

Ask HN: When is HN most busy? - mkrecny

In truth, I want to know what is the best time to post something, to maximize visibility.
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JacobAldridge
I like the 'in truth', since it's possibly two separate questions.

As I understand it, HN is most busy in the afternoon US time on a weekday.
This is borne out by the rate at which new submissions move off the 'New' page
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/newest>) - in the morning London time (ie, the
wee hours in the US), that takes a little over an hour; by afternoon US time
it's usually under 30 minutes. (I believe this is borne out by other data as
well - that's just the one I've witnessed over time.)

So, the largest number of people are on here in that time slot. However, that
doesn't mean your visibility is maximised. You want to be on the front page
across that time, which is harder to achieve if you submit at that time -
after all, your submission will have less than half the time to be seen on the
New page before disappearing. So it may be that you want to post mid-morning
US Time, having more of a chance to be upgraded to the front page in time for
the US afternoon, where hopefully your front page status will maintain enough
traction to remain there.

Of course, front page success is lightning in a bottle. There's never any
guarantee that you will make it there, or stay there for long - AND success in
doing so is far more dependent on quality and relevance of your content, than
it is about time.

~~~
mkrecny
Thank you. Your comment makes me realize how US-centric I am. I was expecting
an answer comparing West coast vs East coast behavior at various times during
the day. It's certainly true to say that (afternoon in CA) != (afternoon in
NY).

~~~
JacobAldridge
Yes - I still haven't got my head around intra-continental time differences
across the US so I certainly generalised there!

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hammock
Two metrics of interest here- a) when is the rate of new submissions lowest;
and b) when is rate of visitors highest. There is probably some correlation
there, but due to submission rates throughout the day, the sweet spot you're
looking for might not be exactly at the peak of web traffic.

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RiderOfGiraffes
I can't believe no one pointed you at this analysis:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2022547>

