TopRank published a list of the top SEO blogs by RSS membership back in April of this year. And while RSS membership is a great indicator of how powerful a blog is, there are few other factors to measure the power and reach of a blog. So, for the purposes of this post, we will list the top SEO blogs based on several criteria:
1. By RSS membership
2. By number of incoming links
3. By the number of pages posted on the blog
4. By the ratio links to pages: since incoming links target specific pages on a blog, we will analyze which of the SEO blogs was able to attract the most links per post.
5. Unique monthly visitors: how many visitors did the blog receive during the last month. The data provided here is captured based on unique visitor numbers from Compete.
6. By Pages per visit: how many pages does a visitor navigate through prior to exiting the site. The data provided here is captured based on last month page per visit numbers from Compete
7. Ratio of visitors to pages: my assumption is that sites with more pages or with pages that rank for more keywords will receive more visitors. This ratio will indicate how many visitors different site pages are able to attract.
8. By Google page rank
9. The ultimate rank: This will provide a weighted average based on how well a site ranks for five of the above factors. These factors are
- RSS
- Incoming links
- Pages
- Monthly visitors
- Pages per visit
- Google PR
For the purposes of this blog, I only considered 25 different blogs. If you think I missed a blog or you would like to add one to the list, please leave it in the comments.
Top SEO Blogs By RSS membership
Top SEO blogs by number of incoming links:
For the purposes of incoming links, we used Yahoo site explorer to report the number of incoming links to a blog. Couple of things to note here:
- We used the blog URL address,
- We excluded links from the domain it self
On the surface the number of incoming links seems like a good way to measure the power of a blog. Yet it has some major problems since some of the blogs might be able to attract links by guest posting, being an editor on another large blog, or by getting included in a blog roll of another blog. For the purposes of our ultimate rank, we gave the number of incoming links a less value in the final calculation.
|
Rank |
Blog |
Number of links |
|
1 |
Online Marketing Blog |
720,071 |
|
2 |
Search Engine Land |
588,613 |
|
3 |
SEO Book |
442,735 |
|
4 |
Pronet Advertising |
315,348 |
|
5 |
Matt Cutts |
299,977 |
|
6 |
techipedia |
263,171 |
|
7 |
Search Engine Roundtable |
247,050 |
|
8 |
Marketing Pilgrim |
244,118 |
|
9 |
Search Engine Guide |
222,150 |
|
10 |
Search Engine Journal |
183,156 |
|
11 |
Search Engine Watch |
183,121 |
|
12 |
SEO Scoop |
129,477 |
|
13 |
Graywolf’s SEO Blog |
107,993 |
|
14 |
Small Business SEM |
94,560 |
|
15 |
Stuntdubl.com |
79,438 |
|
16 |
BlogStorm |
74,386 |
|
17 |
David Naylor |
68,722 |
|
18 |
SEO by SEA |
59,656 |
|
19 |
SEO Black Hat |
57,117 |
|
20 |
SEOmoz |
53,466 |
|
21 |
SEO Pedia |
36,300 |
|
22 |
Web Analytics World |
28,329 |
|
23 |
Get Elastic |
27,653 |
|
24 |
Blue hat SEO |
21,865 |
|
25 |
PPC Discussions |
16,426 |
Top SEO blogs by the number of pages posted on the blog
|
Rank
|
Blog |
Number of pages
|
|
1
|
David Naylor | 41,030 |
|
2
|
Search Engine Land | 31,756 |
|
3
|
Search Engine Guide | 22,757 |
|
4
|
Search Engine Roundtable | 15,185 |
|
5
|
Search Engine Watch | 14,697 |
|
6
|
Search Engine Journal | 12,816 |
|
7
|
SEO Book | 11,568 |
|
8
|
Marketing Pilgrim | 11,464 |
|
9
|
Matt Cutts | 4306 |
|
10
|
SEOmoz | 3,973 |
|
11
|
SEO Black Hat | 3,383 |
|
12
|
SEO by SEA | 3,383 |
|
13
|
Small Business SEM | 3,257 |
|
14
|
Online Marketing Blog | 2,779 |
|
15
|
Graywolf’s SEO Blog | 2,420 |
|
16
|
SEO Scoop | 2,372 |
|
17
|
Stuntdubl.com | 2,038 |
|
18
|
Get Elastic | 1,926 |
|
19
|
BlogStorm | 1,577 |
|
20
|
SEO Pedia | 1,540 |
|
21
|
Web Analytics World | 1,264 |
|
22
|
Pronet Advertising | 998 |
|
23
|
PPC Discussions | 629 |
|
24
|
Blue hat SEO | 582 |
|
25
|
techipedia | 392 |
Top SEO blogs by number of links to pages ratio
The purpose of this ratio is to measure how well a blog is able to attract links for each post. Attracting 100 links per post is a lot more powerful than attracting 10 links per post.
