:18 pm
Congrats everyone
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
This is a record - I got an email one minute after I posted the list lol. What do I mean by bad theme…..
No dates
No archives
No tags
No search
No category listing
No contact page
No about section (not absolutely necessary but some sites need it)
No year on the dates so when someone does a search they get three Sept. 12ths
No way to get back to the home page if someone navigates to inner pages
Things like this can be automatically corrected with a simple theme change - and there are many free ones out there. Just don’t pick the ones spammers use no matter how great it looks.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:24 pm
;_;
Roll on November I guess!
Well done to everyone who was accepted.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:29 pm
I’m disappointed as I thought mine had a good shot. Maybe November.
More importantly congratulations to all the new 9Rules sites! Well done.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Yay! Thanks guys for accepting my site. Looking forward to your email and sporting the leaf
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:38 pm
Wow! I’ve actually been caught a bit off-guard! I’m so happy to hear that Tutorial9 has made it into 9Rules! Thanks folks!
Congrats to everyone else who made it in as well!
Looking forward to getting setup!
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:39 pm
[...] new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed or email alerts. Thanks for visiting!Yipee! I got accepted in the 9rules network. For those unaware of 9rules, it is a collection of independent blogs with a focus on networking [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:42 pm
MichaelG - your site is a perfect example of what I mean by a theme change. Your site is great, I enjoyed reading it.
Historically, 9rules has never accepted sites with the BlogSpot banner at the top (but as you can see from the list we accept BlogSpot sites). Why? Because the “next site” could be anything and I played with them to see (I do this every round). On your site alone I clicked next and got a site not in English, soft porn, and spam. One of the “known” things about 9rules is “quality”. The next link banner thing is not quality.
But it also had nothing to do content wise why your site was not accept. See what I mean?
And if that doesn’t make sense I apologize. No sleep last night. People started sending emails and text messages about the status at 2am this morning. I had to turn my phone off.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
[...] Rules update: Congrats to Hermione & Baglady 9 Rules just released their latest round of accepted blogs. I see two regular members here Hermione (Our Fourpence Worth) and Xin (Bag Lady) made the list! [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:47 pm
Just curious, Tyme, when is the best time to contact you if we haven’t been emailed and are not on the list? I don’t want to be too preemptive about this, as I know you’ve got a lot going on as it stands right now with getting accepted members settled and maybe members sorted out.
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:49 pm
[...] bloggers who had applied to 9rules had been waiting at 9rules blog, refreshing the pages to see the final results announcement. 9Rules have finally released the much [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 2:50 pm
Congrats to all those who were accepted
I will try again in november as I’m pretty sure that sporadic posting for the last month is the main reason I wasn’t accepted :s
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:01 pm
Hmm… I think my site does pretty well with everything mentioned in this post: been around for more than 2.5 years, consistent content (every day except weekends), and very focused (youth ministry). I presume the content is good, too, and the template is easy to navigate (includes everything Tyme commented above). Maybe my niche is too specific for 9rules? I dunno.
Guess I’ll try again in round 8, but not sure what to change that could make it more “9rules-able.” *shrugs*
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Congrats to those that made it! I guess I’ll give it another shot in November.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:15 pm
@Tim Schmoyer - I feel about the same as you minus the 2.5 years.
@9rules team - I know I changed up my theme during the submission process, so I don’t know if that hurt my chances or not. But I thought it would’ve been for the better as I fully customized my site and integrated my old static website with the power of wordpress. I’d definitely like the chance to contact you all about what was missing and what you all thought.
Now waiting for the next round in November. Congratulations to everyone that made it this round. *applauding*
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:24 pm
Wow, thanks for accepting my blog! Congrats to the other lucky ones and thanks to the 9Rules team for their hard work in getting it all organised. ^_^
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
At this time I’m not sure when I’m going to open it up (as an exact date but it should be this month). I want to get the new people processed. Once I’m done I’ll post on the blog.
Each site is different which is why we don’t have a cookie cutter list of things. Let’s look at an example: a food blog that has recipes (and I’m whipping this on the fly - insert whatever niche here). Many of the sites list recipes, have pictures of the dishes, or review the dish. Let’s say on the front page there is a chicken dish that makes me drool. I want other chicken recipes.
But the blog doesn’t have a tag or category for chicken. Search brings up anything that mentions chicken not strictly chicken recipes. Am I going to browse through the archives or hunt to find the recipes? No…I’d probably just go to Food Network or another site.
