The Top 25 Most Valuable Blogs

24/7 Wall St., a Web site that publishes financial news, took at stab at identifying the 25 most valuable blogs.

Defining value, of course, is not an easy proposition when examining private businesses. While putting a value on each blog, 24/7 built its estimates on several factors, including page views, ad revenues, and operating expenses. Keep in mind, estimating ad revenue can be dicey depending on how advertising deals, including sponsorships and graphic ads, are negotiated.

Hacking away appears to be paying off for Nick Denton. His Gawker properties, including Gawker, ValleyWag, and Gizmodo, topped 24/7 Wall St.’s list. Valued at $150 million, the Gawker blogs bring in an estimated $11 million in annual revenue and growing. That estimate assumes Gawker has 30 million unique visitors, these visitors view 1.5 page views each month, and the sites collect on average a per page CPM value of $20, according to 24/7 Wall St.

Rounding up the top five: MacRumors, Huffington Post, PerezHilton, and TechCrunch.

24/7, which examined unique visitors and page views, said its analysis is based on the estimated advertising revenue as well as income from related businesses such as conferences. The analysis omitted some blogs such as those affiliated with larger media companies because it’s tough to break out traffic.