A Guide to Finding Niche Blogs and Forums in the Modern Era

Many people feel a sense of nostalgia for an older version of the web, where a simple search could lead you to a specialized forum or a personal blog with a small, dedicated readership. Today, search engine results are often dominated by commercial content, SEO-optimized listicles, and major platforms, making it difficult to find those hidden gems. The good news is the "small web" never truly disappeared; it just got buried. With the right tools and techniques, you can dig it back up.

Alternative Search Engines for the Small Web

A primary strategy is to use search engines built specifically to counter the modern web's noise. Unlike Google, these tools prioritize non-commercial, text-heavy, and independent websites.

Marginalia Search: This search engine deliberately favors sites that are not image-heavy or stuffed with modern web development cruft, leading to more old-school, text-focused results.
Kagi Small Web: The paid search engine Kagi offers a dedicated feature to search the "small web," surfacing results from personal blogs and non-commercial domains.
Wiby.me: Wiby is a search engine for classic websites, returning pages that feel like they're from a bygone era of the internet.

Curated Directories and Aggregators

Another powerful method is to tap into directories and aggregators where communities have done the curation for you. These collections are often born from a shared desire to promote and discover independent content.

Human-Curated Blogrolls: Sites like blogroll.org and blogs.hn are collections of personal and independent blogs submitted by the community. They are fantastic resources for discovering new writers and topics.
Platform Discovery Tools: Blogging platforms focused on simplicity and the indie spirit often have their own discovery sections. Check out Micro.blog Discover and Bear Blog Discover to find content hosted on those services.
RSS-Based Aggregators: RSS is still a vital tool for the independent web. Aggregators like minifeed.net and Feedle.org index RSS feeds, allowing you to find blogs you can easily subscribe to.

Advanced Search and Social Techniques

Sometimes, you need to be a bit more creative with your discovery process.

Smart Search Operators: You can still bend traditional search engines to your will. For example, using a query like site:blogspot.com inurl:2025 on DuckDuckGo will show you recent posts on the Blogspot platform, bypassing some of the usual ranking algorithms.
Follow the People: A great way to find quality content is to find interesting people first. When you see a particularly insightful comment on a forum or social media platform, do a little digging. Often, that person will have a personal blog linked in their profile. This social-first approach leads to discovering content you already know has a thoughtful author behind it.