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
well… i suppose that a non-english site is a bad thing for 9rules… I’ll not translate my texts so… I’m out…
thanks anyway !
Max
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:42 pm
Thanks for accepting my site! I am very excited and looking forward to being a part of the 9rules network. Congrats to everyone who made it! Cheers!
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Excellent! Now, I just need one of those badges so I can start telling everyone…
September 3rd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
Hey Tyme,
Ah. That makes sense on the blogspot banner. Thanks much for letting me know. It is encouraging to hear that you enjoyed the content. Now I need to educate myself about how to go about a theme change without losing my comments like I did when I added Disqus. The content part clearly comes more naturally to me than some of the tech stuff.
When things are less busy on your end I will check back to see if you might have suggestions for themes that are headed in the right direction.
Thanks again for the word of encouragement and the pointer. Really nice to know where I’m headed in the right direction and what I need to adjust.
Hope you catch up on some sleep.
Michael
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:03 pm
Contratulations to all of the lucky blogs picked! I too will resubmit in November, but I’m happy that there are sites like this that help bloggers improve and to socialize as bloggers as opposed to masters of their blogging niche.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Thanks so much! I’ve been watching and waiting for awhile now. I’m honored.
September 3rd, 2008 at 4:54 pm
Well done everyone who managed to get in! I’ve been working hard on my blog and hopefully I’ll fair better in November. I’d be interested to hear from Tyme and the others where I could improve. I’ll keep an eye out for the date here
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:38 pm
Yay! Thanks you guys! I’m so excited to be a part of 9Rules! Can’t wait to hear from you next week, and thanks again for accepting Discovering Dad!
September 3rd, 2008 at 5:41 pm
Wow! Thanks so much for accepting my site into the 9rules community! I was very caught off guard, I didn’t think I had a chance and then I got a congrats tweet! I was like what for?
Thanks so much guys looking forward to sporting the leaf and congrats to everyone!
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
Thanks to Scrivs, Mike, and Tyme for your time and long nights of going through the applications.
Thanks for accepting my blog this second time around.
Congratulations to the bloggers who made it in this round.
Best of luck to those who will be back for the next round.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Thanks, Tyme, Scrivs and Mike - I’m thrilled to be part of the mix! And kudos to the rest on the list…I’ve found some great new reads tonight.
September 3rd, 2008 at 6:50 pm
[...] we announced 75 new members into 9rules after going over a very large number of submissions. I’m pleased with the people that made it [...]
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:18 pm
Hey guys, thanks for taking me in. I appreciate it. And also, congrats to all the other blogs that made it.
Oh and are we supposed to get an email? Because I didn’t get one. Maybe I had a typo entering the email or entered my old email that doesn’t work anymore. Oh crap!
September 3rd, 2008 at 7:47 pm
zomg is this for real O_O Just last night I was contemplating on whether our blog will actually get accepted and thought that if our blog won’t make it again, all we can do is try again xD
Thank you soo much for this! Congrats to everyone who made it ^^
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Congratulations to all those who were accepted. My hearty to thanks to the 9rules team for including my blog. Being a part of such quality people just motivates me improve my own further.
Look forward to sporting the 9rules logo. Cheers!
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:26 pm
Thanks so much for including my blog in this group! I look forward to exploring the other blogs accepted in this round.
September 3rd, 2008 at 8:27 pm
Congratulations to everyone on the list!
Mine isn’t on it and I’m really looking forward to getting some feedback about why. I work hard on my blog and my theme, but if it doesn’t work for readers…I’d like to know why.
Tracy
September 3rd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
thanks Tyme! being accepted is very much an honor!
congrats to everyone as well.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Well i thought my abap programming blog will be in the list as it is one and half year old with consistent positing and 500+ rss readers.
Disappointed a bit and have to know why?
Congrats to all got listed.
September 3rd, 2008 at 10:56 pm
OMG this is such an honor! First of all I’d like to thank the Academy … OMG I can’t believe this … I have so many people to thank, where do I start … I’d like to start by thanking my agent, who said I would be nuts to pass on this script … and my mom & dad, and of course all the fans, and everyone in this crazy town who said I would never make it in this business …
But seriously, thanks! It really is awesome to be accepted, and congrats to everyone else who made the list!
September 3rd, 2008 at 11:42 pm
See you in November 9rules !
I don’t have much to say…
Anywayz CONGRATS! new members….
September 4th, 2008 at 12:12 am
how could you!
