Dec
14
2009

20 Most Popular Atheism Blogs

web traffic

(Updated May 10, 2010.)

Here are the most popular atheism blogs according to Alexa Rankings. (Using the 1 month average. Alexa Rankings are not available for some popular sites, like Pharyngula. In these cases, I’ve used proxy measures to estimate their position on the list.)

I have not included atheism blogs that do not regularly post articles, for example Jesus and Mo and Atheist Media Blog and Venganza. I have also not included blogs that only rarely post about atheism, even if they are written by atheists (for example Greg Laden and five feet of fury and Cynical-C).

The biggest gainer in the last update was Debunking Christianity.

  1. Pharyngula (P.Z. Myers) – estimated rank
  2. Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta) – 38,304
  3. Common Sense Atheism (Luke Muehlhauser) – 82,929
  4. Unreasonable Faith (Daniel Florien) – 82,941
  5. The Freethinker – 132,385
  6. Atheist Revolution (vjack) – 157,071
  7. Debunking Christianity (John W. Loftus) – 191,856
  8. Stupid Evil Bastard (Les Jenkins) – 209,321
  9. Skepchick – 210,169
  10. Daylight Atheism (Adam Lee) – 217,068
  11. Vridar (Neil Godfrey) – 219,929
  12. Greta Christina – 245,245
  13. The Thinking Atheist – estimated rank
  14. About Agnosticism/Atheism (Austin Cline) – estimated rank
  15. New Humanist – estimated rank
  16. American Atheists – estimated rank
  17. ExChristian – estimated rank
  18. Butterflies and Wheels – 395,784
  19. The Musings of Tom Verenna – 429,734

Which blogs did I miss? Which other atheistic, article-focused blogs have an Alexa Ranking under 400,000? (Measure it here.)

Written by lukeprog in: News, Resources |

57 Comments »

  • Reginald Selkirk

    Who did I miss?

    You missed the ‘m.’ Whom did I miss.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • Skepchick has become very much a multi-author forum, as far as I know.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • Charles

    Dale McGowan’s site is pretty popular though, I can’t figure out how to get numbers only for his blog.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • Charles,

    Stats for Dale McGowan’s site can be found here:

    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/parentingbeyondbelief.com

    It has a ranking over 1 million, assuming I’m reading it correctly. But yeah, it doesn’t seem to isolate the blog-part.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • smittypap

    richarddawkins.net perhaps?  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • *** Clears throat loudly and conspicuously ***

    http://aigbusted.blogspot.com

    lol.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Ah, yes. Thanks John D.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • lukeprog

    McGowan’s AR traffic ranking is around 4 millionth. Everyone on this list is lower than 500,000th.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • lukeprog

    smittypap,

    Yeah, I’m not sure that blog ever posts articles, which is one of my criteria as stated above…  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Ryan,

    Your AR rank is over 1 million. Everybody on this list has a traffic rank under 500,000.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • smittypap

    Fair enough. How about whywontgodhealamputees.com/blog?  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • Charles

    lukeprog: McGowan’s AR traffic ranking is around 4 millionth. Everyone on this list is lower than 500,000th.  

    So smaller number are … better. Got it.  

    Comment | December 15, 2009
  • Here’s one I look in on from time to time:

    God is for Suckers.

    But I see it has a ranking of 800,000 +  

    Comment | December 16, 2009
  • Just had a thought,

    What about Ophelia Benson’s site? That seems to have a rating under 500,000.

    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/butterfliesandwheels.com  

    Comment | December 16, 2009
  • lukeprog

    smittypap,

    That’s a tough one. Their AR ranking for the whole site is 404,000. I wonder how much of their traffic is to the main site, and how much to the blog?  

    Comment | December 16, 2009
  • Butterflies and Wheels is in the list – I’m happy to say!  

    Comment | December 17, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Hi, Ophelia.

    Keep up the good work!  

    Comment | December 18, 2009
  • Actually, my site “The Good Atheist” dot net is ranked higher than 500k, and my podcast has about 4k listeners per episode. Trying to climb the ranks!  

    Comment | December 18, 2009
  • I humbly submit Blasphemes.blogspot.com  

    Comment | December 18, 2009
  • Alexa gives the position 227 557. for my blogs Atheist News at http://atheistnews.blogs.fi and Being Human at http://beinghuman.blogs.fi, but I freely admit that is because the whole blogs.fi -domain is counted, but at least I got the change to plug them, did I not!
    In the same vein I want to point out that there is a Ning-community ingeniously called The Atheist Bloggers in http://atheistbloggers.ning.com  

    Comment | December 18, 2009
  • Comment | December 18, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Jacob Fortin,

    The 7 day says 900,000 ranking…  

    Comment | December 18, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Enlightenment,

    No articles on that one, just links.  

