Updated: Most Popular Catholic Blogs
Last June I created a program to rank the most popular Catholic blogs by Google subscribers. I made a number of disclaimers about my ranking system, but all in all it was a pretty accurate way to gauge a blog’s popularity compared to other Catholic blogs.
I decided to update the list, for a number of reasons:
First, I wanted to see the increase in subscribers for the most popular blogs. I was surprised at how many new subscribers some blogs received. For example, the #1 blog – Fr. Z’s What Does the Prayer Really Say? – went from 4,841 subscribers to 6,738 subscribers. That is a 40% increase in just over 6 months! It seems that Catholics are really taking to the New Media.
Second, I wanted to see if any blogs made a big jump (or fall) in the past six months. It actually stayed pretty close to the same – the only big leaps being made due to some changes in my program (see my next point).
Third, after running the program last time, a few people noted that there were some discrepancies between their Google subscriber number and what I posted. This happened in a few cases where Google’s “default” feed for a blog was different than the main feed for the blog. The most egregious case was The Curt Jester, who wasn’t even on the list last time (having only 14 subscribers in his “default” feed), but is #4 now (with over 4,800 subscribers). Mark Shea’s blog also was effected by this discrepancy. I tried very hard to find any of these “missing” feeds and incorporate them into the updated list, but it is possible I missed a few again.
Also, I’ll repeat the disclaimer from the last time:
Big red disclaimer: this list is based on Google Reader subscribers only. I imagine that this is a good indicator of a blog’s popularity compared to other blogs, but it does not measure actual traffic to the site or the total number of subscribers across different feed readers. Furthermore, it doesn’t gauge a blog’s current popularity as much as its popularity over the full history of the blog.
Without further ado, here is the updated list, with number of subscribers listed after the blog name:
Top 25 Most Popular Catholic Blogs by Google Reader Subscribers
(1) What Does the Prayer Really Say?: 6738
(2) Whispers in the Loggia: 6386
(3) Catholic and Enjoying It!: 5154
(4) The Curt Jester: 4858
(5) Charlotte Was Both: 4319
(6) Conversion Diary: 3195
(7) New Advent Blog: 2005
(8) Creative Minority Report: 1632
(9) Patrick Madrid: 1507
(10) Damian Thompson: 1486
(11) Standing on my Head: 1419
(12) The Hermeneutic of Continuity: 1345
(13) Rorate Caeli: 1125
(14) The New Liturgical Movement: 1093
(15) Ask Sister Mary Martha: 1043
(16) First Thoughts: 1035
(17) Mere Comments: 916
(18) Ignatius Insight Scoop: 915
(19) Catholic Cuisine: 836
(20) By Sun and Candlelight: 832
(21) Nadafarm: 828
(22) Testosterhome: 779
(23) The Crescat: 763
(24) Happy Catholic: 745
(25) La Bella Vita! Bella’s Beautiful Life: 740
The updated Top 200 can be found at my main website.
(I’m also happy to report that my own blog cracked the Top 200 this time, coming in at #184 – not bad for a blog only two years old. You can subscribe to this blog here).
This is really interesting! I’m curious how you find out how many Reader subscribers a blog has.
Matt,
If you log into Google Reader, then click the “Add a subscription” button, then search for the blog, the results will show the number of subscribers for that blog.
If you are already subscribed to a blog, you can just click the “Show Details” link in the upper-right part of the screen after selecting that blog.
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Pingback by Tweets that mention Updated: Most Popular Catholic Blogs « Divine Life – A Blog by Eric Sammons -- Topsy.com — January 27, 2011 @ 1:38 pmHa! Guess I should blog more….
Wow…checking the top 200 list shocked to see I’m #61! How did THAT happen???? !!!!!!!
Hey Eric, I was wondering. How did you determine what was a Catholic blog? I was curious because I don’t see The Anchoress anywhere on the list and, though she does have a fair number of articles that are politically oriented, there is no doubt that it is a Catholic blog (there are a fair number of Catholic/religious articles as well as the way she will reference faith and politics). Anyway, it made me wonder. Thanks!
Julie,
I simply grab every blog listed on the Catholic Blog Directory, which has over 2,000 blogs total.
BTW, the Anchoress is listed – #140.
Ok, that makes sense. And I’m glad for the reminder that the listing is there … I’ve got to be sure it is in my sidebar (which largely disappeared when I updated to Blogger’s new templates).
Don’t you hate it when a “find” doesn’t “find?” Glad to see The Anchoress in there.
These stats are seriously skewed: it’s a ranking of subscribership in Google Reader, not a true tracking of who follows which website. Specifically I don’t believe that Patrick Madrid has less of a following than Father Z. Both have linked to audio files hosted on websites I host (such as http://www.AudioSancto.org). The traffic that came from Mr. Madrid’s posting was significant; not so much in the case of Father Z.
Regards,
Mike C.
