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December 16, 2021

The Top 100 Most Successful Blogs in the World! (in 2024)

With over 2 million blogs globally, how do you determine which ones are the most successful?

I wanted to find out. I started by checking out Alexa’s top 500 websites and SimilarWeb’s top 50. However, the top sites on these lists are massive corporations like Netflix, YouTube, Google, and Facebook. Not pure bloggers. So I needed more data.

I then stumbled upon Cisco’s list of the top 1,000,000 TLDs. The problem with this list is that Cisco doesn’t filter domains by port 80. This makes the list difficult to parse when looking specifically for websites.

But, that led me to Tranco’s list of top million domains. This was precisely the data I needed to find the top blogs on the Internet (which I’ve listed in the table below). We’re going to get right to that list; however, if you’re interested in my methodology, please scroll down to how I define what made the list of most successful blogs.

Also, keep in mind that my methodology is critical. I had to scroll through nearly 30,000 websites to find the top 100 pure blogs (meaning I filtered out thousands of news, products, business, and college websites). Also keep in mind that the top 100 blogs worldwide are extremely high-traffic websites. If you were looking for successful smaller blogs, check out this post.

Enjoy the list!

BlogTranco RankNotes
916There are a lot of theme sites and website builder websites that rank surprisingly high on the list. I think this is because they cheat (make a call to their URL from their theme which would pad their numbers).
jimdo.com1193
NerdWallet.com1572Borderline news site
SitePoint.com2630Websites about how to code can generate a lot of traffic.
SocialMediaToday.com2639Borderline news site.
Thrillist.com2705Borderline news site.
RunnersWorld.com3903
TheRinger.com4627It’s a news site… But, I like it and didn’t find a pure blog for almost 1,000 entries now.
Patheos.com4654A religious site. Surprised there aren’t more of these at the top.
QuickSprout.com5910Good ole Neil Patel, hacking the Internet even in 2024.
CopyBlogger.com6054
EatingWell.com6145
ScienceBlogs.com6294
WellAndGood.com6361
CafeMom.com6790
DIYNetwork.com7202
TheCrimson.com7205Does a Harvard newspaper belong on this list? Probably not, but I think it’s interesting how high it ranks in global Internet engagement.
Nerdist.com7912
TheWorld.org8205
MetaPress.com8216
ThePioneerWoman.com8907
Distractify.com8994
TechWalla.com9742
TheSpruceCrafts.com9976
FStoppers.com9989
SingularityHub.com10233
ScaryMommy.com10260
MeyerWeb.com11189
SiliconRepublic.com11249
RankMath.com11253
TrailerAddict.com11894
PopMatters.com12008
JeffBullas.com12012
MattCutts.com12051It’s shocking how high this ranks given how little content is on the site and how old the site is. Shows where being the head of Google for a decade can get you.
Hanselman.com12562It’s also rather amazing how high the leader of Microsoft’s blog is on this list.
GeekFlare.com12768
BobDylan.com12779
WaitButWhy.com13425I actually read this blog sometimes.
CodeInWP.com14015
TechNetBloggers.de14061
MarketingSherpa.com14118
NoFilmSchool.com15275
WpExplorer.com15542Another theme that maybe is more of a theme than a blog.
WarOnTheRocks.com15555
UploadVR.com15819
GuitarWorld.com16091
TecheBlog.com16097
Seeker.com16107
PowerOfPositivity.com16323
MomJunction.com16354
VeganSociety.com16577
MarketRealist.com17020
NavyTimes.com17131Not a .Gov website, so assuming it’s not owned by the military.
StoryofStuff.org17774
SethGodin.com18634
BillMoyers.com19777
Creators.com20685
RedditBlog.com20817
IcelandReview.com21961
AdamEnfroy.com22491
TheGeekStuff.com24347
MrMoneyMustache.com24391
GadgetHacks.com24406
TheBestSchools.org24437
BrandonGaille.com24982Host of the blog millionaire podcast.
ShaneBarker.com25238
WebMonkey.com25834
Outdoorlife.com26275
TheCinemaHolic.com26477
DataDrivenInvestor.com26535
BetaKit.com26537
SmartBlogger.com26628
MajorNelson.com26653
GettingSmart.com26656
WidgetBox.com26848
ChrisKresser.com27065
ColdWarExperience.com27227
GretchinRubin.com27852
HomeStratosphere.com27908
Power-Technology.com28323
RealtyTimes.com28398
CarTalk.com28430
StackOverflow.blog28637
VideoGamer.com28696
BloggingWizard.com28948
TechHQ.com29002
HistoryDaily.org29224
GeekTyrant.com29505
DataScienceCentral.com29627
InYourPocket.com29673
SpectatorWorld.com29887
NickiSwift.com30109
SimpleMost.com30123Probably the largest pure blog I’ve ever seen where the home page looks like a big blog roll. Over 20,000 posts!
TheCrazyTourist.com30179One of the largest travel blogs I’ve seen.
JustaPinch.com30187
HauteLiving.com30358Borderline news site.
StartupTalky.com30528
MillionAcres.com30689
Tested.com30919Seems to be about Adam Savage from mythbusters. Not sure if he runs the site or not.
iPhoneHacks.com30970

My Methodology: Defining Blogging Success

A Blog:

I define a blog as a series of publicly available long-form articles on a website (written in English) that primarily exists to drive traffic and revenue to itself. The blog must be prominently featured on the home page over the site’s other products and services.

None of the following count as blogs because the blog isn’t the primary attraction of their website (even if these websites have a blog).

  • Facebook, Google, YouTube, Pinterest, etc.
    • These sites have blogs. However, they’re not the primary reason somebody would visit the site.
  • Buzzfeed, Forbes, NYT, etc.
  • Medium, Blogger, Dev.To
    • These sites host many blogs. But, because the blogs they host don’t reside on their own domain, I have no way of knowing how large their blogs are.
  • Unsecure Websites
    • I assume any blog that ranks this high and hasn’t implemented SSL is likely cheating.

A Successful Blog:

I could have used a lot of metrics to order blogs in terms of success. However, I define success solely as existing at a higher rank on Tranco’s list of top million domains. If a blog is higher on the list, there’s a high probability that it’s getting more traffic than the blogs listed below it.

Basically, I define more traffic as being more successful.

Odd Realizations From Composing This List

I found myself pretty surprised at how high all of the following ranked.

  • Websites that sell themes.
  • Government websites
  • Education websites.
    • Any school with 10k+ students can drive a lot of traffic .
  • Company websites.
    • Any company with 10K+ employees can drive a lot of traffic.
  • Software Tools (I expected these to rank high but it’s crazy how many of these exist with very high rankings).
  • Local News Sites (Eg Syracuse.com)
  • Spam Sites.
    • I was constantly amazed at just how many spam URL’s managed to get on the list. It’s most of them.
  • Brands.
    • I think we fail to recognize how many major product companies exist. Every brand of beer, shoe, racket, clothing, etc. They can all drive large amounts of traffic and don’t need a blog to do so.

Shaun works as a professional software developer while blogging about the creator economy (With a focus on Blogging, YouTube, and Virtual Reality).

1 Comments

Nicole M. says:

Thank you very much for this most informative post. I was looking for a way to classify blogs not in an arbitrary eye of the beholder way, but using data. I had the same idea as you and realised it was a vast project, was about to quit, and then I found your post. Thank you for your hard work!

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