Stuart analysises the Top 100 in the categories of:
- Blogging Software – 45% of those blogs in the top 100 have custom blogging platforms with Movable Type coming in second with 15%
- Monetisation – 79% are using some sort of advertising – 24% are using AdSense
- Language – 84% are blogging in English
- Topic – 21% are on Technology related topics
- Background Colour – White is the colour of choice
- Body Typeface – Verdana is the font of choice
There are a few interesting results there.
For starters I’m a little surprised by the large number of bloggers using custom built blogging solutions. I guess this includes the Weblogs Inc’s ‘blog smith’ platform.
On the Monetisation front – I’m not surprised to see AdSense leading the pack. I’ve previously found it to be the most popular ad platform across not only high profile blogs but across the whole spectrum of blogs. I’m also not surprised to see BlogAds on quite a few of top 100 blogs – although suspect they are not appearing on quite as high a percentage of other blogs.
I would have liked to see ‘other monetisation’ methods measured. For example I suspect if you added affiliate programs (like Amazon for example) or ‘tip jars’ that you’d see the percentage of those making money from their blogs in the top 100 increase.
PS: for more analysis of popular blogs and how they make money you might like to visit a post I wrote a year back looking at the top 30 most visited blogs from Truth Laid Bear.
