
The Best Time to Post on Hacker News - Nathanael
http://nathanael.hevenet.com/the-best-time-to-post-on-hacker-news-a-comprehensive-answer/
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jgrahamc
I have quite high karma on HN and I got it two ways:

1\. By writing original content that the HN audience is likely to like

2\. By submitting that content at the right time

#2 is useful to know and anyone can do an analysis and figure the best time. I
did it myself some time ago and came to my own conclusion about the best time
(which is similar to the OP). But #1 is far more important than gaming the
system. Focus on writing good stuff.

~~~
dsrguru
I'd imagine a corollary to #2 is by replying to comments at or near the top.

~~~
creativename
I see what you did there...

Just kidding. But to contribute something to the discussion: I was just
recently wondering when the best time to publish a "Show HN" would be. In that
case, your content is what it is. The time factor would definitely be
important then to help you get the "early exposure" that you'd need to even
arrive on the front page in the first place.

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EwanToo
The real answer, as anyone who reads HN knows, is "a few hours after an
already high ranking post, on the same controversial subject, but taking the
opposite stand" :)

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makmanalp
You forgot a crucial part: reversing the original title.

"No, NYC is NOT playing second fiddle to silicon valley"

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bitdiffusion
Or if you're a REAL expert, "Is NYC playing second fiddle to silicon valley?"

~~~
CrazedGeek
And then, for bonus karma, leave a comment to the effect of "The answer to any
headline ending in a question mark is no.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines> ", as if you're
the first and only person to have ever heard of it.

~~~
MortenK
Remember to include a snide remark with a vague reference to some sort of a
logical fallacy, in order to demonstrate your superior mastery of logic. Bonus
points for using pompous latin expressions.

~~~
pessimizer
ipse dixit?

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randomdrake
There is already an interesting tool[1] out there for this. I am surprised it
wasn't mentioned anywhere in the post. I would also be curious to know how
similar or different they are.

[1] <http://hnpickup.appspot.com/>

~~~
Nathanael
Hey, author here. I'm going to transgress my no-HN rule this one time because
I did in fact look at HN Pickup very closely and I already have a follow-up
post planned in which I was going to mention it.

Now the difference between my post and HN Pickup is it's a prediction tool, so
it's trying to pin-point precise moments when it's best to post, whereas I'm
analyzing past data.

So in my post today I talked about the best time to post on average. But, I
can also look at my data and say, for example, last Monday from 10 to 11 AM,
30% of submissions reached the frontpage and so it was, in effect, a great
time to post.

And with that I could look at HN Pickup's past predictions and tell you how
accurate they were, ie. at a time when HN Pickup was telling you it's a "very
good time to submit a story", what percentage of stories actually made it?

It so happens that I've actually been able to do that. HN Pickup's creator was
kind enough to provide me with a history of predictions for every 15 minutes
of a whole week, and after comparing it to observed pickup percentages I found
a rather weak correlation (0.25). So it would seem HN Pickup isn't a very
effective tool.

Also its goal is only to look at frontpage pickups, it doesn't account for the
duration of the stay on the frontpage or HN's traffic at the time, which I do
in my analysis.

~~~
nsns

       for example, last Monday from 10 to 11 AM, 30% of submissions reached 
      the frontpage and so it was, in effect, a great time to post.
    

But it might also mean that less people see your post, which is still better
than not making the frontpage at all, but not the same as getting there on
"prime time", this should also be taken into account.

~~~
Nathanael
It is taken into account in my article...

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kevinconroy
The best time to post on HN is when you have something interesting to share
that will benefit the community.

Same holds for your email marketing, social media, etc. Good content is an
order of magnitude more important than time-of-day optimizations (which in my
experience, only helps some people some of the time).

~~~
zellyn
In my experience, that's not always the case: sometimes interesting posts get
drowned out.

~~~
bonobo
I've seen this happen a couple of times. An article is submitted once only to
drown with around five upvotes, and then reach the frontpage on a second
submission.

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brudgers
It depends on the source. Articles move up two ways. One is by votes, the
other is by resubmission by different users. Peak times also mean peak
competition.

If you are the first to post an article from a commonly frequented site such
as TechCrunch, then it will tend to gain exposure because others are
submitting it.

