The Value of Hitting the HN Front Page
17 comments
·August 20, 2025FabHK
A year or so ago, I posted a link that you can help Anna's Archive by seeding their torrents [0]. I monitored (eye-balled) their stats [1] to see whether there was a bump in seeding afterwards, and couldn't see one. So, the "low conversion" comment might be true.
czhu12
An open source project I was working on was on the front page for about 2 days:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44292103
And heres the analytics from that time:
I don't reallly bother tracking sign ups as its a totally free app, but from then to now, it looks like i've picked up about 1600 new accounts.
modeless
I once got a job from a post on my blog that hit the front page. So the value to me was enormous.
andreabergia
Same here! I am now actually working in compilers, which is one thing I'm really passionate about, but not something I was doing professionaly. I managed to turn a toy project and some blog posts into an actual job at almost 40, so, thank you HN!
saagarjha
If I might ask what does you employer need compiler experience for?
leeoniya
same. except was an oss lib on github.
superfish
This post is pretty meta now that it's on the front page. A nice follow-up post would be:
The Value of 'The Value of Hitting the HN Front Page' Hitting the HN Front Page
I guess the value would be people might be more likely to prepare with CDNs or engage with comments etc. I wonder if that's measurable.
stared
People fiddle with SEO with a lot of effort and some mixed success. While it takes a single solid hit at the HN (or Reddit) to get on the top.
Of course, it means that a post needs to have more than suitable keywords. So, I never sacrifice the quality of a post just too boost its SEO.
iamflimflam1
I made a map of all the request last time I hit the front page. Timestamp 1:40 in this video:
bijant
Agree with the gist of 1. & 2. but was hoping for a more analytic-scientific approach to measuring the impact of the HN Front Page. That is probably impossible though. If you invent github/sliced bread then hitting the front page might be the best thing to happen to your idea. If your profitable business of scamming grannies gets the same exposure it will probably be removed from the iOS/Android App Stores within minutes. Launching Dropbox here is likely somewhere in the middle.
NaOH
Previously:
The Value of Hitting the HN Front Page - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44584461 - July 2025 (6 comments)
Waraqa
This means that there is one more piece of advice: "If your post didn't hit the front page in the first attempt, try again later".
8organicbits
For one popular project of mine that hit the front page I had a 2% sign-up rate. It was a free service that used GitHub for authentication, which likely helped.
I had a Netlify landing page (CDN), and the web app was a Django app on a single DigitalOcean droplet. I didn't see any complaints of performance issues / resource usage stayed low.
dmitrygr
Not sure if "have a CDN" advice is as sure as is claimed. My projects site has been #1 on the front page many times, and my dinky little $3/mo VPS had no issues at all in any of those cases.
rfarley04
Yet another "Hitting HN = 30k visits" breakdown from a friend of mine (in 2022): https://www.reproof.app/blog/the-hacker-news-effect
I have made the front page a few times, and I loved it. The discussion is so good, not to mention the random emails and LinkedIn connections. It's very validating when the topic would be too niche for other communities.
Having a high-visibility post on Reddit meant a stressful few hours and some of the most toxic interactions I've experienced.