I haven’t done a traffic review of liberal sites in nearly 3 years, so I was curious how much change I’d encounter. Answer: plenty. But there was plenty of stasis, too.

As I began writing it out, I caught myself writing way too much about my research decisions, so I tossed a lot to get to the pertinent matter quicker. Two quick considerations should suffice.

Q: How do I define a ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ site/blog?

A: Generally, if they claim to be. Most on the list are apparently so. There might be half a dozen who rarely blog about politics that I included, which some can quarrel with. Go ahead, knock yourself out. I also knocked one off that some people cite because I found it so obsessively anti-Zionist that I found it anti-semitic. I also now consider Wonkette to be ‘celebrity gossip’ not a liberal politics’ site. Ultimately, I don’t claim my list is perfect, nor does it need be. Consider it a guide, not an absolute reference point. There’s too many variables for perfect.

Q: Where did you get your traffic numbers from?
A: For two sites, I guessed. The Huffington Post, obviously a monster for traffic, mixing political activists with celebrities. And for Glenn Greenwald, I used existing traffic to his old site, but noted his traffic is surely higher at Salon.

I began with the old standard that many rely on, The Truth Laid Bear traffic list (TTLB). All the sites I listed on December 18th I rechecked on the 19th to see if any numbers remained unchanged, which would indicate a likelihood of some sort of stats gaming occurring.

So on Dec 19th, the list began like this:

Daily Kos 515,821 visits/day
The Raw Story 340,054 visits/day
Crooks and Liars 151,037 visits/day
Common Dreams 105,774 visits/day
Eschaton 82,608 visits/day

Firedoglake 72,132 visits/day
Treehugger 64,293 visits/day
Glenn Greenwald 48,127 visits/day (likely an underestimate)
AMERICAblog 43,960 visits/day

Then I found some numbers that seemed suspicious, that didn’t change in the two day period. A resource I didn’t have at hand in 2005 were the numbers of the Liberal Blog Ad Network (LBAN). Some of those sites were on that list with far lower numbers. Between the static two-day record on TTLB, I went with the LBAN numbers.

I couldn’t utilize LBAN as a sole source, however, because non-blog sites can’t join that network and some bloggers simply choose to forego advertising. So my list is a blend from those two principal sources. I won’t define my decisions about how I resolved conflicting numbers in this posting, as I think I’d bore you doing so. I do thorough research, can defend my choices and if you need reassurance, well, pay me. (My integrity’s not for sale, but my keyboarding time is.)

CONCLUSIONS

The exact numbers don’t matter, so I included exact numbers for #1, for #3 and #100 only. After all, numbers fluctuate daily. And they dip at times, like weekends and holidays and for a couple of summer months. Some sites might be higher or lower than a longterm average would show, on the strength of links within the past week. I’ve also heard the complaint for years that a site’s listed numbers often don’t match what blog owners read internally. So I went with rough ranges that still should be useful as a guide.

I also presume there’s sites not using Sitemeter that would otherwise make this list. Hey, if you want perfection, close your eyes, strip, and pretend I’m Brangelina Jitt.

Some findings compared to my last survey 3 years ago:

Kos is now in a league by his own with 600,000 views/day. I make the presumption that Huffington Post is second. (Someone could inquire if they want to place it exactly) And another relative newcomer, Raw Story, is comfortably up there, well ahead of all others. As those three have individual features that approach unique, this wasn’t surprising. But it’s different, compared to the past. If you count the offline circulation of big newspapers in the country, only 14 exceed Kos’ readership.

In 2005, Kos and Eschaton switched top spots often, around 100K to 200K a day. TPM was often in third. So Eschaton has fallen off some. Big risers since 2005 include Raw Story, Crooks and Liars, Firedoglake, Treehugger, Glenn Greenwald, AMERICAblog, Pharyngula and Bad Astronomer.

The hardworking Steve Benen has advanced his Carpetbagger Report steadily as have the Sean-Paul Kelley (and his team) at The Agonist, News Hounds, Sadly No! and Big Head DC. Many of the rest in the first 50 look similar to their previous positions, though a few have dropped and a few have quit.

Most importantly, there’s been a lot of change in the next 50.

And there’s just more political blog viewership overall. Three years ago, 2,000 views/day would get you in the top 50. Now it takes 3,400 to get you in the top 100.

Other blog topics are growing even faster. Tech-geek blogs, sports, business and celebrity gossip dominate now. I used to cull 100 liberal sites from about the first 350 sites on the TTLB list. Now I had 900 to pore over.

Within that 900, there’s probably twice as many conservatives as these 100 liberals but the highest is Instapundit at 232,412 visits/day, Michelle Malkin and Hot Air are bookends around Crooks and Liars, LGF is just behind Common Dreams, Andrew Sullivan’s just ahead of Firedoglake, NewsBusters is a bit below Treehugger, Powerline’s just ahead of Glenn Greenwald, so it’s fairly equivalent throughout the upper end of the blogosphere (above 20K/day in traffic).

At 3,400, you reach the top 100 progressive websites. Around 6,500, you reach the top 50. It’s a lot harder to get and maintain a spot in the top 35, however. Money, savvy, connections, hard work: all the elements of success in the offline world generally come into play in that uppermost group.

Oh, and talent. However, great blogging talent exists in many blogs, including many that fell well short of this list. I have a lot more to say about that but will go into that in another post a few days from now. For now, just take a look at the list.

It begins right after the fold.

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THE TOP 100 LIST

At the very top, Dkos had 515,821 visits/day per TTLB and had 600,307 visits/day on LBAN as of 12/19/07 when this was written. For guide purposes, it makes more sense to report groups within a traffic range and assume the order is very close to correct (with Huffington Post and Glenn Greenwald being the only purely speculative ones in the list.)
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600,000 - 300,000 visits/day

Daily Kos 600,307 views/day
Huffington Post … [numbers unknown; purely speculative]
The Raw Story 330,231 views/day
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300,000 - 100,000 visits/day