Here’s a sort of ‘top 100′ list for the Canadian political blogs which I compiled for fun (I know, I’m at work right now and I’m bored and I have a really distorted sense of ‘fun’). Actually, the idea wasn’t really mine, I stole the idea from a post that Greg from democraticspace.com did back in 2006 and I decided to expand it to a top 100 list, take out the now defunct sites, and update the rest.
Just a few caveats to keep in mind when going over this list. First, about one third of all blogspot blogs that I entered into alexa.com’s traffic analysis generated no data. For some reason though, all other blog hosts such as wordpress (and all people who host their own blog) seemed to register just fine. So, if you don’t show up on the list, don’t take it personally, it’s possible that alexa just doesn’t have data on you. Second, I believe that the traffic ranking at Alexa is based on the past 4 months or so, so if you’ve been taking the summer off (as I believe Rick Mercer has) then your traffic rank will probably reflect that more than your normal traffic flow. Third, this isn’t an exhaustive list. What I’ve done is taken Greg’s list, deleted all the blogs which no longer exist, and then simply went down the list of blogs at Bound By Gravity, starting at the top, until I filled in enough empty slots to equal 100.
If I’ve left out some blogs that generate data on Alexa.com (and are, say, under the 7,000,000 mark) and you’d like them included in the list, feel free to comment below with the Alexa url of the blog traffic overview and I’ll add it as soon as I get a chance.
.
Canadian Political Blogger rank. Site name (& url) / site’s global Alexa ranking
- Paul Wells / 70,893
- Small Dead Animals /133,987
- Matthew Good /187,454
- Le Blogue du Québec / 210,363 (blogue francophone)
- The Politic / 274,126
- Progressive Bloggers / 283,480
- Steve Janke / 318,783
- Antonia Zerbisias / 324,154
- Garth Turner / 356,627
- Blogs Canada / 378,886
- Blogging Tories / 396,832
- Damian Penny / 455,529
- Vues d’ici / 460,543
- Vive le Canada / 461,727
- Amériquébec / 469,643 (blogue francophone)
- Emotion Creator / 484,553
- Andrew Coyne / 551,817
- Warren Kinsella / 593,125
- CalgaryGrit / 614,119
- Western Standard / 664,824
- Ken Chapman / 683,125
- Samantha Burns / 732,689
- Gen X at 40 / 735,226
- Werner Patels / 738,070
- Joseph Facal / 821,472 (blogue francophone)
- Montreal Simon / 840,565
- Stephen Taylor / 850,234
- Colby Cosh / 889,912
- Paulitics: Paul’s Socialist Investigations / 911,369
- Bound by Gravity / 912,488
- Dust my Broom / 939,419
- Abandoned Stuff / 949,762
- Scott’s DiaTribes / 954,036
- Canadian Cynic / 1,013,469
- David Akin / 1,070,642
- James Bow / 1,104,491
- Getting it Right / 1,113,156
- Girl on the Right / 1,166,381
- Red Tory / 1,175,715
- Far and Wide / 1,360,164
- Rick Mercer / 1,372,926
- April Reign / 1,387,411
- Prairie Wrangler / 1,440,822
- The Galloping Beaver / 1,455,318
- La Revue Gauche / 1,486,069
- Jordon Cooper / 1,518,839
- Canadian Cerberus / 1,553,403
- Buckdog / 1,591,003
- Big Blue Wave / 1,715,540
- Daveberta / 1,762,705
- The Blog Quebecois / 1,772,550
- Liblogs.ca / 1,870,127
- Jason Cherniak / 1,929,394
- Big City Lib / 1,960,969
- Larry Borsato / 2,065,636
- Section 15 / 2,065,958
- The Monarchist / 2,066,261
- The London Fog / 2,067,851
- Jay Currie / 2,190,102
- Stageleft / 2,238,667
- Green Bloggers (Canada) / 2,252,729
- democraticSPACE.com / 2,391,081
- Quebec Politique / 2,575,012 (blogue francophone)
- Un homme en colère / 2,653,297 (blogue francophone)
- Urban Refugee / 2,661,034
- Accidental Deliberations / 2,717,441
- Devin Johnston.ca / 2,718,187
- Idealistic Pragmatist / 2,725,501
- My Blahg / 2,800,670
- Uncorrected Proofs / 2,891,152
- Adam Daifallah / 3,018,846
- Political Staples / 3,222,345
- Marginalized Action Dinosaur / 3,302,191
- Rootleweb / 3,327,246
- Dr. Roy’s Thoughts / 3,622,245
- The Vanity Press / 3,622,958
- Crawl Across the Ocean / 3,625,835
- JimBobbySez / 3,632,287
- Bill Doskoch / 3,637,532
- Verbena-19 / 3,672,713
- The Spirit of Man / 3,787,343
- Cathie from Canada / 3,789,273
- Peace, Order and Good Government, eh? / 3,794,370
