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Last year, we reported that around 50 percent of bloggers have ads on their blogs. So, how could that number have dropped to 28 percent this year?

Well, according to Technorati, the publisher of the second-annual “State of the Blogosphere” report, the pool of respondents to this year’s survey of bloggers is much bigger than last year, arguably producing findings that are more representative of the blogosphere.

Indeed, last year’s survey included just 1,400 participants, while this year’s included 2,900, according to Technorati VP of Marketing Jennifer McLean, whom I spoke with earlier today.

I’m sure some scientific statisticians have smoke coming out of their ears right now, but I think it’s worth mentioning the disparity between the two reports since we did cover last year’s numbers.

“Before we simply had a higher concentration of serious bloggers,” McLean told me. This year, lots more so-called “hobbyist” bloggers – the ones who write blogs just for the hell of it and don’t collect any ad revenue from them – took the survey. So, essentially, the ad-supported concentration was diluted this time around.

Here are a few other numbers from this year’s (arguably) more accurate poll. Of those bloggers running ads:
- Around 40 percent run display and Google AdSense-type text ads (listed in the report as “search” ads).
- 36 percent include affiliate marketing links.
- 8 percent feature rich media ads or paid blog posts.
- The mean annual amount of ad revenue generated is around $42,500.

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