As I have said many many times, I don’t care one bit about the amount of people who read the Saker blog.  I do care only about the quality of the readership, not its quantity.  Simply put: I want to reach the right people.  Besides, since I have no ads, no pop-ups, no special memberships, no for pay only articles, etc.  the number of visitors also makes no difference to our finances either.  About once a year, I ask our webmaster how we are doing, and his reply has always (so far) been “same as before, no changes”.

Today I am going to break that rule to convey something I think will interest the entire Saker community.  But first, in this context, I want to mention two groups of people very hostile to the blog and me personally:

  • Those who left the Saker blog in anger/rage over something I wrote or posted, and who explain to me in endless “divorce letters” that they, and many many MANY others are now also leaving the Saker blog in disgust.
  • There are small and mostly irrelevant websites out there who want to become visible and, in order to achieve that, they “bark up” the Saker blog and even me personally.  Their transparent hope is that picking a fight with me will eventually gain some visibility.

As you know, I totally ignore both of these groups, primarily because I couldn’t care less about them and their illiterate tactics.

Yesterday, however, I got an email from Ron Unz’ mailing list which mentioned the (excellent) ranking of the Unz Review so I took a look.  Below I will reproduce the full table published by Ron:

But first I want to say that I find these results quite amazing, to be honest.  There are 70 websites listed here, including a few “super top-dogs” with truly phenomenal figures.  The Unz Review is in position number 10, which is very good indeed.  The Saker blog is much lower, in 26th position with only about 1/4th of the Unz readership.  But then, look further below as some results are truly quite amazing.  The Saker blog outranks major websites like  (in order): SPLC, Moon of Alabama, Off Guardian, Voltairenet, Current Affairs, Strategic Culture, Veterans Today, VDare, Commentary Magazine, Paul Craig Roberts, Harpers Magazine, Nation of Islam, Antiwar.com, Op Ed News, Consortium News, Anti-Empire, Conter-Currents, Information Clearinghouse, Chronicles Magazine, the Duran and Russia Insider.

Did you expect that??

I sure did not!  In fact, I had no idea at all :-)

Before I continue, now please look at this table again and, especially carefully, at the actual figures shown:

