Last Friday (August 15th, 2008) I took a snapshot of the Internet’s top blogs. This freeze frame identifies the blogs that have developed the skills necessary to compete. Unlike traditional top blog lists, I did not seek to place blogs in order of perceived importance. Instead, I combined public lists of top blogs ordered by the amount of inlinks (Technorati), amount of community subscriptions (Bloglines), ability to start and follow trends (BlogPulse), and the ability to thrive in foreign markets (Wikio). I then weighed each individual blog against its all encompassing internet performance using SEOmoz’s Trifecta Tool. The result is a list of blogs that have proven to be powerful in all aspects of Internet success.
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My hope is that by analyzing what all of these blogs have in common, I can learn how to become a better internet citizen and participant. Simultaneously, I want to share my findings and gain additional insight by learning from all of your unique perspectives and experiences. I have already identified some common traits and trends below and I look forward to learning more from all of you.
Big Corporations Don't Dominate, Yet...
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This shows the consolidation of ownership for the top 50 blogs compared to the top 50 websites. Although there is a remarkable amount of popular independently owned blogs, the ownership of popular blogs overall is heavily consolidated. (Top 50 Websites Source)
Branding That Works
76% of the top blogs titles contain only one or two words (not including 'The'). This reinforces the idea that when it comes to marketing it is best to keep it simple.
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86% of the top blog TLDs were the traditional dot com. This doesn't mean that there are not notable exceptions, but it does allude to importance of sticking with conventions.
Think the Market is Over Saturated? Think Again
There are already many established paths to success. The interesting insights come from diving into the niches.
Every subject has many niches. Success can come from any one of them.
Its as Much About Who One Writes for as it is About Who is Doing the Writing
Can't do it all by yourself? Neither can the experts. 80% of the top blogs have more than one primary writer.
I interpret this as supply rather than demand. Blogs catering to women will likely find audiences much more easily than the over saturated male-oriented market.
95% of the Internet's top blogs are based in the United States. Yet, the potential audience abroad dwarfs the current American audience. Why?
It is my hope that others will be able to learn from my research. If I have learned only one thing about this industry, it is that online there is always more opportunity than one person could ever possibly need. By pooling resources and cooperating, I think we can beat the battle that takes place in the blogosphere and receive the mutual benefits that come with the victory.
Graphs created in Apple Numbers
If you are an experienced blogger, feel free to share your opinions and expertise in the comments. This post is very much a work in progress. As always, feel free to e-mail me or send me a private message if you have any suggestions on how I can make my posts more useful. All of my contact information is available on my profile: Danny Thanks!
95% of the Internet's top blogs are based in the United States. Yet, the potential audience abroad dwarfs the current American audience. Why?
I have theories why Asian blogs are misrepresented despite China having more internet users than US and the volume of blog posts in Japanese exceeding blog posts in English.
1) Most Asian bloggers use blogging services that don't ping blog trackers like Technorati.
2) Most Asian bloggers use blogging services that aren't indexable by blog trackers
This is because many blogs (and hompys) especially in China and Korea, exist in walled gardens ala the old AOL network. Unfortunately these blogosphrere-within-a-blogospheres can contain millions of users that are literally invisible to the Western world.
A good example is the blog of Chinese actress Xu JingLei, who was briefly ranked #1 by Technorati but is now ranked nowhere, despite regularly receiving a thousand comments per blog.
Hope that helps explain the Asian absence - I am really enjoying your blogging series Danny. Keep the research coming!
PS. GIGAZINE is a Japanese website :)
Holy 1000 comments/blog batman!!!
I think you make a very good point about the availability of the asian market. This analysis works ok for the western world but comparing this with the asian market is very very difficult.
Shor, this is a great add-on comment! Danny, good general data, but it's always a good idea to dig a little deeper when you find extremely impressive numbers like the "95% based un US."
This is the perfect time to take advantage of this particular 'open door,' by the way. There is currently a huge potential for international dialog with the inevitable controversy and international attention created by the Olympics.
Exactly what Lucas said - Chinese blogs are often much bigger than US ones and yet never seem to show up. Does anyone know of any good tools for measuring them?
Well this is my first comment at SEOmoz.
I have checked the excel sheet and I have found several sites that I wouldn't define as blogs:
Also Wired.com appears twice. First one as XML feed.
Apart from that good job.
Congrats on your first comment!
I only included the domains for those URLs for clarification (The RSS feed urls were really funky) However, I think you are right. Now they are even more confusing!
I will figure out some compromise and reupload the files. Thanks for the useful feedback. ;-)
I think that the blogs on The Guardian definitely count as blogs (as with the Chinese blogger Lucas mentions below, The Guardian's posts often get hundreds of comments per post) - you may want to see if you can separate blogs.guardian.co.uk out from the main site.
We've spent some time trying to work out what counts as a blog and what doesn't. It's hard. There is no really good metric - presence of an RSS feed is neither necessary nor sufficient in my view. I would like an accepted definition. Maybe there's a blog post for me in there somewhere....
