Maryland Blogdom in 2009

The year 2009 was a great one for Maryland blogs. The 41 state and local blogs that release statistics reported a combined 50% increase in traffic. But that hike was not shared evenly across the state’s blogosphere. Let’s examine the winners and losers.

Following are the combined site visit counts of all 41 blogs we track, organized by category. Left and right political sites are self-explanatory. Local blogs occasionally carry political content, but are mostly dedicated to chronicling events centered on a particular geographic area.


Here are the monthly site visit patterns of each of our three categories from June 2007 on.


Below are the top ten political blogs ranked by number of site visits in 2009, with growth rates for those that were active for all of 2008.


O’Malley Watch does not release site visit counts. Neither do any of the MSM “blogs.” Maryland on My Mind began releasing site visit counts in May and reported 24,872 visits from then through the end of the year. Pillage Idiot ceased operation in January 2009.

Here are the monthly site visit patterns of the top five political blogs from June 2007 on.


Red Maryland experienced a spike in October from one post about a pro-Obama song mandated for elementary school students in Howard County that was picked up by national conservative Michelle Malkin. Without that post, their visit drop in 2009 would have been steeper. Annapolis Capital Punishment benefitted from that city’s mayoral race and the Zina Pierre scandal.

Below are the top ten local blogs ranked by number of site visits in 2009, with growth rates for those that were active for all of 2008.


The Silver Spring Penguin, Salisbury News and many other popular local blogs do not release site visit counts. If they did, this list would look a lot different. Inside Charm City seldom carries original content but instead reprints news from other sources.

Here are the monthly site visit patterns of the top five local blogs from June 2007 on.


The dominant blogdom trend of 2009 is the rapid growth of liberal and local blogs compared to the stagnation of conservative blogs. That is an oversimplification since some blogs in the former two categories died, while PG Politics reported strong growth and Kevin Dayhoff Soundtrack broke into the top five from a December 2008 start. Still, the lack of growth from the right wing blogosphere despite the rise of the Tea Party movement should be disheartening to Maryland conservatives.