HN Frontpage Ranking

Users discuss the Hacker News ranking algorithm, questioning why high-upvote posts fail to reach or stay on the front page, suspecting biases, penalties, moderation, or favoritism toward certain users or content types.

📉 Falling 0.5x Other
7,178
Comments
20
Years Active
5
Top Authors
#6778
Topic ID

Activity Over Time

2007
40
2008
162
2009
230
2010
426
2011
448
2012
467
2013
513
2014
462
2015
427
2016
413
2017
369
2018
316
2019
381
2020
428
2021
408
2022
431
2023
484
2024
337
2025
391
2026
45

Keywords

TL drewdevault.com OP HN YC FAQ jacquesmattheij.com FWIW HN.html DR hn page upvotes page hn posts post submission article submissions algorithm

Sample Comments

SquareWheel Jan 12, 2013 View on HN

Front page changes depending on your subs. I've seen multiple stories about it. Also keep in mind that stories can rise a lot faster on HN, so it's not necessarily indicative of disinterest.

uncomputation May 20, 2022 View on HN

Came here to say just this, this ranks higher than anything on the front page currently and is not very old. Usually HN algorithm allows a slow fall for high vote posts like this. This one’s quick descent right off the top 100 seems human-made.

clumsysmurf Jun 2, 2017 View on HN

370 upvotes in 2 hours with 268 comments (as I write this), yet this story is at the very bottom of the front page of HN at #28 (6:15 EST).Does HN systematically penalize / shadow censor certain kinds of content?

mixedbit Oct 24, 2020 View on HN

Why 39 minutes old submission with 148 up-votes is ranked 13th on the HN front page? The first entry at this moment is a 41 minutes old submission with 43 points, the 2nd entry is 59 minutes old with 35 points. Is this because this post is heavily flagged?

laujen Mar 24, 2011 View on HN

This isn't anti-Hacker News. I really love the site and read it every day and try to contribute as much as I can, but I find the dynamic of which posts get elevated very interesting. I assume HN favors long-time users who have posted a lot and as a relative newcomer here my stuff just languishes. I have so desperately wanted to do an experiment where two people, a long time user and a new user, post the same article and see which one bubbles to the top. In other words, I don't think we don't get

tibbydudeza Apr 9, 2021 View on HN

It took only 3 upvotes to land on the main page ???. HN should review this.

debacle Jun 1, 2012 View on HN

Just chill. Hacker News has a complex scoring algorithm. If your stuff is good, it will make it to the top.

arkadiyt Nov 24, 2016 View on HN

This post is decaying off of the front page of HN very quickly (every few refreshes it drops a position or more), despite have more upvotes and being posted more recently. Reddit is a YC company as well. Is this post being artificially pushed down?

JustinGarrison Apr 28, 2023 View on HN

[OP] Can someone explain to me why when I submit my articles to HN [1] they are mostly ignored but when other people submit them they go to front page?Why is there no automatic post merging? It’s really hard to keep track of replies and engage when I’m looking at the original submissionedit: I’m also not sure why this submission has a question mark. This article wasn’t intended to be a question[1] http

gardnr Jun 21, 2023 View on HN

I noticed some of the highly voted posts are not making it to the front page of HN.36412619 is by a new user. I figured that may have had something to do with it.