Publication Total Pages Total Visits Total Hours Bounce% Tm/V Pgs/V
The Daily Caller 18,295,600 8,630,000 349,994 58 2:26 2.12
National Review 14,249,700 6,390,000 268,025 62 2:31 2.23
The Daily Stormer 9,408,500 1,550,000 120,986 33 4:41 6.07
Alternet 6,310,900 2,830,000 208,319 51 4:25 2.23
LewRockwell 5,708,400 2,130,000 178,683 45 5:02 2.68
Reason Magazine 4,959,400 2,740,000 105,033 69 2:18 1.81
Unherd 4,816,000 2,800,000 58,333 68 1:15 1.72
The Intercept 4,768,400 3,640,000 66,733 80 1:06 1.31
American Greatness 4,684,800 2,440,000 105,733 66 2:36 1.92
The Unz Review 4,403,200 1,720,000 113,233 46 3:57 2.56
Global Research 3,822,000 1,560,000 91,867 59 3:32 2.45
Foreign Policy 3,593,400 3,390,000 62,150 76 1:06 1.06
The American Conservative 3,377,500 1,930,000 62,725 69 1:57 1.75
Marginal Revolution 3,374,100 1,630,000 90,556 63 3:20 2.07
American Renaissance 3,303,239 832,050 85,747 36 6:11 3.97
Jacobin Magazine 2,949,200 2,020,000 41,522 73 1:14 1.46
Asia Times 2,937,600 1,360,000 42,311 63 1:52 2.16
Signs of the Times 2,927,400 1,190,000 65,119 54 3:17 2.46
The Nation 2,567,000 1,510,000 32,297 69 1:17 1.70
Counter-Currents 2,462,782 818,200 49,547 58 3:38 3.01
CounterPunch 2,430,761 913,820 64,475 55 4:14 2.66
The New Republic 2,243,600 1,420,000 23,272 77 0:59 1.58
Rense.com 2,087,800 1,430,000 48,064 79 2:01 1.46
World Socialist Website 2,004,000 1,200,000 27,667 75 1:23 1.67
Storm Front 1,929,083 293,620 26,263 43 5:22 6.57
The Vineyard of the Saker 1,712,551 774,910 39,391 46 3:03 2.21
Quillette 1,693,855 973,480 23,526 72 1:27 1.74
SPLC 1,638,665 905,340 21,376 75 1:25 1.81
Naked Capitalism 1,604,259 739,290 54,831 43 4:27 2.17
Moon of Alabama 1,600,654 744,490 31,020 53 2:30 2.15
The Right Stuff 1,597,050 491,400 14,060 48 1:43 3.25
Takimag 1,593,019 504,120 36,269 38 4:19 3.16
The Grayzone 1,457,526 694,060 14,460 56 1:15 2.10
Tablet Magazine 1,410,395 986,290 17,534 73 1:04 1.43
Off Guardian 1,351,818 693,240 20,990 55 1:49 1.95
Voltairenet 1,335,040 596,000 17,714 61 1:47 2.24
Current Affairs 1,246,495 532,690 18,644 74 2:06 2.34
Strategic Culture 1,223,235 390,810 17,912 56 2:45 3.13
Veterans Today 1,170,117 430,190 19,239 46 2:41 2.72
VDare 1,137,741 404,890 28,680 40 4:15 2.81
The Baffler 1,062,389 508,320 16,803 65 1:59 2:09
Commentary Magazine 1,022,868 473,550 27,098 58 3:26 2.16
Renegade Tribune 943,550 331,070 22,347 63 4:03 2.85
Paul Craig Roberts 850,885 429,740 16,593 62 2:19 1.98
Red Ice 837,111 412,370 12,027 47 1:45 2.03
Harpers 810,621 460,580 8,956 75 1:10 1.76
Nation of Islam 794,597 249,090 8,165 57 1:58 3.19
Antiwar.com 717,735 335,390 17,981 63 3:13 2.14
CounterCurrents.org 687,412 287,620 3,915 66 0:49 2.39
Information Clearinghouse 586,421 270,240 16,214 57 3:36 2.17
MintPress News 489,669 335,390 6,335 74 1:08 1.46
Op Ed News 454,195 95,620 8,526 53 5:21 4.75
Consortium News 445,335 269,900 5,473 63 1:13 1.65
Anti-Empire 430,508 235,250 3,725 44 0:57 1.83
Chronicles Magazine 379,891 197,860 4,947 59 1:30 1.92
National Justice 356,126 217,150 5,670 62 1:34 1.64
Culture Wars 352,121 63,790 1,311 42 1:14 5.52
Occidental Observer 329,351 136,660 5,390 56 2:22 2.41
Occidental Dissent 311,018 139,470 7,632 53 3:17 2.23
MondoWeiss 307,693 203,770 3,453 72 1:01 1.51
In These Times 292,179 205,760 3,658 76 1:04 1.42
The Duran 251,018 102,040 4,138 45 2:26 2.46
Tom Woods 233,677 104,320 5,998 55 3:27 2.24
TomDispatch 203,745 72,250 3,633 52 3:01 2.82
Dissident Voice 192,170 112,380 2,466 60 1:19 1.71
Russia Insider 174,818 89,650 4,209 56 2:49 1.95
IHR 117,522 71,660 1,274 76 1:04 1.64
TruthDig 107,814 62,320 1,800 66 1:44 1.73
WhoWhatWhy N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A N/A

This table shows a lot of interesting things:

  1. In spite of all the categorical statements of Saker-haters, the blog’s readership is not only stable, it is excellent in both quality AND quantity.
  2. The departure (and “divorce letters”) from those who were mad at me for crimethink or the blog’s “censorship” had zero effect on the blog.
  3. We can be sure that some of the owners websites ranking lower than the Saker are sick with envy (remember that their websites are all about ad revenue and/or “sponsors”!) and are desperate to gain at least some visibility or relevance by trying to bark up the Saker blog.
  4. No wonder the anti-COVID and anti-vaxx crusaders are so pissed that I refused to jump on their bandwagon: had I endorsed their ideology and agenda it would have given them a major PR boost.  Instead, I told them to get lost with absolutely no negative consequences whatsoever for myself or the blog.
  5. Those websites who sold out to specific interests (be it Alt-Q, the Papacy, the Kremlin, CIA PSYOPs, Russian oligarchs, etc.) are not doing that well at all, in spite of the money they got in exchange for their honesty and souls.
  6. The same goes for the many clickbaiters out there (Veterans Today is a perfect example) who in spite of their ridiculous article and titles don’t seem to be able to attract many readers.  This is excellent news indeed, as clickbaiters are not only dishonorable, but also rather dangerous.
  7. Blogs with no money but with brains do better than blogs with no brains but money.  The perfect example is the excellent score of Moon of Alabama compared to, say, the pathetic score of The Duran.