    Comment | December 18, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Original list, most popular on December 14th:

    Pharyngula (PZ Myers)
    Friendly Atheist (Hemant Mehta)
    Unreasonable Faith (Daniel Florien)
    About Agnosticism/Atheism (Austin Cline)
    American Atheists
    Atheist Revolution (vjack)
    The Freethinker
    Skepchick
    Common Sense Atheism (Luke Muehlhauser)
    Greta Christina
    Butterflies and Wheels
    Daylight Atheism (Ebonmuse)
    Debunking Christianity (John Loftus)
    Skeptico
    Open Parachute
    Atheist Planet
    Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?
    New Humanist  

    Comment | December 31, 2009
  • Pete

    I’m pretty sure I’m not the sole reason for Loftus moving up but I have been frequenting his site quite often over the past 2 weeks! Good stuff there….and here I might add….  

    Comment | December 31, 2009
  • Luke, I wrote a post about how to increase one’s traffic recently and took my own advice. I posted 155 times last month. The closest month to this in my blog history was 72.

    And I have another piece of advice. Conduct a poll among the top ranked bloggers for who is the most vocal atheist and they’ll send in their hordes. ;-)  

    Comment | December 31, 2009
  • lukeprog

    Lol, John.  

    Comment | December 31, 2009
  • Thanks for the mention and link. I’m happy to be in such good company and just hope I can live up to expectations.  

    Comment | January 1, 2010
  • Jim Turner

    The Atheist Examiner:
    http://www.examiner.com/x-2044-Atheism-Examiner
    Alexa rank: 518

    There’s also a blog at Atheist Nexus which is pretty popular.  

    Comment | January 1, 2010
  • lukeprog

    Jim Turner,

    The 518 rank is the rank for the Examiner site, not the atheist examiner blog in particular. Given certain proxies (for example, Google Reader subscribers: 6), it’s not popular enough to make this list.

    There isn’t a central blog at Atheist Nexus is there? It looks like just certain members have their own blogs.  

    Comment | January 1, 2010
  • Compare to:

    http://atheistblogger.com/rankings/  

    Comment | January 1, 2010
  • Ian

    My website Ian’s Brain is ranked 268,626 in the U.S.. Globally it’s 929,449. I talk about atheist stuff most of the time but my main atheism site is The Damned. http://thedamned.iansbrain.com. Check it out.  

    Comment | January 6, 2010
  • I’m having a bit of trouble with the way Jim Lippard ranks atheist blogs. For instance, I don’t know what word he searches for to retrieve the Google Page number that our blogs first appear on. While my blog is an atheist one I don’t actually use that word much on my blog. And since I get spammed a lot I don’t allow backlinks to be shown on my blog either. Besides, I don’t know why backlinks should have anything to do with rankings because rankings should depend on the number of hits, not the number of backlinks. Surely some blogs could have many backlinks by lonely blogs which do not garner that many hits, whereas other blogs with fewer backlinks by popular blogs could produce many hits. And there are whole columns with N/A’s listed for all of us, which should just be removed. So the most reliable ways to rank our sites is through Alexa Rank and Alexa Reach. Luke uses Alexa Rank so that should be as good as it gets. If Luke ranks us monthly then he should use the monthly rankings, and say so. If Luke ranks us every three months then he should use the three month rankings, and say so. But as it stands I don’t trust Jim Lippard’s site to tell us of our rankings, that is, unless he can supply more information about it and answer my questions sufficiently.

    Cheers.  

    Comment | January 9, 2010
  • I see the author of the “Stupid Evil Bastard” site is, from his comments on Iraq, Bush, etc. a just another Clueless Clod member of the Loony Left.

    Just another Atheist who may use logic & critical thought when considering subjects of gods / religion. And who then totally LOSES the same abilities when it comes to the Iraq War and/or some (many?) other issues.

    Yep, just another Atheist who, I will bet, wonders just how can the Programmed Robots of the Religious Right just refuse to learn, and/or Deny the MANY facts which PROVE Evolution is a Fact and Homosexuals are born.

    Who, at the same time, either Refuses to Learn and/or Denies the MANY, MANY FACTS which more than PROVE the Iraq War is Both FULLY JUSTIFIED & a Very NECESSARY part of World Wide War on Terrorists who have been killing us and our friends for over 30 years,

    I PITY him and all others of his irrational. illogical, unknowledgeable & self-deluded
    ilk of fools. They seem to live in some world where their infinite Ignorance on some subjects is not surpassed by their Astronomical Arrogance they have the slightest clue.