I’m one of the best blogs in my niche! I am victim of a conspiracy!
jk, but still, the hell man? hope you clear some things out.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:13 am
Well done to all who got through. I don’t know why I didn’t though - my site passes all the rules, is posted to regularly, has archives, search, proper navigation, etc.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:18 am
Whoah! I’m flattered that I made the list.
Thank you for reviewing and congratulations to all who made it.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:22 am
Thanks ever so much — I’m really thrilled to be part of the gang. Great to see some friendly faces making the cut too.
September 4th, 2008 at 2:59 am
First of all I would like to congrats to everyone who get accepted for 9rules network.
When I was submitting my website, it was a great feeling for me that there is not doubt that my website can not be accepted. I am working very hard on my website and its a rapidly growing website for designers and developers. But I really feel now that there is still something missing and I want to know that.
Tyme, may be its very hard or impossible for you to explain the problem with my website but if you can so I would like to know, this way I can improve my website.
Thanks
September 4th, 2008 at 3:07 am
[...] Round 7, a surprisingly low number perhaps. I’m a bit curious why that is, and although the blog post tells me that a lot of sites were too young, or had focus issues, or whatever, I’m still [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 3:43 am
Congratulations to all the new members. I hope it brings you some extra visitors (I’ve stopped by quite a few).
Perhaps my design blogs will make the cut next time around.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:55 am
Great to see more photoblogs accepted, and also other worthy blogs (that I already thought were alumni).
Congrats to all, and the 9rules team for their tireless work.
September 4th, 2008 at 4:39 am
That’s some great additions right there. I already subscribe to some of the blogs and I see a bunch of new ones to join.
September 4th, 2008 at 6:02 am
Yay! Thanks for including my site!! I’m excited that the unsuspecting masses can now read about trotting in circles! It’s kind of like life - you just go around and around and wonder why you aren’t really going anywhere.
Thank you!
September 4th, 2008 at 6:29 am
Thank you for accepting Blogger Buster! Considering the smaller number of sites accepted this time, I was pleasantly surprised to see my blog on the list
You’re doing a great job here. I can’t imagine how much time and work is involved to make sure everything runs smoothly!
September 4th, 2008 at 8:36 am
Awesome, I made it on my first try.
September 4th, 2008 at 8:48 am
[...] we got the news today. Bitheway.co.uk made it into 9rules. Naturally we’re honoured and chuffed that the site was one of the few picked from thousands [...]
September 4th, 2008 at 8:49 am
Thank you! Glad to finally be part of the 9rules network! Woot!
September 4th, 2008 at 9:48 am
I feel honoured to have been accepted! Congrats to all the other sites too.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:02 am
Congratulations to all the new members. Its a great collection of sites.
September 4th, 2008 at 11:31 am
Ohh..congrats all…
sad…my site failed ….
September 4th, 2008 at 1:15 pm
Wow! Thanks! Didn’t think I’d make the cut!
September 4th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
@Tyme, I hate to ask you to increase your workload, and I have no clue how much time it would take, but a simple email with a reason or two (doesn’t even need to be sentences) about why the site wasn’t accepted would be helpful.
September 4th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
This means so much to me, life has taken some weird turns since I submitted my blog to 9rules, but this has been the boost I needed.
Congrats to all the other new 9-rulers!
September 4th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
I was certainly a little surprised to see I made the cut, but I’m excited!
Thanks for accepting my site, congratulations to the others that were accepted, and good luck and keep at it for those who missed out this time around.
September 4th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Thanks for accepting my site into 9rules! Nice to be among the best blogs in the world =)
September 5th, 2008 at 1:16 am
[...] Round 7 Accepted Sites at 9Rules - see if you can tell why I’m recommending this link More to come on this next week. [...]
September 5th, 2008 at 3:30 am
Big welcome and congratulations to all.
September 5th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Congratulation to all.. and welcome to 9rules
September 5th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Sadly, I didn’t make it. My content sucks
September 6th, 2008 at 6:50 pm
[...] you, Kabitzin, for the lovely announcement, and a HUGE thank you to 9Rules for reviewing this little blog of mine and deeming it worthy. I am honored and will try my best not [...]
September 7th, 2008 at 2:52 am
[...] finally reached a million pageviews last week!! Hurray! And we also made it to 9rules! Hurray2!! A big thanks to Kabitzin for the 9rules heads up, as always! We were rejected the first [...]
September 7th, 2008 at 8:14 am
[...] some of you might already know, on September 3rd, 9Rules published a list of the newest network accepted members. Out of over 70 blogs in the list, three of them caught my attention (one I already knew) due to [...]
