Google, WordPress Top Blogs In April

Google’s Blogger and Automattic’s WordPress.com were again No. 1 and No. 2 for the most-visited blogs in April, according to Nielsen Online. However, growth of both blog hosts cooled compared to March.

Blogger’s year-over-year growth was 40 percent, registering 38.4 million visits in April. In March, Blogger was growing at 50 percent.

In second place, Automattic’s WordPress.com was still posting impressive rates of growth, partly due to its relative newness. WordPress.com had 16.6 million April visitors, a 160 percent increase over the 6.3 million during the same month in 2007.

Six Apart, which runs the Typepad blog host as well as the Moveable Type blog software, saw something other than negative growth, with a 1 percent uptick in visitors to 10.8 million in April.

Still going strong was political site TheHuffingtonPost.com, which had 3.4 million visits in April, growing 99 percent over the same time in 2007.

Likewise, gadget blog Engadget had 1.9 million visits in April for 23 percent growth.

Losing ground in April were Xanga.com, which fell 33 percent in April. Celebrity blog tmz.com saw growth drop 21 percent. The slowdown wasn’t shared by fellow celeb-watcher Perezhilton.com, which attracted 2 million visits in April for a 12 percent growth rate.