What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
randomshit.dev
What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
1–10 of 52 posts
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#2> ShowHN posts almost never make the front page (
Based on other details of analysis, I believe this means 2% of front pages posts are ShowHN. Not that 98% of ShowHN posts fail to reach front page. But the author doubles down on this confusion with flawed methodology:
> Second, and perhaps more importantly, the dataset doesn’t record the attempts made to get to the front page, i.e. all posts on Hacker News in a given day. It’s possible that there are orders of magnitude more blog posts posted but fewer that make the FP, whereas 95% of any academic paper submitted makes the front page (extreme figures used for illustrative purposes). So for simplicity, I’ll say “the likelihood of making the FP” which assumes a constant rate of conversion from post to FP across different categories.
and also doubles down on the logical fallacy in their conclusion:
> ShowHN is very valuable, but is not likely to land your product on the front page.
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#3[deleted]
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#4> Statistically, your best shot of getting your writing to the front page of Hacker News is by writing something (with nothing to promote) on your personal website or blog.
I’ve thought about starting a blog. I’m curious if you noticed what the most popular blogging sites were while gathering your statistics?
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#5> In my job as technical writer / marketer1, the most common question I get from companies I work with is “how do we get to the front page of Hacker News?”
Genuinely surprising. Does everyone read HN but just never mentions it?
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#6If this is a marketer trying to figure out how to get a product launch to the front page, there are a few errors in their thinking:
1) Show HN is the right answer. End of story. That is how we specifically say to HN, "Look at this thing I made!", regardless of whether you are an established user or new to the site. Just do that.
2) Their goal isn't actually to get "to the front page". Their goal is to get eyes on their work. See #1.
3) Unless their target market is actually the HN crowd... why are they wanting our eyes, anyway?
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#7Apparently writing about it will get you there.
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#8> ShowHN posts almost never make the front page ( Based on other details of analysis, I believe this means 2% of front pages posts are ShowHN. Not that 98% of ShowHN posts fail to reach front page. But the author doubles down on this confusion with flawed methodology: > Second, and perhaps more importantly, the dataset doesn’t record the attempts made to get to the front page, i.e. all posts on Hacker News in a given…
Exactly. This is an analysis of what the front page is composed of rather than what gets to the front page.
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#9This is a good rundown but misses the biggest thing, random chance.
Depending on time of day the your post will stay on page one of "new" for between 20-40 minutes. It needs about 4-6 upvotes in that time to drop onto the bottom of the homepage, and then with that a chance of more eyeballs. Some people skim page two and look for thing with a couple of votes for closer inspection, but the reality is you have that brief moment to catch attention of people who are interested in your topic.
The more high profile the item you're posting is the more likely it will catch the attention of people who are interested in the short window. More obscure topics are obviously harder to catch those initial votes.
The new page is very busy at some particular times of day. It can be a good idea to post more obscure topics in a "down time" period.
2-6pm UTC is by far the busiest time, you often see corporate posts aiming to land in new during this time, even to the point of scheduling their blog posts for this window. The payoff in traffic is worth the chance of a very brief period on page one of new.
The other thing to note is that HN is a different place at the weekend, interesting long reads do well then along with somewhat fun and silly side projects.
Also consider "Show HN" posts, they have a different ranking "gravity" and can be easer to get into the homepage, but don't necessarily stay there or as high for as long. If you are launching something, this is your best bet. They also hang around on the "show" page for days with a log tail of traffic.
Finally there is the "second chance pool" [0], I don't know the details of who or how, but some posts are flagged to be given a second chance on the bottom of the homepage. Sometimes hours or days later. A surprising proportion of top of homepage posts come from that pool - good things have a high chance of entering it.
Best advise, write what you're interested in and keep posting.
Re: What gets to the front page of Hacker News?
#10> ShowHN posts almost never make the front page ( Based on other details of analysis, I believe this means 2% of front pages posts are ShowHN. Not that 98% of ShowHN posts fail to reach front page. But the author doubles down on this confusion with flawed methodology: > Second, and perhaps more importantly, the dataset doesn’t record the attempts made to get to the front page, i.e. all posts on Hacker News in a given…
For curiosity's sake I wanted to estimate the probability of getting to the front page with a show hn. The easy but terrible way is to just look at a few new show hn from yesterday and look at how many got more than 50 points.
The answer ~4% (3/79). Please expect gigantic error bars.
Links checked:
2/30 from https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew?next=36572237&n=61
1/30 from https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew?next=36564410&n=91
0/19 from https://news.ycombinator.com/shownew?next=36556170&n=121