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Revenue and Net Worth of the 20 Most Popular Blogs

This post lists the top 20 most popular Blog sites on the internet (based on daily/monthly visits). It then provides Popularity Rank (Alexa.com), Estimated Number of Unique Monthly Visitors (eBizMBA.com), Estimated Daily Ad Revenue (Google Analytics), Daily Revenue per Monthly Visitor (easy math), and then the Estimated Net Worth of the entire site (PriceOfWeb.com). Perhaps not much surprise, they are almost all US-based companies. The question you might be asking is, “Well what sites do you consider Blog sites?” For purposes of this study, a Blog is simply any site that isn’t selling anything on their site (no products and no services), that features reverse-chronological entries of text or media content, and (most importantly) allow visitors to leave interactive comments (this is what separates HuffingtonPost from the likes of CNN and NYTimes). Blogs give away 100% free content and rely on gaining revenue from advertisers who salivate over their web traffic.
1: HuffingtonPost
Popularity Rank: 158
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 903,225
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $20,548
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $16,027,397
2: TMZ
Popularity Rank: 298
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 548,387
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $6,579
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.01
Estimated Net Worth: $5,131,577
3: Engadget
Popularity Rank: 303
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 370,968
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $7,212
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $5,624,999
4: PerezHilton
Popularity Rank: 314
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 290,323
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $4,886
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $3,811,073
5: Gizmodo
Popularity Rank: 394
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 287,097
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $6,849
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $5,342,465
6: Mashable
Popularity Rank: 431
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 225,806
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $11,134
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.05
Estimated Net Worth: $8,666,665
7: TechCrunch
Popularity Rank: 489
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 209,677
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $10,949
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.05
Estimated Net Worth: $8,540,145
8: Gawker
Popularity Rank: 563
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 145,161
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $3,352
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $2,614,524
9: Lifehacker
Popularity Rank: 720
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 141,935
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $4,354
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.03
Estimated Net Worth: $3,396,224
10: FanHouse
Popularity Rank: 847
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 140,323
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $1,914
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.01
Estimated Net Worth: $1,493,299
11: SmashingMagazine
Popularity Rank: 881
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 139,516
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $5,814
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.04
Estimated Net Worth: $4,534,882
12: FailBlog
Popularity Rank: 1032
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 138,710
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $3,745
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $.02
Estimated Net Worth: $2,921,347
13: Kotaku
Popularity Rank: 1045
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 135,484
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $2,740
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $2,136,986
14: BusinessInsider
Popularity Rank: 1192
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 67,742
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $2,447
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.04
Estimated Net Worth: $1,908,644
15: BoingBoing
Popularity Rank: 1203
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 64,516
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $1,655
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $1,291,389
16: AutoBlog
Popularity Rank: 1365
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 62,903
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $1,890
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.03
Estimated Net Worth: $1,474,478
17: IcanHasCheezburger
Popularity Rank: 1567
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 61,290
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $1,180
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $920,895
18: TreeHugger
Popularity Rank: 1623
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 54,839
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $1,169
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.02
Estimated Net Worth: $911,568
19: PopSugar
Popularity Rank: 1656
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 54,032
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $747
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.01
Estimated Net Worth: $582,814
20: PopCrunch
Popularity Rank: 1645
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 52,419
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $753
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $0.01
Estimated Net Worth: $587,939
And we know it’s not a Blog, but we had some requests for this one…
Facebook
Popularity Rank: 2
Estimated Unique Daily Visitors: 9.2 million
Estimated Daily Ad Revenue: $2.2 million
Revenue per Unique Visitor: $.23
Estimated Net Worth: $6.9 billion
It’s really surprising how much more successful some sites are over others at monetizing their monthly hits and web traffic. For instance, according to these estimations it’s Mashable and TechCrunch that have the highest ad conversion rates for their site–earning over $.05 per unique visitor. If you look at Huffington Post–who hosts the most visited Blog site on the internet–they earn a much less successful $.02 per unique visitor (TMZ is comes in at an even worse $.01). If Huffington Post had the same conversion rates as Mashable and TechCrunch, they would be earning 150% more revenue each month. Yes, that’s an increase from $637,000 to $955,000. Perhaps this is something worth looking into. If you manage or are thinking about developing your own Blog, perhaps take a look at the sites of the companies on this list and take some notes. They are all kicking butt in cyberspace, so perhaps we can learn a thing or two. And perhaps they can learn some things from each other. These statistics are as of March, 2010.