Very good work Danny! Collecting and analyzing that data must have taken ages. Hats of to your patience and perseverance!
Great work, Danny!
I certainly hope that Corporate America doesn't take over the blogosphere. There's enough "stuff" to sift and sort through as it is.
Kudos to all those who can wrestle and wrangle time to blog effectively. Hate to admit it but my little blog is wasting away due to non-use despite me having plenty of ideas to write about.
Again, good stuff. There's plenty of room for more subject and niches - whew!
Loved it!
Well done - not that I would expect anything less from SEOMoz...
Wow excellent work Danny - was really interested to see the primary subject of blogs. Looks like there's a gap in the market for a fashion blog - might be a fun pet project for me...
Great research...
Altough I would imagine that the exlcusion of Asian blogs is probably down to the languague differences.
I'm totally on the same page with you. I saw those charts and it put my brain into overdrive. I think I have some ideas already ... kind of excited. There's a gap in "green" as well ... the environmentally aware fashionista ...
Note: This reply was in direct response to Hannah up there regarding a fashion blog ...
Loved the conclusion...
My only concern is that big corporations would hire great bloggers with "ability" if they wanted to. The big question is, why wouldn't they. They seem not to care, don't they?
You're right it is odd.
I know that major newspapers are giving no name bloggers the oppurtunity to blog on the newspaper website under the opinion section. They work for free in exchange for the oppurtunity to be seen along side traditional news. Its a great example of old media working with new media.
My only concern is that big corporations would hire great bloggers with "ability" if they wanted to.
Why? What's wrong with major media embracing new technologies (which many of them are btw)? Why is what mainstream media do automatically bad? Personally I respect The Guardian much more than I do something like TechCrunch. Big does not always = bad and I'd argue that to suggest it does is slightly naive.
This stats is really useful. Thanks Danny.
Ooooh stats. How lovely. If i were on a date and a girl gave me stats of whatever, I would totally be on my knees with a makeshift beer can tab ring.
About your gender based stats... Are your assumptions of the blog focus based on the product or service being blogged about as related to a gender, or do you use and in depth study of whether their content for the topic is intended for the specific gender?
What I mean is, if it was a blog about cars, did you classify it as neutral or male driven? It could be that the neutral blog about cars was designed and and worded to appeal to females, but not stated as such, on the site.
To come up with those numbers I browsed the recent entries on the blogs and looked at subject matter, tone and tried to get a basic feeling for the community.
Not scientific by any means, but sufficient for what I was trying to do.;-)
That's as close as you can get to it. I thought there might have been something that slipped by, but as usual we get Moz quality. Love the persistence and pies, Danny. Keep it up!
Fantastic post. I've been trying to promote the use of blogs here in South Africa. As you've quite clearly pointed out, there just don't seem to be any.
Always better to get into the market as early as possible. Thanks!
Best of luck!
When I do this again next year, I hope to see your blog on my list. ;-) Don't let me down.
Excellent use of Numbers. And very interesting info pulled from the data.
great research. One minor(ish) correction though.
ProBlogger is not owned by b5media. It participates in that network and is a flagship blog in it but not owned by it. So you can add another 'self owned' blog to your list and add one percent to 'Australian' to the countries stat.
This is some great research you've put together, Danny. Kudos.
Purdy graphs, too.
There was a post over at Daily Blog Tips today that touches on the same thread (in respect to domain names, that is): On Domain Names, Size and Quality DO Matter!
In general, I think the data is encouraging. The world of blogging still belongs to those who have the passion and ability to do it, regardless of the capital they've got to throw at the traffic problem.
One question: does Technorati include blogs that are written in foreign languages? I haven't been able to find any (not that I've dug too deeply). That might be one reason the "Blog Country of Origin" is so skewed to the United States.
Either way, interesting data you're sharing here - thanks.
I agree that the data is encouraging. it will be interesting to do this again in a year and see what has changed.
As far as Technorati, it is unclear if they include foreign blogs. To compensate for the possibility that they don't, I included wikio as an additional source. Anyone have any more information on this?
What a great break down of blog information. I find the break out of topic to be extremely insightful. No suprise that tech was the huge winner, but i really thought there would be a much larger section of the pie dedicated to entertainment and world news but also culture. this is particularly interesting when thinking of how it relates to the hope of businesses using blogs as an outreach to their consumers. Seem like it could over flood the content exteremely quickly and water down the effects. Awesome work what a great read.
That was a really good, informative blog. Yeah, it is amazing how many blogs are out there and successful at that.
These charts are awesome! Thank you for compiling and presenting your top 100 blogs research into these easy to understand graphs/charts. I need to start getting mulitple authors and contributors to my blogs.
Happy I could help. Best of luck with your blog!
Great blog entry! Thanks for sharing!
Going to use this info for my new blog - keep an eye out for me on this list next year!
