Top South African Blogs

There is a lot of uncertainty around what the most popular South African blogs are. Those experienced in the world of blog aggregation would agree with me that this is a bit of a grey area and it seems there has been no clarity on this matter (or none that I can find).

There is a lot of uncertainty around what the most popular South African blogs are. Those experienced in the world of blog aggregation would agree with me that this is a bit of a grey area and it seems there has been no clarity on this matter (or none that I can find).

Let’s take a look at what Afrigator, Amatomu and myScoop say about who’s who in the world of SA blogging.

Amatomu
1. Rugbydump.com
2. Keo.co.za
3. Watkykjy
4. Car Blog
5. Thought Leader
6. Cell Phone Reviews
7. Ifashion
8. Blat – To utter without thinking
9. LazyGamer – Console Gaming News
10. Adii Freelancer & Business Strategist

Afrigator
1. Thought Leader
2. iMod
3. 2oceansvibe
4. Web AddiCT(s);
5. Car Blog
6. South Africa Rocks
7. Wonkie CartOOns!
8. So Close
9. Justin Hartman
10. hottest gossip

myScoop
1. iMod – Cape Town Blog
2. chariotonfire
3. Witness This
4. Pfangirl Through the Looking Glass
5. Wizz RSS
6. Because I Can…
7. Harassed Mom
8. Web Frog
9. Zimbo the Clown Blog
10. aksn1p3r: Ninja Chronicles

So, I decided to take matters into my own hands and do a bit of research, which was easy enough as there are some handy tools out there that the average Joe knows nothing of. The tool I used for this research was Alexa.com. With myScoop being a new blog aggregator and having only a fraction of the South African blogs registered on its server, not too much attention should be given to what they refer to as the Top 10 as they are still in the process of growing day by day.

Herewith the conclusion of the research:

topblogs

So from hereon in, we can officially say that 2oceansvibe is the most popular blog in South Africa at this point in time, with iMod and Keo trailing closely behind. You will also notice that Cell Phone Reviews is not actually a South African blog, therefore does not belong on the list. On another note, if you take a look at the trend of the increase in visitors over the past few months, you will notice that SARocks is climbing the fastest although still has quite a considerable amount of area to cover in order to reach the number 6 spot.

I’ll be reviewing this on a monthly basis to keep you in the know.

Author: NickDuncan

Nick is the owner of Code Cabin, founder of WP Google Maps, WP Live Chat Support, and Sola Plugins,

34 thoughts on “Top South African Blogs”

    1. You could be right there Raz, although when checking the ZA Rank on Alexa.com, it only shows the information for http://sowetan.co.za and not for the subdomain you mentioned. I’ll look into this further though and get back to you.

  1. You can also take Amatomu out of the picture. That aggregator is totally broken and does not work properly. It doesn’t even track properly and stats are 100% unreliable. Afrigator is probably a better bet, although blogs or websites need to be registered with a tracking code.
    Your best bet for a true reflection of ranking would be Alexa.com
    Slightly off topic:
    Lastly, if 2Oceansvibe wants to keep its #1 position, he would have to do something about his page’s loading time, but more importantly, sort out why the site gets a Gateway time-outs with Telkom ADSL users. Yes, I know there is some setting somewhere but seriously, I would not go change ADSL or browser settings for one website. I have 2 ADSL accounts. On Cybersmart I can browse 2Ov, then I reach my cap and switch over to my Telkom account. Half of the month, I don’t read 2Ov because half of the month I am on my Telkom ADSL.
    I would suggest Seth goes and look at his Google analytics reports to see how much traffic is lost due to these time-outs. It might make a huge difference. Then again, he also might not care at all, which is also fine, I suppose.

    1. Thanks for the input griffin. I completely agree with you on the Amatomu point, hence the reason I started myScoop.co.za

  2. Just make sure you run a tight ship. Apart from Amatomu not tracking properly, people are screwed most of the time when their code takes ages to load, especially in cases where the Amatomu code needs to load first while Amatomu are experiencing problems. A blogger’s site could grind to a halt.

  3. Didn’t even know Amatomu was back online again. The thing with aggregators is that each one uses its own way to calculate which blogs are ranked top. Amatomu used to work on visits, and Afrigator uses a mix of several stuff, like page views, visits and links. Problem I do find with Afrigator is that their link finding doesn’t always work well, there has been several occasions where I know of people backlinking where Afrigator did not pick it up.
    Nick can you perhaps give us some info on how MyScoop calculates the ranking?