On the other hand, I've found that posting articles from less mainstream
sources benefit from sitting longer on the "New" page. This means posting
during times of lower activity. I have woken up to find something I posted
just before bed has gained significant traction.

~~~
Nathanael
Interesting. I wasn't aware of this resubmission mechanism.

~~~
brudgers
It's probably the way that some blog posts make it.

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j_col
Some other suggestions to get you on the frontpage:

1\. Posting anything by Marco/Gruber/Atwood/37Signals/Stripe.

2\. Posting anything making fun of PHP.

~~~
mikeevans
Don't forget Github. Most of their blog posts that aren't regarding new hires
hit the front page.

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gojomo
I would like to see a scoring algorithm that dampens (if not totally
eliminates) time-of-day effects. Essentially, clock time shouldn't be a factor
at all: just some other synthetic 'tick'. That tick is probably 'sitewide
votes' (but might be 'legitimate votes' or 'net upvotes' or 'homepage views').

Secondarily, I would like to see a decay function that gives an older story
with a current surge as much credit as a new story with similar recent
surging.

(For example, imagine story A submitted at hour 0 which receive no votes for 6
hours. At hour 6, story B is submitted. Between hour 6 and hour 7, story A
gets 12 upvotes, and story B only 8. Over the current-comparable period, A is
hotter... but I'm pretty sure the HN algorithm and most similar sites penalize
A for the earlier-submission time. And yet due to things like headline
corrections, the eventual arrival of a story's natural audience, etc. the A
story may in fact now be 'better', in those attention-deserving qualities that
the ranking/decay function is trying to detect.)

~~~
Nathanael
As long as the quantity of good submissions varies consistently depending on
time of day, there will be times when more good submissions are competing for
a fixed amount of frontpage time. Thus it's unlikely you could eliminate time-
of-day effects.

I like your second suggestion though.

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jusben1369
Posted at 9:04am Eastern it would appear.

~~~
barking
I just posted something about the impact we humans are having on planet earth.
It was a documentary I listened to on the BBC world service in the wee small
hours 3 days ago during my customary insomnia and about which I've not been
able to stop thinking. I'd love it to spark a discussion but it looks like
it's dropping into oblivion

~~~
pc86
This is probably not the best way to try to hijack this thread. If it was
interesting and/or warranted discussion I'm sure folks would have started
discussing it.

~~~
barking
I'll concede your first point but I don't think your second always holds true.

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danielwozniak
I've seen posts of the same link with the same title only a few hours apart
get dramatically different traction (5 vs 285 up votes). There are tricks to
try and game the system but it also involves more luck than most people seem
to think. That said, posts that are truly insightful and anything from PG will
make it to the top, it seems, every time.

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DanielBMarkham
This is the third or fourth article I've read on HN about the best time to
submit content on HN.

Fair warning: the next time I read this topic here, I am going to write a
comment about the best time to submit comments on articles about the best time
to submit articles.

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cagenut
This is basically true of all US oriented news sites. Also, generally monday
and tuesday morning are ahead of the rest of the week. The best time to try to
get something to 'go viral' is about 10 - 11am EST tuesday morning.

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jonkelly
I'd be interested to see the analysis with the day of week included.

~~~
engtech
If the 7am-noon trend is caused by the social factor of EST to PST working
coming in to work, it'll likely be mon-fri, with spikes on mon and thu.

That is the usual pattern for sites that people check when they come in to
work.

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wybo
I did a similar post about a year ago, though the focus was on other things
than best time to post: [http://foundation.logilogi.org/2011/5/9/the-best-
time-to-pos...](http://foundation.logilogi.org/2011/5/9/the-best-time-to-post-
on-hn-and-other-time-effects)

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SeanDav
It would be interesting to include day of week as well. I have read that
Sunday is a good time for example, but taking into account viewer traffic,
time on front page etc, (as the OP does of course) that might well be
different.

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bashzor
What's the deal with EST or PDT? Can't you Americans just use some GMT-n so we
can all convert it? Despite most stories being American-based or focussed
here, the world does not center around you. Yeah it does on your maps - it's
confusing, I know - but no the world is not actually about you.

~~~
Nathanael
Hi. I'm the author and I live in France. I used EST for 2 reasons.

1/ Most HN readers can relate to that easily.

2/ GMT doesn't account for daylight savings time.

