22 Jul The “Best Read” Law Prof Blogs
You probably know which blogs have the most traffic from Paul Caron’s “Law Prof Blog Rankings.” But I bet you have no idea which law blogs are the best read, that is, the ones that have “sticky” readership.
If you take Paul Caron’s Top Law Prof Blog rankings and rank the blogs based on the “average visit length” rather than based on traffic, you get noticeably different results. The “average visit length” cannot be measured over time, but the Navigation Trends toolbar allows you to check daily duration stats, which appear to be fairly stable within a narrow range.
Here’s a snapshot ranking of the “Best Read” Law Prof blogs (with Caron’s rankings in parenthesis):
1. 2:56 Jack Bog’s Blog (9)
2. 2:50 Sentencing Law & Policy Blog (10)
3. 2:42 Althouse (4)
4. 2:39 Opinio Juris (17)
4. 2:39 Election Law Blog (28)
6. 2:26 Mirror of Justice (26)
7. 2:21 Antitrust & Competition (35)
8. 2:19 Sports Law Blog (24)
9. 2:16 The Faculty Lounge (20)
10. 2:07 Right Coast (16)
11. 2:03 Patently-O (7)
12. 2:00 Prawfsblawg (13)
13. 1:57 Religion Clause (23)
14. 1:49 Balkinization (12)
15. 1:44 Legal Profession Blog (30)
16. 1:40 White Collar Crime Prof Blog (18)
16. 1:40 Legal Writing Prof Blog (33)
18. 1:35 Leiter Reports: Philosophy (6)
18. 1:35 Concurring Opinions (8)
20. 1:33 Workplace Prof Blog (14)
21. 1:31 Conglomerate (19)
21. 1:31 Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof (21)
23. 1:23 Leiter’s Law School Reports (11)
24. 1:24 Immigration Prof Blog (22)
24. 1:24 Empirical Legal Studies (32)
26. 1:18 Legal History Blog (27)
27. 1:11 Tax Prof Blog (5)
28. 0:59 Ideoblog (29)
29. 0:51 Discourse.net (15)
30. 0:44 Hugh Hewitt (2)
31. 0:34 CrimProf Blog (25)
32. 0:27 Volokh Conspiracy (3)
33. 0:26 MoneyLaw (34)
34. 0:01 Instapundit (1)
I wholeheartedly approve of this methodology. And I’m glad that readers give Instapundit all the time it deserves.
Since page duration is a proxy for the length of the posts I am not suprised at either this site or Instapundit’s ratings, and in fairness this site’s average post does take a lot more thinking than most.
I’m a bit suprised at volokh.com’s low rating though, and suprised that Althouse is so high.
You could multiply average visit length by number of visitors to get a measure of exposure of blog content.
Erik,
That’s a good idea. I’m sure if you did that Althouse would be number one. She’s the only one who made the top five in both lists.
Roger Alford
Good job OpinioJuris!