1. The Huffington Post
Owner: Arianna Huffington
Income: about $30,000/day
Alexa Rank – 2155
Daily visitors: 5 446 680
Daily pageviews: 11 056 761
Income: about $30,000/day
Alexa Rank – 2155
Daily visitors: 5 446 680
Daily pageviews: 11 056 761
At roughly double the income of the number two blog, The Huffington Post made a name for itself as a decidedly left-leaning political aggregate site in the vein of Drudge Report – but with a healthy, Internet-friendly sprinkling of cat videos and other Internet oddities driving clicks.
2. Mashable
Daily visitors: 1 611 911
Daily pageviews: 2 724 129
Alexa Rank: 1486
Owner: Pete Cashmore
Income: about $15,000/day
Mashable’s focus is on social media news with a dash of tech here and there, but like so other top earning blogs, over time it has adapted to include viewer-friendly content like viral videos and feel-good opinion pieces.
3. Techcrunch
Daily visitors: 1 693 014
Daily pageviews: 2 895 055
Alexa Rank: 1022
Owner: Michael Arrington
Income: about $14,000/day
One of the more focused blogs in the top ten, Techcrunch does an admirable job monetizing with just its hard tech industry focus by being bar none the best in the industry. A wide variety of tech and science news is covered, along with profiles of startup companies and new gadgets that give avid readers an edge on all but the most informed members of the tech industry.
4. Engadget
Daily visitors: 1 651 483
Daily pageviews: 3 236 906
Alexa Rank: 722
Owner: Peter Rojas
Income: about $10,000/day
Daily pageviews: 3 236 906
Alexa Rank: 722
Owner: Peter Rojas
Income: about $10,000/day
Yet another high-earning tech blog, this time with a focus on gadgets (as the name suggests), Edgadget does especially well with a more magazine-like editorial format as well as substantially more international and multilingual support than comparable sites.
5. Smashing Magazine
Daily pageviews: 411 824
Alexa Rank: 5051
Owner: Vitaly Friedman
Income: about $6,000/day
Smashing is a blogger’s blog – or to be more precise, a resource for any web developer and website designer. Featuring examinations of typography, graphic design, layout, and more, Smashing is a rare example of a site with limited appeal to the layman that still managed to foster a huge audience and large paydays.
6. Tuts+
Daily visitors: 815 650
Daily pageviews: 1 207 163
Alexa Rank: 1889
Owner: Collis Taeed
Income: about $5,000/day
Unlike most blogs, Tuts+ doesn’t make its money from advertising. Instead, it offers a premium membership to gain access to a huge array of courses and educational materials on website design and development. Their blog features posts in this same vein that help funnel readers to the premium section.
7. Lifehacker
Daily visitors: 1 683 711
Daily pageviews: 2 323 522
Alexa Rank: 746
Owner: Nick Denton
Income: about $5,000/day
Lifehacker’s published content, oddly enough, centers on “life hacks,” or small shortcuts and productivity tricks that encompass all walks of life. It also regularly features software or gadgets that accomplish a similar end, such as a program to de-blur a blurry photo.
8. Gizmodo
Daily visitors: 1 913 258
Daily pageviews: 3 386 466
Alexa Rank: 645
Owner: Attila Talos
Income: about $4,000/day
Gizmodo is a blog that focuses on technology and design. Seeing a pattern here? It, too, also includes the occasional internet-pandering or interesting article only tangentially related to the main focus of the blog, but with updates roughly every hour, it keeps readers satisfied with plenty of content.
9. Perez Hilton
Daily visitors: 173 174
Daily pageviews: 329 032
Alexa Rank: 5881
Owner: Mario Lavanderia
Income: about $3,600/day
After a string of seven blogs related to the internet or tech in some way comes Perez Hilton, the infamous gossip who makes his living revealing the dirty details of celebrities’ private lives. Whether you agree with what he does or not, that people want to read what he writes – and the success it brings him – is undeniable.
10. Joystiq
Daily visitors: 534Daily pageviews: 534
Alexa Rank: 7531709
Owner: AOL
Income: about $1,700/day
Joystiq is AOL’s general gaming blog. Video gaming has many straight-up media news sites and a couple more gossip-type blogs, but Joystiq carves its niche directly between the two, offering a more casual and editorial take on what happens in the industry while keeping it more professional than some of its competitors.