How the Most Highly Visited Blogs Earn Money

Yesterday I spent the afternoon wading through some of the most highly visited blogs going around at ... ... Sitemeter statistics. I quite often head over there to keep track of who is doing what. Whilst it doesn't track all blogs it does give you a hint at what blogs people are reading in terms of topic. Today I was surfing through the top 30 of these blogs and I started to keep track of how many of them have some sort of income stream (whether it be ads, affiliate programs, donation buttons, merchandise for sale etc). I did the same exercise informally about 12 months ago and found that just over half of the top blogs had income streams. This year I found that things have changed - the Blogosphere is becoming more commercial (or at least the most highly visited blogs are). I'll outline what each of the top 30 are doing to earn an income below - but let me first share some initial findings:

1. All blogs in the top 30 have an income stream. Only one blog had no advertising or affiliate programs (it did have a donation button though).
2. The most popular Income Stream on these Blogs is AdBrite text ads.
3. Only 8 of these blogs use Adsense.
There are plenty of other observations to be made from what I found but I'll let you chew over them a little and make your own remarks below in comments. Here are the notes I took on each of the top 30 blogs in the list: One note of explanation - I deleted two of the blogs listed in Daily Kos - 443841 visits/day - Runs Blog Ads (15 currently running) ranging in price from $13000 per month for the premium position down to the classified position at $500 per month) 2) Details on their Advertising Rates. 3) Gawker - 104460 visits/day - Runs a variety of sponsorship/banner and affiliate ads (CNET again). They also have AdBrite text ads available at a cost of $600 per 4 week campaign. Eschaton - 103837 visits/day - Running BlogAds (currently with 8) which range in price from $2500 per month down to $100 for a classified ad. They also include a donate button and see to be running an affiliate program with a book store. 6) More on their ad packages. 7) Power Line - 62304 visits/day - Blog ads (currently running 11) which range in price from $1400 down to $450 per month. They also have an ad for an insurance company (could be CPM or could be affiliate ad). Lastly they have a store which sells merchandise (t-shirts, cups, caps etc). 9) More details on their ad packages. 10) Michelle Malkin - 45661 visits/day - Also runs BlogAds (six at present) ranging in price from $1900 to $650 per month. 12) The Washington Monthly - 41482 visits/day - BlogAds (4 of them today) cost $395 per month. They also have affiliate links for Amazon, Adsense ads and a Donate button. You can of course also subscribe to the print edition. 14) Blog for America - 33746 visits/day - No ads that I can see - but you can make a contribution/donation. 16) Captain's Quarters - 20817 visits/day - BlogAds (currently 23) cost between $200 for premium ads to $125 for second tier ads per month. They also have affiliate links (amazon) in their sidebar as well as a donation button. 18) Details of their advertising. 19) Wizbang - 15379 visits/day - BlogAds (2 at present) ranging in price from $500 to $100 per month. They also have a text link or two on the sidebar through AdBrite ($150 per 4 week campaign) as well as amazon affiliate links to books. 21) The Volokh Conspiracy - 14337 visits/day - Runs a DoubleClick campaign at the top of its sidebar as well as a donation button. 23) PoliPundit.com - 14025 visits/day - BlogAds (currently 8) range from $280 to $140. They also run Adsense ads in their sidebar and some sort of impression based ad or affiliate program on individual pages under posts. 25) Drudge Retort: Red Meat for Yellow Dogs - 13667 visits/day - This blog runs a variety of ads including Adsense Ads across the top of their blog and BlogAds (currently 3) which cost $200 per month. 27) Matthew Yglesias - 13353 visits/day - BlogAds here as well (currently 6) ranging in price from $220 to $130. 29) Digital Photography Blog - 112518 visits/day - The most prominant ads here are Adsense ads on all pages. There are also Adsense Adlinks and is a Adsense Search Bar. There are also Amazon affiliate programs, BlogAds (2) at $107 per month, text links from $49 per month and other affiliate programs. Ok - I spent too much time on this today so I'll stop now. I've got a few more observations and reflections to make - but I'll open it up for some discussion first. What strikes you about these blogs? Looking forward to your comments below in comments. Darren Rowse is the founder of Digital Photography Blog and Breaking News Blog Collective.