Top 10 Game blogs: Q113

While the metric utilized by Alexa is without question flawed, it does provide the rough ability to compare readerships across blogs in the absence of openly posted traffic stats.  As you can see on the left sidebar, I make both my Google Analytics and Sitemeter numbers accessible to everyone, unfortunately, the vast majority of bloggers prefer to avoid letting people know exactly how many people are reading their blogs.

But there is interesting and important information to be gleaned from open statistics, and for the Game world, a healthy reminder that despite the growth of the androsphere and the general awareness of Game, it is not even close to breaking through to the mainstream as yet.  We still have a long, long way to go. Consider the Alexa traffic rankings of those blogs more or less accounted the biggest dogs of the Game world:

Blog, est. monthly Google pageviews, (Alexa rank, US Alexa rank). Bold text indicates actual numbers.

1. Return of Kings: 2,250,000, (47,638, 16,112) 
2. Roissy: 2,150,000, (55,261, 17,302)
3. Roosh: 1,800,000, (54,556, 21,906)
4. HUS: 575,000, (119,608, 46,210)
5. AG: 303,245, (227,202, 44,033)
6. MMSL: 240,480, (230,463, 73,532) (1)
7. Dalrock: 237,295, (184,203, 74,477) 
8. Keoni: 72,283, (759,632, 181,127)
9. Rollo: 75,000, (1,577,448, 278,497)
10. Badger: 23,000, (1,161,139, 409,010)

With the exception of Alpha Game and MMSL*, these numbers are mere estimates.  However, due to the fact that I have two points of comparison with VP and AG, the estimates are at least somewhat based on realistic conversion rates. I suspect Rollo, in particular, is being shortchanged by Alexa Toolbar readers, because Alexa only shows one link to Rational Male while I know for a fact that there is more than one link to that blog from Alpha Game alone.

I also don't know if Alexa traffic or Alexa US traffic is more determinative of actual pageviews. I'm assuming the former, because I believe both HUS and Dalrock have more traffic than AG. I found it particularly surprising, (and, considering that I live in Europe, more than a little ironic), that according to Alexa, both Susan and Dalrock are more popular than Alpha Game outside the USA.  The similar, but much smaller inversion between Roosh and Roissy makes a little more sense to me, given Roosh's focus on international relations. The list also shows why Game is still so often confused with its pick-up aspect, because the PUA-focused sites remain the most popular by a considerable margin.

Anyhow, I would welcome actual numbers from any of the blogs mentioned above, be they Wordpress pageviews, Google pageviews, or Sitemeter visitors, as even one or two more datapoints would allow me to make more accurate estimates.  But I digress, as this is the sobering point that I wished to remind everyone.

Jezebel 46,681,852, (2,168,583)

This is why there is no need for internecine competition amongst Game bloggers. The truth of Game will win out in the end, because reality always eventually exposes even the prettiest, most passionate lies. But collectively speaking, we have a long, long way to go.

UPDATE: Apparently my estimates haven't been too far off.  Susan reports that HUS is running at 575k/month, as opposed to the 600k/month I estimated, in addition to Athol's 240k/month versus the estimated 175k/month.  This also settles the question about Alexa, as the global rank is clearly the one that matters, not the US one.  In the next quarterly update, I will drop the US rank.

UPDATE 2: Badger's peak was 47k/month in November, not far off from my estimate of 50k, but since he slacked off, he's been running at 23k.


(1) The MMSL Forum has 1.2 million monthly pageviews.  Since forums are not blogs, and have a very different readership patterns, I don't think it's correct to put it on the blog list as such.  But it certainly merits mention.