I thought this week will be a slow week. And we have such a wonderful very informative, insanely useful post. :)
Now I know all my competition, and beat them one by one, engadget, here I come!!! :)
I took the slow blog week as a challenge. ;-)
Amazing research...I was wondering about the absesnse of Asian blogs but I can imagine that the exlcusion of Asian blogs is probably down to the languague differences. But, This is an amazing Analysis of blogs.
Great Job
Very interesting statistics and beautiful graphs. I learned a lot of things from your research and I thank you for that.
I think the concept of having people contribute to blogs is obviously extremely popular. I'm not sure how to put that into practice as far as how to spread profit sharing throughout the group. A lot of the bloggers I know are individuals.
Wow, fantastic information.
I was wondering if most of the blogs were US base due to most of the better hosting being US based?
I am in the UK but my site shows up as being on a US server down to that fact.
Hi Danny,
Great analysis - and exactly what I was looking for -
Except we are trying to do an analysis of top ranked Asian blogs and then we want to see what these blogs are discussing - haven't got anywhere for the last few days...can anyone please help ???? thanks in advance
Sanjay
This was useful, visually beautiful, and very helpful. Thanks a bunch!
High Grace at https://www.facetothesun.com
Great post but doesn't Gawker Media own Jezebel?
Brilliant analysis Danny! You've got wonder how long it will be before corporate giants buy up an even greater share of popular independent blogs.
This is a great post and there is tons of informative information. Thanks for taking the time to do the research and share. It's very encouraging to hear that 80% of the top blogs have more than one author. It makes me feel a little less burried.
That stat surprised me as well.
I know that before I worked here, I was always confused how a single person could build a popular site. Its good to know that splitting the load and reponsability works well for the experts.
Great post. As I try to improve my blog with every post, I find that while I want to make it a bigger, more succesful site, I already have a successful site and the blog will always be just for fun (ie, todays posting is three of the best filmclips ever, but last week was about how to use lftp from bash).
Thanks for the informative post. It is encouraging for my niche blog - so niche that you don't even have the category for it. But i have already seen great benefits from it and will keep it up as another independently owned and written (2 authors) niche blog on a .com targeted at both men and women with a 3 word title.
One interesting question that I did not see covered which might address the global aspect is language. With 95% of blogs originating in the US and 3% UK, I assume English is the the only language you looked at. I assume additional languages would increase the global reach dramatically.
You should get a commission for Apple Numbers sales =).
Although I don't blog aggressively or even consult for anyone who does, modeling after the successful blogs is a good way to "optimize" the quality of the blogging that I do take part in. Even in small niche markets (less than a hundred readers) its a great idea to model after this as a mater of principle.
Holy technology blogosphere! I mean, I'd assumed technology was a big part of it, but I would never have guessed it made up that percentage.
Excellent graphs by the way. Several insights to be gained here.
Great post, but ScienceDaily.com isn't a blog, surely, it's a press release aggregator! My own Sciencebase.com, on the other hand, steers clear of being a blogospheric echo chamber for science news releases and covers a diverse range of stuff from climate change to MMR
This is an incredibly informative and encourage blog. It's always a good idea to look at what the 'top' people are doing to find ways to improve your own way of doing things. Not to mention simply good data!
This may have something to do with your sources (Technorati, etc.), but I think it's also probably influanced by the cheap hosting you can get in the US. I have a few non-geographically-targeted sites hosted in the states, because I simply can't find the same prices in Canada. I've also heard that Australians tend to get US-based hosting because the cost of bandwidth there is astronomical.
Also, it's crazy that Gawker Media owns 16% of the top 50 blogs! I had no idea they were so large. They are certainly doing something right.
Yes - again, going back to what Lucas/shor said, I seem to remember reading that there are now more blogs in Chinese than there are in English - but they just don't show up on the radar
Your research is great!
I am off to propose a blog using more than 4 contributers, US based, with a one word title, covering topics in the lower represented niches.
:)
This is one of the most informative posts I've read on blogging Danny - so many people seem to tell you how to do it without any reference any data. I'm looking forward to seeing how this progresses and what conclusions may be drawn in the future.
I have to say I was also surprised at the prevalence of technology blogs, and the domination of the US in the blog world. I shall redouble my efforts to put England back on the map!
Really good and informative article. Thx for the work.
For me it´s interesting to see, that German Blogs count up only to 1% and in Spain there is nothing important. Sure we don´t know how accurate the international data is, but it reflects my own point of view.
An other funny thing is that in blog topics the apple and microsoft have the same "marketshare". ;)
Thx again and i´m looking for more of these interesting data.
ingolf
I thought that was weird as well. I think the difference is that the Apple blogs do better on social media so I just see them more. That creates the false impression that they are more numerous.
Also Microsoft is a much bigger company that has a lot more products. So even if people find Apple more interesting, there is simply more to write about Microsoft.
Great analysis! The blog title conversion seems to be a special note for myself! Thanks for coming up with excellent one!