September 7th, 2008 at 10:41 pm
Aw! My blog is far too young to be accepted! That makes me sad! But I’ll apply when the time comes. I can’t do much about the site theme though, wordpress doesn’t let you create your own so you’re just stuck with they’re crappy overused ones. T.T I enjoyed looking at the blogs that made it! Congrats to everyone! <3
September 7th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
[...] Fuel Your Creativity was accepted into the 9rules Community & I want to congratulate everyone else that got accepted as well! You can check out some of the other sites that were accepted by checking out the list. [...]
September 8th, 2008 at 7:36 am
Tyme -
Great blog, great list, but a question — I mean this with the utmost respect, not trying to be a smart*ss or anything, but you state that two characteristics of a bad theme (for which blogs can be rejected from your list) are “No contact page / No about section.” And on this blog, those elements would be…where?
I’m wondering how one submits a blog for consideration? Thanks,
Tom
September 8th, 2008 at 7:52 am
great.congrats to everyone who was included on the list.and goodluck to everyone who failed.maybe november is your lucky month:) i should try on november too:)
September 8th, 2008 at 9:14 am
@Tom Pick
If you look on the 9rules.com site you will see prominently listed at the top the “About Us” and “Contact Us” links. Have you only seen the blog?
September 8th, 2008 at 9:29 am
@Tom - most of our traffic to the blog is via RSS. Unless someone decides to make a comment the average user comes to the blog once, subscribes to the blog and/or comments and views the content via their reader. Could we have placed the nav links at the top? Sure but we DO have them on every other page of the site.
Which the sites rejected don’t have….
This is how you submit your blog:
http://9rules.com/about/join/
September 8th, 2008 at 10:06 am
@Kyle and Tyme–
Thanks, guess I should have explored a bit more thoroughly first. Hey, It’s a Monday morning, what can I say.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Awwwwww, yay. I didn’t think I’d make it.
September 8th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
@Tom - I agree that accessibility is hugely important from all pages of a site. It would be nice to see those links included in the footer, along with an RSS feed link. The footer looks pretty lonely with just © 2003-2008 9rules.com
September 9th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
cool concept. just heard about 9rules. Its nice that you group the links, since im more interested in personal sites.
September 10th, 2008 at 6:58 am
[...] was delighted to learn last week that I have been accepted as a member of 9rules. If you’ve never heard of it before, it’s an exclusive network of quality blogs run by [...]
September 11th, 2008 at 12:45 am
[...] than 1,100 submissions for Round 6, twice as many for Round 7). Highlight HEALTH is one of the 73 currently accepted sites listed on the 9rules blog. That puts it in the top 5% of websites [...]
September 11th, 2008 at 5:22 am
Huh! The list is quite large and I havent checked it all yet, but not all sites are on the same level of quality, I think that it could be shortened a little without any harm. But anyway, good work!
September 12th, 2008 at 8:53 am
[...] new members Webmaster Source, Putting Blogs First and Idiot’s Guide to Blogging. According to last weeks acceptence list, regular Blogging Tips author Amanda Fazani’s fantastic site Blogger Buster has also been [...]
September 14th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
[...] to the blogs selected as part of the second Class of 2008! For a full list of members, visit the 9Rules Members [...]
October 20th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Hello,
I’m curious about a few points in Tyme’s comment of 09/03:
No dates
No archives
No tags
When you say dates - is this in the URL structure? Or where do you insinuate the date should be?
When you say archives - do you mean archives by month? Or will any archive do (i.e. all posts found via category)?
When you say tags - in what function? As a tag cloud? Listed at the footer of a post?
I’m curious and would like to figure out the details. : )
Thanks!
October 22nd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
Hi John. I meant article date. Some writes hide the date so it is not obvious when the site has been updated (there are ways to get around that). You see how in the comments here the date you posted the comment is under the name? We don’t require a specific placement for the date but viewers like to know how old an article is.
For archives, thing about how a reader looking for information would find what they are looking for. Most sites have an archives page that has option of looking by date and/or category. Another popular method is the drop down menu (or links) in the sidebar.
Tags are not required but readers like tags. For example, a site owner would have the category Technology and the tags iPhone, Apple, Microsoft, Window, Google, etc. The tags allow the reader to zero in on the content they find interesting without having to wade through all of the entries in the Technology category. Most use a tag cloud or a list of tags. I personally wouldn’t put it in the footer so you’d have room to grow (have diversity with your entries) without the page being ridiculously long.