- Odd Thoughts / 3,796,069
- Canadiana’s Place / 4,020,291
- Unrepentant Old Hippie / 4,284,573
- A BCer in TO / 4,802,829
- Dawg’s Blawg / 4,817,302
- Red Jenny / 4,838,538
- East-End Underground / 4,874,982
- The Cylinder / 5,185,136
- Maxwell’s House / 5,533,134
- WingNuterer / 5,563,968
- Woman at Mile 0 / 5,610,425
- Begin Each Day… / 5,623,330
- HarperBizarro / 5,626,895
- Liberal Catnip / 5,776,892
- Antagoniste / 5,797,151 (blogue francophone)
- Blogging Dippers / 6,135,616
- Fuddle-Duddle / 6,238,129
Thanks for the link, but The Torch isn’t a political blog, it’s a milblog that focuses on the Canadian Forces. Your call as to whether or not to include us, I guess.
Also, I’m familiar with many of these blogs, and I have to say these traffic rankings look out of whack to me. For example, much as I prefer reading Gnotalex at The Blog Quebecois, his site should not rank above Cherniak’s if we’re looking solely at traffic (Jason’s traffic in his worst month this year was five times Gnotalex’s best). Check the publicly accessible Sitemeter stats at a lot of these blogs, and you’ll find many of them are out of their proper order on this list.
Damian – that’s what I was thinking too, but then I looked at the Alexa ranking for my blog and it captures all of the spikes and digg effects I’ve experienced accurately, so I figured it can’t be THAT far off the mark. I too was shocked to see Jason’s traffic down so low as well, but I just figured that he’s been taking it easy for the most part this summer. Has he been posting a lot lately?
As for The Torch thing, I actually haven’t ever visited it, so I just picked it because it was ranked high on Bound by Gravity. Maybe once people start submitting new blog sites that register on Alexa, I’ll take it down. But in the meantime, I’m going to keep it on just so that the list stays at 100.
Thanks for taking the time to do this. It is actually a great reference worth bookmarking. Again, thanks for taking the time to do this.
Hey Paul would you contact me please?
Thanx 4 doing this
Cool stuff dude – thanks for the effort
I, too, found my ranking ahead of Cherniak and others somewhat startling.
Not that I
. . . would accidentally hit the Enter button or something before I’d sufficiently composed a reply. :)
I remember checking those rankings out when they were first posted. Wells probably is the most popular blogger, but his ranking was actually a reflection of the macleans.ca site as a whole.
My stupid blogspot one didn’t show up, so maybe I’m just bitter. ;-)
Thanks for the blogornography ;-)
Take that 28 of mine, Scott Tribe at 29 :-P
Oh, wait, he owns ProgBlogs too. Never mind :-O :-D
No blogrolls, just a redneck intellectual calling it how he sees it … http://www.roadhammer.blogspot.com
I don’t see how this can be right with the Zerb at the top having not posted for 8 months. Do you really believe that Werner Patels has more reach than Stephen Taylor? I would have to say that this has convinced me Alexa ratings don’t really mean much.
Somehow I totally expected exactly that response from Jason. Why am I not surprised?
It just reminds me of how every poll that’s released that shows the Liberals down “doesn’t mean anything” and every one which shows the Liberals up is right on the money.
I figure this should have put me at #70
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=marginalizedactiondinosaur.net
Traffic Rank for marginalizedactiondinosaur.net: 3,302,191
1 wk. Avg.
843,475
I think I live in Canada. I always wondered if Winnipeg was up to something while I wasn’t paying attention.
Plus like Rob says Well’s high ranking is erroneous, I plugged alexa re Mark Steyn at Macleans and got the exact same result. So me looking at Steyns high prose bumps up this Wells character? That’s kind of funny, if cheating.
Thus either “Macleans.ca” Steyn et al is first or SDA is but not “Paul Wells.”
oops typo in last URL
Dinosaur – I’ve added you to the ranking. Since you were the first to submit your site, I removed The Torch from the list (because it’s a blog for the Canadian military). Because of me removing The Torch from the list, you’re now at 69.