| Rank | Blog | Links to pages ratio |
| 1 | techipedia |
671 |
| 2 | Pronet Advertising |
316 |
| 3 | Online Marketing Blog |
259 |
| 4 | Matt Cutts |
70 |
| 5 | SEO Scoop |
55 |
| 6 | BlogStorm |
47 |
| 7 | Graywolf’s SEO Blog |
45 |
| 8 | Stuntdubl.com |
39 |
| 9 | SEO Book |
38 |
| 10 | Blue hat seo |
38 |
| 11 | Small Business SEM |
29 |
| 12 | PPC Discussions |
26 |
| 13 | SEO Pedia |
24 |
| 14 | Web Analytics World |
22 |
| 15 | Marketing Pilgrim |
21 |
| 16 | Search Engine Land |
19 |
| 17 | SEO by SEA |
18 |
| 18 | SEO Black Hat |
17 |
| 19 | Search Engine Roundtable |
16 |
| 20 | Get Elastic |
14 |
| 21 | Search Engine Journal |
14 |
| 22 | SEOmoz |
13 |
| 23 | Search Engine Watch |
12 |
| 24 | Search Engine Guide |
10 |
| 25 | David Naylor |
2 |
Top SEO blogs by unique monthly visitors
This data is based on numbers reported from Compete.
| Rank | Blog | Unique visitors |
| 1 | SEO Book |
560,065 |
| 2 | SEOmoz |
536,021 |
| 3 | Search Engine Watch |
501,361 |
| 4 | Search Engine Land |
472,874 |
| 5 | Matt Cutts |
329,102 |
| 6 | Search Engine Roundtable |
326,519 |
| 7 | Search Engine Journal |
297,149 |
| 8 | Search Engine Guide |
184,987 |
| 9 | Marketing Pilgrim |
167,495 |
| 10 | Graywolf’s SEO Blog |
130,151 |
| 11 | Online Marketing Blog |
124,060 |
| 12 | BlogStorm |
115,723 |
| 13 | SEO Black Hat |
81,589 |
| 14 | Get Elastic |
78,079 |
| 15 | David Naylor |
71,127 |
| 16 | Small Business SEM |
71,077 |
| 17 | Blue hat SEO |
62,713 |
| 18 | Pronet Advertising |
56,513 |
| 19 | techipedia |
53,374 |
| 20 | SEO Scoop |
50,927 |
| 21 | SEO by SEA |
46,536 |
| 22 | Stuntdubl.com |
43,845 |
| 23 | Web Analytics World |
16,698 |
| 24 | SEO Pedia |
14,454 |
| 25 | PPC Discussions |
12,448 |
Top SEO blogs by pages per visit
| Rank | Blog | Pages per visit |
| 1 | SEOmoz |
4.1 |
| 2 | SEO Book |
3.7 |
| 3 | SEO Black Hat |
3.4 |
| 4 | PPC Discussions |
2.4 |
| 5 | Stuntdubl.com |
2.3 |
| 6 | Matt Cutts |
2.2 |
| 7 | Search Engine Land |
2.2 |
| 8 | Search Engine Watch |
2.2 |
| 9 | Marketing Pilgrim |
2.2 |
| 10 | SEO Pedia |
2.1 |
| 11 | Blue hat SEO |
2 |
| 12 | Search Engine Roundtable |
1.9 |
| 13 | Search Engine Guide |
1.9 |
| 14 | Pronet Advertising |
1.8 |
| 15 | Graywolf’s SEO Blog |
1.8 |
| 16 | Get Elastic |
1.8 |
| 17 | David Naylor |
1.8 |
| 18 | Online Marketing Blog |
1.7 |
| 19 | Search Engine Journal |
1.6 |
| 20 | Small Business SEM |
1.6 |
| 21 | SEO Scoop |
1.5 |
| 22 | techipedia |
1.4 |
| 23 | BlogStorm |
1.3 |
| 24 | SEO by SEA |
1.3 |
| 25 | Web Analytics World |
1.2 |
Top SEO blogs by ratio of visitors to pages
This ratio is calculated by dividing the number of unique visitors the blog received from last month by the number of pages in the blog. A more powerful page is able to attract more traffic.