    And Children, if any of you are so foolish as to believe you can PROVE, with REAL FACTS I am wrong, I sure welcome you to give it a try!

    religionsucks@webtv.net  

    Comment | January 14, 2010
  • For an over 25,000 hits a day non-Atheist subject blog BY an Atheist, has Atheist contributors and who sometimes comments on religious matters, methinks you should list Eugene Volokh’s Blog.

    “The Volokh Conspiracy”

    http://volokh.com/

    And while Cliff no longer “blogs’ his website Positive Atheism is a Great resource every Atheist who cares about the Freedom of, and From Religion should book mark.

    http://www.positiveatheism.org/

    PS Both of the above Atheists (and Friends) are “Super Brains” who ALSO Fully support the Iraq War. (But then, they are both a whole bunch more intelligent, informed & more logical than most.)  

    Comment | January 14, 2010
  • I’m at a 1,111,000 something! This must be new! :D

    http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/Redheadedskeptic.com?p=tgraph&r=home_home  

    Comment | January 14, 2010
  • Laura,

    Something I’ve been drinking for over 12 years which really works well at both speeding the healing and reducing the pain of dental problems is NONI JUICE! As there are over 300 brands you can find it at health food stores, Cosco, other stores and as an mlm product.

    As with everything else the quality, quanity and price very. While what I drink costs more & less than others, I think it is the highest quality. IF I could not afford the one I drink now, I would be down at COSCO in a flash.

    Even after more than 12 years, my results from noni are so remarkable, it still AMAZES ME! For one of MANY examples, I USED to have the Aches & Pains of old age until I was around 62 & started
    drinking it. I NO longer suffer from them and have not for over 12 years. (I am now 75)

    Being a RABID Atheist Activist, it is a Miracle when I call anything a “Miracle” and yet that is what I consider the immune boosting power of Noni Juice to be. It is NOT the Noni Juice which effectively treats and/or cures over 90 different medical problems, rather IT IS YOUR own BOOSTED Immune system which does it. (In it’s natural state, Noni has been very effectively used for OVER 5,000 years!)

    P.S. While they are now dead, Atheists Richard Burton and Marlon Brando & Bert Lancaster could be on your list as well as Jack Nichelson and
    Dennis Hopper.  

    Comment | January 14, 2010
  • lukeprog

    Neil,

    Thanks, but Volokh rarely posts on atheism and Cliff’s site isn’t a blog, so they don’t qualify for this list, even though they’re great sites.  

    Comment | January 14, 2010
  • Luke,

    While it is True Eugene does not post “Atheist” things, as it a mostly a “Legal Issues” blog, he (and others) DO post on various religious issues and the law. I find reading such things to be both interesting and informative.  

    Comment | January 14, 2010
  • SORRY LUKE

    A VC Blog Posting on Religion was made on
    Jan. 13th, at 9:51 pm

    http://volokh.com/  

    Comment | January 15, 2010
  • Thanks for the suggestion, Neil! I may have to send Steve out to find some for me (I can’t drive until I’m off the narcs!)  

    Comment | January 15, 2010
  • Goodness, Luke, it seems like every post of yours I read has people in the comments telling you how you missed everything! Haha, I think you did a great job!
    Except next time, add me, even though I don’t come even close to qualifying! ;) hehe  

    Comment | January 15, 2010
  • Hi Laura,

    Thanks for your response.

    IF you want know all the MANY great things noni Has done for me (aside from lowering both my Cholesterol Levels and Blood Pressure, taking the pain away and curing burns quickly, healing athletes foot in half the time and curing a toe nail fungus (which several years of prescribed medications did not) please e-me.

    Noni not only is very effective on treating the insides & the outsides of our bodies, it does the same for all other mammals as well as animals, reptiles and birds.

    Please see this generic website for a picture of a noni fruit, some of it’s history, and a little of the (much) research done on it.

    http://www.noniresearch.com

    This website has more information on Noni and you can also read and/or listen to various people’s experience of drinking and using Noni topically.

    http://www.noni-is-good-for-you.com/

    The following “store” has audio and video tapes, brochures, tri-folds, newspapers, books and CD’s. ALL of which are about Noni Juice.

    http://www.nonitools.com

    And LAURA, FYI, the first time Luke published this list, I told him he did good!

    And I am fairly sure I thanked for his efforts. IF I did not, I do now.