Having been in the business, I can tell you that Alexa rankings are pretty unreliable. This has to do with the voluntary nature of installing the Alexa toolbar (that’s how they derive their data). It’s sort of like if the Neilsons let people volunteer to have one of those tv boxes. The data would likely be a bit skewed.
Having said that, this was a fun exercise, and it gave me a whole list of new blogs to read. I’m contemplating making a cool badge that says: “I’m the Eighty-Second most popular Canadian political blog” :D
:)
Tnx, that was fast.
Where’s Relapsed Catholic? She gets 5 times the traffic I get.
I’m very surprised at some of the blogs that I beat. Jason Cherniak? Come on, he gets way more traffic than I do. He gets 800 on a bad day, on a good day I get about 300 (unless SDA links, then I get 500-1000).
Just doesn’t seem right.
Since I am a shameless self-promoter, according to Alexa, the traffic rank for
rootleweb.blogspot.com: 3,327,246
I’d probably be doing a lot better if I had more time to blog. Oh well.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=http%3A%2F%2Frootleweb.blogspot.com
I probably should have added that link
Dinosaur seems to have a point. I’d hate to take credit for Steyn’s readers — or, increasingly, Andrew Potter’s or Kady O’Malley’s. Still, it was kinda nice to see my name up there, methodology be damned.
SUZANNE – I agree, the methodology is far from perfect, but keep in mind that most of these stats are based on the summer and maybe Jason has just been taking the summer off or relaxing more than usual.
Also, the Alexa ranking isn’t entirely based on viewership. ‘Hits per day’ is only one of the factors that Alexa uses.
I have not been taking a break. I’m posting almost every day and I’m still getting an average of 1000 hits a day according to sitemeter.
I’m amazed that I can’t even say the same thing as a number of other people without getting accused of being unreasonable.
Finally, take a look at my comments on polls since the convention. I think you will find that I have not written what you think I have written.
I, on the other hand, have had no idea what my traffic is for the last year or so. I’d be amazed if it’s as high as it was during my Obsessive About Paul Martin phase.
Ruth – your site’s now listed at #70 of the top 100.
Interesting, but are we really the only French-speaking political bloggers who generate enough traffic to be on your top 100? We know that few French blogs are listed on the Canadian Blog Exchange, so maybe you should check on Quebec blog directories such as Tout le monde en blogue ( http://www.toutlemondeenblogue.com/index.aspx?c=10) to make sure that no one is missing. You can also check on our blogroll for more political blogs from Quebec.
There is also Top Blogues: http://www.topblogues.com/index.php?cat_id=politique
QuébecPolitique.com – You raise a very good and important point. I’m absolutey certain that there are fracophone bloggers who have a high enough reach on Alexa to be counted in this top 100 list.
Sadly, since my French is not the best in the world, I will only be able to do some searching around on my own, but if you could help me out by giving me the urls of some of what you think are the most popular francophone blogs in Quebec, I’d be more than happy to include them.
I would greatly appreciate anybody else’s assistance on this matter as well.
You have already added most of the blogs that we have found. However, there are two more blogs that you can add:
Amériquébec (http://www.ameriquebec.net/, RK: 469,643)
Antagoniste (http://www.antagoniste.net/, RK: 5,797,151)
There are other french-written political blogs that, in our view, would probably reach the top 100 if they were properly indexed on Alexa. They are related to the “blogspot problem” that you mention on your post. Strangely, we also have two similar cases with wordpress.
I can give you this one where a politicien and ex minister blog as well: Joseph Facal.
URL : http://www.josephfacal.org/blogue/
Alexa trafic rank : 821,472… put him around 23th place…
I’m so high on the list because I get hits from tech savvy users, who either use Alexa, or ones who unknowingly use it, I’d suppose. My Technorati authority tumbled the last few months as I posted less, and my hit count per day hovers around 300 unique visitors, which is of course much less than many, and much more than most blogs. So while I doubt I place 28 in reality, saying top 100 for any one in the top 80 of the list is probably a fair guess.
Anyway, it’s an interesting bit of blog navel gazing.
I would have to agree with you on both counts Saskboy. That’s also probably the reason why I’ve ranked so high as well. I’m certain if it were just pure hit counts, I’d be much, much lower.
Yeah, unfortunately, Wells, Steyn, Kady, me, and every other blogger at maclean’s has the same ranking. But what a ranking!!