| Rank | Blog | Visitors to pages |
| 1 | techipedia |
136 |
| 2 | SEOmoz |
135 |
| 3 | Blue hat seo |
108 |
| 4 | Matt Cutts |
76 |
| 5 | BlogStorm |
73 |
| 6 | Pronet Advertising |
57 |
| 7 | Graywolf’s SEO Blog |
54 |
| 8 | SEO Book |
48 |
| 9 | Online Marketing Blog |
45 |
| 10 | Get Elastic |
41 |
| 11 | Search Engine Watch |
34 |
| 12 | SEO Black Hat |
24 |
| 13 | Search Engine Journal |
23 |
| 14 | Small Business SEM |
22 |
| 15 | Stuntdubl.com |
22 |
| 16 | Search Engine Roundtable |
22 |
| 17 | SEO Scoop |
21 |
| 18 | PPC Discussions |
20 |
| 19 | Search Engine Land |
15 |
| 20 | Marketing Pilgrim |
15 |
| 21 | SEO by SEA |
14 |
| 22 | Web Analytics World |
13 |
| 23 | SEO Pedia |
9 |
| 24 | Search Engine Guide |
8 |
| 25 | David Naylor |
2 |
Top SEO blogs by Google PR
Love it or hate it, Google PR indicates what Google thinks of a site.
SEO Blogs: The ultimate rank
This will provide a weighted average based on how well a site ranks for 5 of the above factors. These factors are
- RSS: RSS membership is given 120% weight in the ultimate rank evaluation.
- Number of incoming links: Number of incoming links is given 10% weight in the ultimate rank evaluation.
- Pages: Number of pages published on a blog is given 50% weight in the ultimate rank evaluation.
- Unique monthly visitors: Number of unique monthly visitors is given 100% weight in the ultimate rank evaluation.
- Pages per visit: Number of pages per visit is given 120% weight in the ultimate rank evaluation.
- Google PR: is given 50% weight in the ultimate rank evaluation.
Final note: some of the major blogs that don’t report (mainly SEObook) their number of RSS subscribers will rank lower in this list.
Based on the above formula, here is the ultimate rank values for the top SEO blogs
| Rank | Blog |
Final score |
| 1 | SEOmoz |
103.4 |
| 2 | Search Engine Land |
100.5 |
| 3 | Matt Cutts |
98.1 |
| 4 | Search Engine Watch |
97.9 |
| 5 | Search Engine Roundtable |
89.5 |
| 6 | SEO Book |
86 |
| 7 | Search Engine Guide |
85.2 |
| 8 | Marketing Pilgrim |
84.2 |
| 9 | Search Engine Journal |
83.4 |
| 10 | Online Marketing Blog |
76.8 |
| 11 | Graywolf’s SEO Blog |
72.5 |
| 12 | SEO Black Hat |
68.7 |
| 13 | Get Elastic |
64.8 |
| 14 | Pronet Advertising |
63.1 |
| 15 | David Naylor |
63 |
| 16 | Small Business SEM |
62.1 |
| 17 | BlogStorm |
58.1 |
| 18 | Stuntdubl.com |
55.7 |
| 19 | Blue hat SEO |
52.2 |
| 20 | SEO Scoop |
52 |
| 21 | SEO Pedia |
50.1 |
| 22 | PPC Discussions |
48.9 |
| 23 | SEO by SEA |
46.4 |
| 24 | techipedia |
45 |
| 25 | Web Analytics World |
42.6 |
