Top ten (Sina blog home)

Xu Jinglei is no longer the most trafficked blogger in China.

On Tuesday, Sina's click rankings showed that Han Han's blog had passed that of the award-winning filmmaker and e-zine publisher. He now has 210 million hits, slightly higher than Xu's 209 million and change.

According to The Beijing News, this historic passing of the torch came about because of netizens' love of controversy, which Han Han provides in spades. Xu's journal-style blog about her daily activities may delight her fans, but Han's attacks on the establishment have a much broader appeal. His last three posts attacking a story competition involving the heads of the country's provincial writers' associations drew more than one million hits altogether, pushing him over the top.

That analysis may explain Han Han's popularity, but it doesn't account for the rest of the top ten. Here's a breakdown:

• Pretty stars like Acosta (#3, formerly an "ordinary guy") and My Hero runners-up Song Xiaobo (#8) and Jarvis Wu Jianfei (#10);
• Popular authors Dangnian Mingyue (#4) and Guo Jingming (#6);
• Sports journalists Li Chengpeng (#5) and Dong Lu (#9);
• Hung Huang (#7), publisher and media insider.

That's what Sina's front page promotes as the top-ranked blogs, but a different picture emerges when you look at the portal's overall blog rankings:

The top-ranked blog here belongs to Xu Xiaoming, who has nearly 10 million more page-views than Han Han. Xu blogs his analysis of the stock market using a mathematical system of his own invention, which he's willing to share with you if you'll buy his book.

The four other additions to the top-ten are also stock blogs (all of which post conspicuous disclaimers to escape the fate of last year's stock market James Bond):

• wu2198 (#5) offers anonymously-written analysis;
• Sha Minnong (#6) is currently the deputy general editor of Modern Express and previously founded a number of financial newspapers;
• Chief Financial Analyst Cannes (#7): 凯恩斯 is the usual Chinese transliteration of Keynes;
• Market Changes (#9) is another anonymously-run stock blog.

The report in The Beijing News notes that Han Han registered his Sina blog a full year after Xu Jinglei started hers, so in terms of average page views he surpassed her long ago. But he's only #1 with an asterisk if the reading habits of China's market enthusiasts are taken into account.