    So, THANK YOU LUKE!

    For putting this list out and for updating it.  

    Comment | January 15, 2010
  • Note, the Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? blog isn’t where the action is on that site. I haven’t even looked at it in months. It’s in the forums.

    I’m actually surprised to see it on the list at all, as it doesn’t even appear as a link from the first page of the WWGHA site or on any blogroll I’m aware of.  

    Comment | February 3, 2010
  • lukeprog

    Hermes. You’re probably right. All the traffic is in the forums.  

    Comment | February 3, 2010
  • lukeprog

    Also, why the heck is Daylight Atheism so low?  

    Comment | February 3, 2010
  • Though they don’t seem to have a normal “blog” page, I follow: http://richarddawkins.net/feed.php  

    Comment | February 3, 2010
  • Les

    Wow. Not only am I surprised at being on this list at all, let alone in the top 10, but the trashing I take from Neil C. Reinhardt’s deft fingers leaves me amused as well.

    To receive such a sound thrashing about being just another arrogant and ignorant member of the Loony Left for my criticisms of Bush and the justifications for the Iraq war by someone who then turns around and sings the praises of what is essentially an herbal supplement as though it were a cure for all your ills, well, it is an honor indeed.

    As if your support of Bush and his needless war in Iraq weren’t enough to write you off for the idiot you clearly are, the fact that you promote woo-woo snake oil is enough to remove any doubts on the state of your sanity. The irony of being called “irrational, illogical, unknowledgeable & self-deluded” by someone who’s clearly guilty of the same brings a smile to my face.

    I’ll stop here and not turn this thread into a flame war by responding to Mr. Reinhardt further on this site, but I did want to take a moment to express my pleasure at being included among such notable atheist blogs, many of which are daily reads for me and whom I admire greatly.  

    Comment | March 18, 2010
  • lukeprog

    Les,

    FYI, Reinhardt has been banned from my blog, so he won’t be responding. :)  

    Comment | March 18, 2010
  • Les

    Probably for the best. I honestly wasn’t looking to turn this into a flame war, but I couldn’t resist responding.

    Though he’s welcome to stop my place and amuse my regulars.  

    Comment | March 18, 2010
  • Glad to see Les on the list: he’s a million-candlepower lighthouse of rationality. He is patient and fearless. He takes on the Society of the Confused wherever they appear, whether it’s WMDs, Scientology, Islam, right-wing Christianity, alt-med woo, you name it. W00T!  

    Comment | March 18, 2010
  • John Loftus: “I’m having a bit of trouble with the way Jim Lippard ranks atheist blogs.”

    For the record, I don’t rank atheist blogs or have a site that does so. The link I posted is not a site I run, manage, or maintain, just one I’ve come across.  

    Comment | April 5, 2010
  • I’m having a bit of trouble with the way Jim Lippard ranks atheist blogs. For instance, I don’t know what word he searches for to retrieve the Google Page number that our blogs first appear on.

    John, google’s PageRank is not a “page number that your blogs first appear on”. It is a keyword-independent authority measurement, the word ‘page’ derriving from Larry Page, Google founder. Google it. Also, Alexa is not terribly reliable and their toolbar users are, let’s say, not the most refined group on the Internets, which slants their results. (they do try to balance it, but there’s only so much you can do). So the best approach is to use multiple sources, as the atheistblogs list does. How these are balanced is an interesting question and there is room for other approaches I agree, but simply going with a single known-to-be-inaccurate source is definitely not the solution.

    To Luke: This is my first comment here, I’d like to thank you for a truly excellent blog, I have no idea how you get the time to do all this, you should certainly somehow monetise it, you deserve it.  

    Comment | April 18, 2010
  • Should Blag Hag be on the list? Jen’s blog got a lot of attention thanks to Boobquake.  

    Comment | May 10, 2010
  • If you increase your list to 50 (mimicing the Biblioblog list) I may get on the list — my Alexa rating today is 851,951 while your number 19 is 429,734.

    But so much for the meaning of the Alexa rating !
    ;-)  

    Comment | May 12, 2010
  • Neil C. Reinhardt:

    IF you want know all the MANY great things noni Has done for me (aside from lowering both my Cholesterol Levels and Blood Pressure, taking the pain away and curing burns quickly, healing athletes foot in half the time and curing a toe nail fungus…

    Neil, I have to ask, did you drink this stuff or soak your feet in it?  

    Comment | June 26, 2010
  • herbal supplements are more preffered because it is organic.;;-  

    Comment | June 30, 2010

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