    1. Sure, its a simple calculation really. Obviously to get ranked you need to install the tracking code on your site (visible or invisible). myScoop uses that to track how many visitors your site receives, but in order to calculate the rank, I measure how many UNIQUE visitors your site accumulates for that month (there is also a daily rank).

  4. AFAIK Alexa only picks up stats from those who have the Alexa toolbar installed. Amatomu is broken, Afrigator spends a large chunk of its life being down, and myScoop exceeds its available bandwidth at the end of the month ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. I was anticipating your comment Mike ๐Ÿ˜‰
      You’re right about the myScoop bandwidth problem but I have managed to increase the bandwidth somewhat. Although I will still need to find a sponsor soon….

      You’re 100% correct with Alexa only picking up stats from users that have the Alexa toolbar installed (which excludes us Chrome users) although I still regard this as a somewhat solid representation of the global overview.

  5. I don’t understand your Alexa comment, Mike. I have no Alexa toolbar installed. Also, its all good and well to bring out another Agregator, but bloggers (or bloggers who know better) will generally stick to one, peprhaps 2 Agregators. A big problem is loading all those scripts on your own webpage. If myscoop or Afrigator experience server problems, it filters through to all the other sites that are “dependant” or waiting for the code to load. Very bad, especially if it is in the header.

  6. Good news about the myScoop bandwidth.
    With regard to Alexa: Most “savvy” Internet users, regardless of the browser they are using, will not install the Alexa toolbar. Blat, for example, gets around 80% of its traffic (According to webstat) from Firefox users – Most of whom consider themselves to be savvy Internet users, even though most of them don’t have a clue.

  7. @Griffin: Alexa collects stats only from those who have the Alexa toolbar installed. I have heard, but nowhere on the Alexa site is this confirmed, that stats are also collected for sites that display the Alexa widget.

  8. I’m talking too much but…
    Something else you’d need to consider (If you really want accurate stats) is how many blog readers use feed readers (Rather than actually visiting the blog itself) to read content. In the case of blat, the majority of readers are reading the Wizz RSS and Sage-Too blogs, which both relate to feed readers for Firefox. So I guess it’s safe to assume (webstat bears out this fact) that most readers are using feed readers to read the content.

  9. @Mike – sorry for my ignorance concerning Alexa. I still don’t understand what you mean by toolbars or widgets. I have none of those installed, though visiting Alexa and checking out my ranking, I see my site listed as ranking 89,985 internationally and 488 in SA. This, without me ever submitting anything to Alexa, so they must use some other external method.
    As far as Feed readers go – you might be right, but in my case where people get e-mail updates via feeds, they only get blurbs or summaries, prompting them to visit the site to get the full story.
    As for plainly reading straight from feeds, I have no clue. Your stats concerning Firefox vs IE are interesting. Most of my readers still use IE, alhtough its increasing favourably towards Firefox. 10 years ago 95% used IE. Now, IE constitutes 57% of browsers use, while Firefox is at 24% and Chrome,ย  Safari and mobile making up the remaining smaller percentage.
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  10. Is it possible to get access to a larger version of your Alexa results table? Perhaps it’s just meย  but it looks a little weather-beaten from hereย (ie. difficult to read).

    Otherwise this is definitly a continuing theme. Keep it up! ๐Ÿ™‚

  11. @Galen Ill be revising it soon enough and will actually put it in an HTML table instead of the picture – I was pressed for time at the moment of posting the article

  12. @griffin: You don’t need to install anything for Alexa to collect stats on your site, but if you have the Alexa toolbar installed, Alexa will gather stats on every site you visit.

  13. @NickDuncan – Now that the fellow commentators here have posted about exceeding of scoops bandwidth limit …ย  if it is not that big secret how much bandwidth have you used during December ? I was so curious back then ๐Ÿ™‚

    1. Yup your blog is pretty graphic intensive, and considering your on the top 15 list, you get a sh*tload of visitors which makes sense for a high bandwidth count. myScoop is predominantly text based. But it seems to be doubling month on month…

  14. This is precisely what i was looking for. best wishes for the useful article and keep up the great work!

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