Mr. Sammons, thank you very much for including Tea at Trianon in your list of the most popular 200 Catholic blogs. I am grateful for the mention and may God reward your kindness.
Mike C.,
Read my “big red disclaimer” again. I make very clear exactly what this listing is – and what it is not.
However, I think the number of Google subscribers gives a pretty accurate gauge of a blog’s popularity compared to other Catholic blogs (as opposed to an individual person’s “following”). By using the Google Reader subscribers (the only number publicly available), we can see a specific portion of the blog’s subscribers. This gives us a quite useful number. Here are the caveats:
(1) This ranks subscribers, not visits. There is a relationship between the two, but they are not the same thing.
(2) If a blog has a large (or small) number of Google subscribers compared to all their feed subscribers, then their ranking will be a bit skewed. But this possibility is unlikely, as why would a certain blog’s readers flock to (or avoid) Google reader?
(3) Older blogs are favored over new blogs. This is because building subscribers takes time and increases incrementally. I might have 100,000 people visit my blog in my first year and gain 10 subscribers. Another blog might have 50,000 visit this year and gain 5 subscribers, but they might have gained 5 every year for the past 5 years, which means they have significantly more subscribers than I would.
And regarding your own links at AudioSancto, that is interesting, but somewhat irrelevant. It might be that Patrick Madrid is a more popular speaker than Fr. Z, or that he promotes his talks more on his website, or he has more traffic (as opposed to subscribers) to his website. But it doesn’t mean he has more Google Reader subscribers to his blog, which is all that this list tracks.
Elena,
Don’t thank me – I’m just reporting how many subscribers each blog has. Thank your subscribers!
Hey shouldn’t ‘The Divine Life’ be up there somewhere on that list?
Yes, indeed, Eric. It is ironic because many of my subscribers are non-Catholic!
[...] convertido ao catolicismo, o americano, Eric Sammons, criou um programa que avalia o número de assinantes dos “feeds” de blogs católicos [...]
Pingback by Top 25: Blogs católicos internacionais « Vida sim, aborto não! — January 28, 2011 @ 7:55 pmHello Mike C.
To find the actual traffic to a site you can go to Alexa.com. Doing a quick check, Mr. Sammons GOogle Reader subscribers is a good indicator.
Alexa Traffic Rank: 146,421 for Fr. Z
Alexa Traffic Rank: 636,522 for Whispers in the Loggia
Alexa Traffic Rank: 659,628 for Catholic and Enjoying It!
Alexa Traffic Rank: 849,085 for Patrick Madrid
The 146,421 for Fr. Z means that 146,420 different sites get more visitors.
This one surprised me. Alexa Traffic Rank: 111,097 for Creative Minority Report – which would make it number one for traffic to a site, although # 8 for subscribers.
It should be noted that when someone reads a post on a “Reader” that does not count for traffic to a particular site. So, when you include the reader and the actual traffic to a site, Fr. Z would easily be number one. Hope that makes sense.
_________________
Mr. Sammons is there a way to find the total number of subscribers and not just Google Reader subscribers? My site has 2189 subscribers, but of that only 55 are Google Reader subscribers. I was just wondering.
Thanks for the post.
Eric, Thank you for this list and I’m honored to have my blog included. I was so amazed to see how my readership/subscribers jumped from 200 to 772 (currently) this year from both Catholic and non-Catholics. It’s a family wholesome blog, that everyone from every faith can enjoy. It’s apparent that Catholics don’t just read blogs about our Faith, but also about clean, wholesome living . . . which was my intent. My very first post was about God’s beauty that surrounds us every day. So God was my inspiration to start this little old blog of mine.
Can I tell your readers, though, that “Our Beautiful Catholic Faith” is my other very favorite blog that I created and has a far lower following of readers. It is also listed in the Catholic Blog Directory. Once again, statistics and numbers do speak for themselves, and I appreciate what you’ve presented. I’ll be following ya now that I’ve found you, and will also be taking looking at all the other blogs on the list, that I don’t already read and follow.
Blessings, Roz
BTW, Eric, I forgot to state in my post above, that I’m the author of La Bella Vita, #25 on your list. You might have wondering who wrote that random comment above! LOL!
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Pingback by SQPN | What is your favorite Catholic blog? — February 17, 2011 @ 5:43 am[...] link brought me to Eric Sammons’ blog “The Divine Life“. Eric desribes how he created a program to rank the most popular Catholic blogs by the [...]
Pingback by What is your favorite Catholic blog? — February 26, 2011 @ 12:48 pmThe Last Papist Standing is a really good conservative catholic blog and has been out for a couple of years. It is one of my favorites.
I had not heard of this rating before until reading Na-da Farm. I am a Catholic. How did I miss this?
You may wish to read our 7/30 post then. Awesome … altho the whole 7 days was quite interesting.
Thank you.
TTFN ~
Marydon