But while we’re on the topic, has anyone news of Andrew Coyne? Did he get lost during the annual Coyne/Asper race around Lake of the Woods?
I agree – thx for the effort. At the risk of being accused of unbridled hubris – and why not, I am a recovering lawyer…my site is Alexa ranked at 683125 and been Bloggins since late July 2006. Give me a visit for political and ocil commentary on Alberta and Canada…and the difficult relationship they ofen have. Here is the URL
http://www.ken-chapman.blogspot.com
It won’t last as it has a shelf life but here’s the one for 101 people who are screwing up Canada. Seems to be around the 70th range.
http://alexa.com/search?q=101people.blogspot.com&x=25&y=14
Spinks – your blog is not a traditional blog as I see it, but rather a very drawn out singular project which just happens to be hosted by blogspot.
If it were merely “people who are screwing up Canada” and that was the animating theme you explored in a traditional, ongoing blog, it would definitely merit inclusion. But, in my opinion, merely because you’ve drawn out what is essentially one very long post, does not a blog make.
Thus, I’m going to have to decline to include this blog at this time, but if you have another, traditional blog, just send me the Alexa link and I’ll be happy to include it, no questions asked.
Hmm that is my old site address too. I still get about 30-40 hits a day to it though. I moved to http://www.womanatmile0.amfresh.ca/ in July.
It is different but points are brought up, opinion is made, comments are made by other bloggers from across the country (almost all political) and discussion is had. So while I will agree it is different, it is indeed a blog even if the subject matterm format and style is non-traditional. Blogging by its essence is meant to be different based on the individual and as a counter to the MSM. owever this is your blog and that choice is yours. Thanks for considering it for inclusion. Cheers.
Woman At Mile 0 – Sorry about that. I’ll change that right away. Right now, your Alexa ranking for your new site is lower than your old site but that’s probably just because you haven’t had the time to accumulate lots of incoming links at your new site as opposed to what you’d accumulated at your old one.
Thanks for the update paulitics I knew that would happen with the switch. Plus I still have bloggers out there that have links to me but they are still to my old site. Heck I still have posts that have links to my old site in them. Takes a long time to change everything. It has picked up really well now though so I can’t complain. I’m cruising again.
well the 72 was nicer but the 93 more accurate : )) thanks paulitics.
Great list of blogs.
How do I get myself listed?
neilmckenty.wordpress.com
Neil, the problem with the way I’ve done the top 100 blogs at Alexa is that most of the time you have to register with them before they’ll generate data on your site. It doesn’t cost anything.
Your Alexa overview is here:
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/main?q=neilmckenty.wordpress.com&url=neilmckenty.wordpress.com/
Paul see this if your interested:
http://www.dustmybroom.com/?p=1048
Back in 05 I tested a formula.
Not that I’m that concerned, but my Alexa traffic rank is 4,817,302, and TTLB ranks me well into the Adorable Rodent rankings. Or does my blog not count as “political?”
Dawg – Of course your blog is very political. You shouldn’t take offense or anything, your blog just wasn’t included because you weren’t on Greg’s initial list nor were you within the top x number of blogs at Bound By Gravity — which, along with comments from bloggers who commented in this section and a French blog listing site, were the the only resources I used to fill this list.
I’ve now included you on the list. You rank at #88.
Cheers.
Paul
Thank, you, Paul…I really wasn’t offended at all, honest–just curious. What do the Alexa numbers mean, exactly?
It’s your global ranking that Alexa calculates. For instance, Google’s Alexa ranking is #1.
What a great list, thanks for creating it! I noticed you have other blog groups or aggregators on the list, so I was wondering if you might add the newish http://www.bloggingcanadians.ca to the list. It would currently be 61st on the list.
I also want to invite any Canadian political bloggers that haven’t joined Blogging Canadians to come check it out!
Speaking as the Urban Refugee who came in at #65, I’m curious as to how my blog (now defunct) came to be listed as a political blog? It was anything but. There was the occasional bit of politicial snark, but the blog itself mainly dealt with rural living and photography. True, I used to run part of a popular political blog (PolSpy, also defunct), but I haven’t concentrated on politicial blogging for almost three years now.
I probably know why Sean. Your blog ended up in an earlier list that Paul drew names from.
My Alexa ranking is, as of today, 1,840,095. Just so we all keep current. : )
At the time when you posted this top 100 list I was on a small hiatus from blogging. I’m back and just wanted to say thank you for including me. :)