Now I have an admission to make.  While I really don’t care at all about the blogs which did not score as well as the Saker blog, to outrank VDare, Antiwar and the SPLC at the same time makes me feel warm all over :-)

One more important note: US IT corporations have all deranked the Saker blog.  You can verify that yourself by entering a few keywords you have seen in a Saker blog title, and then compare the results of, say Google or Bing with the results from, say, DuckDuckGo or Yandex.  The reason why we could survive such a deranking rather painlessly is not only because we don’t depend on ad revenue, but because we get most of our readers by means of word of mouth and not by depending on ANY corporation.

Likewise, the fact that the Saker blog TOTALLY and ONLY depends on 100% volunteer donations protects us from being suddenly defunded by anyone.  This is a protection which only TRUE crowdsourcing can offer.

Now the bad news, obviously, is this: the Saker blog and I myself have made a lot of enemies over the years (perfect example here).  The fact that all the efforts of our enemies to harm the blog (or me personally) have failed – I ignore them on principle  – only further enrages them.  Some have thrown in the towel, given up and quietly died (Fort-Russ) while others are still trying, but all they are actually achieving is damaging their own reputation.  If they were capable of producing real, interesting, analyses, they would have no need to trash others (for example, Bernhard at MoA never felt the need to trash anybody and his blog is doing superbly well, especially for a true “one man show”!).

One last note.  Here is what such rankings do NOT include:

  • The separate Saker Community blog (at https://saker.community/)
  • The five other language Saker blogs: French, Italian, Latin American (Spanish+Portuguese), Russian and Serbian
  • The spontaneous translations made by independent volunteers (in all sorts of languages)
  • The YouTube channels which some of these blogs also have
  • The reprints of our articles both in the West and now very regularly in Russia

Again, not that this is of any importance, but I can only imagine what REAL figures the Saker Community as a whole would have if all the resources of our community would be counted together!

Finally, one caveat: I don’t know how/where Ron got his numbers.  I am sure that Ron being both intellectually honest and IT-savvy did not make them up and that he got them from a credible source/method.  Maybe from Alexa web ranking?  Again, since rankings and quantitative criteria are irrelevant to me, I don’t really know (or care).  I trust Ron’s honesty and skills.  But I have to warn the readers that I cannot personally vouch for the accuracy of these numbers.  They seem credible to me and match with what I have seen over the years, but that is only my best guess.  So caveat emptor!

Having said that, I want to conclude with a humongous BRAVO!!! and THANK YOU!!! for all those who made the above possible and who still are making it possible today.  As I wrote in my mini-biography, “It was never about me, but always about you“.  That is still 100% true today.  It is only thanks to you and your support (not only donations, but also all the many other forms of support, from kind emails, to prayers, to guest contributions, to organizational support, to moderation, IT-work, translations and everything else!!) that the Saker Blog survived for 15 years without ever sacrificing any of our principles under any circumstances, no matter how hard and, at times, even painful: the loss of trust and respect for individuals I once considered as true friends and fellow allies in the same cause is, by far, the worst and most painful aspect of all this for me.  I try to accept that as coming with the territory, but each such backstabbing and hypocrisy still hurts every time (especially coming from people and websites I once helped a great deal to launch and publicize).  But, over the years, at least it hurts a little less each time.  I think this is progress, however humble.

The bottom line is this: I would never, ever, been able to achieve even a small fraction of this immense work had it not been for the help and support from so many wonderful people, especially in the tough times.

Now that we stand on the edge of the abyss and that we know even less than ever what tomorrow will bring, I wanted to indulge in this little bit of shameless self-congratulatory backslapping and high-fiving with all of you, the entire Saker Community and my friends and allies, while there is still time to celebrate.

I will now take the rest of the day off to spend some time recharging my batteries before the proverbial crapola hits the fan, either tomorrow or in the near future.  And, who knows?  God is merciful, maybe this time around He will save us from ourselves (again!)?

Hugs and cheers to all,

Andrei

The Essential Saker IV: Messianic Narcissism's Agony by a Thousand Cuts
The Essential Saker III: Chronicling The Tragedy, Farce And Collapse of the Empire in the Era of Mr MAGA