Ask HN: Why does my online dating blog not show up on HN? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why does my online dating blog not show up on HN?

2 pointskadavy15 comments

I've submitted things from it before, only to find that later they display only to me, not to other users. See? Nothing here, right? http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1305427

The site is at http://onlinedatingmatchmaker.com and it has quality content on it. Is there a filter that bans sites with "onlinedating" in the URL?

View on HN

For those who insinuate that the posts are getting flagged, here is data from my Analytics for the past two months, for visitors referred from Hacker News (from random links in comments on other submissions):

Visits: 109

Pages/Visit: 3.18

Bounce Rate: 40.37%

Average Time on Site: 3:48

HN readers seem to like the site just fine. HN appears to have a filter that makes articles from this site dead upon submission.

There's something there, edit your profile and change showdead to yes.

It probably got flagged as spam due to the spammy name of the URL.

That's what I was thinking...so HN just completely blocks URLs based upon keywords in them? I wonder what other quality content gets blocked? What if iwillteachyoutoberich.com were blocked?

I don't know if they do keyword blocking, but there is a lot of manual spam filtering via the 'flag' link.

Usually I check the profile of the user who submitted it to see how long they've been active and what their karma is before hitting 'flag'.

They must. Every time I've submitted something from this site, it has instantaneously not been visible. Just did a test, and had the same result.

It's a shame because there are some articles that I think other HN readers would enjoy - not to mention the stuff I have in the pipeline.

well outside of a ask hn to review your site.. i would consider this spam. It depends on how you are submitting it.

Additionally, I am disappointed that HNers have given upvotes to that comment. If you would actually look at the content of the article, you would find that it is well-researched, quality writing. This article was covered by several popular sites, including Jezebel.com.

Okay well, I bothered to ask google about the article mentioned, it's at:

http://www.onlinedatingmatchmaker.com/lie-online-dating-prof...

if anyone cares.

I don't know what the reason it gets deaded is, but it is really heavy with the online site promotion at the top, and I can see how someone would think it would be linkbait.

Compare that to the okcupid blog:

http://blog.okcupid.com/

Which conveys the impression it is a proper blog, rather than a massive advertising exercise.

I think you're really splitting hairs, frossie.

The page doesn't have a single ad on it. The online site promotion at the top simply gives a run-down of what content can be found on the site, which is the whole point of a header.

The OKcupid blog also has links to other posts on it, and actually has a widget full of gigantic social media widgets that follows you as you scroll down the page. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I wouldn't say the comparison was night and day.

Regardless, links from this site are automatically dead upon submission. HNs filters are too strict.

It has an in-your-face give-me-your-email-before-you-read-further lightbox thing, which as well as being annoying, reeks of shadiness. I might have flagged it, if I'd seen it before it got deaded.

Did that show up right away? It should have a 20 second delay on it. Again, not any different from iwillteachyoutoberich.com, which (deservingly) shows up on HN from time to time.

It showed up while I was reading. I wasn't counting seconds.

Why would you consider it spam? Have you read the articles on the site?

yes.. 1st. about coupons.. ( nothing to do with entrepreneurship, technical, programming.. etc) , 2nd. some good statistical analysis here ( you should of just submitted direct link to here) 3rd. article about responding to a wink( nothing to do with entrepreneurship, technical, programming.. etc) , 4. oped piece about about not talking about youself 5. another ad for signing in to match.com

so out of the first 5 blog articles i visited only one of them would be considered good content for this site. spam

The news item I'm referring to does link directly to the statistical analysis post you're describing.

I don't know why we're even bothering discussing whether people would mark this site as spam (opinions on this thread seem to be tainted by the just-world fallacy). The articles on this site are frequently upvoted on HN when referenced, and the data from my other comment on this thread shows that HN readers are interested in its content. The bottom-line is: no matter what the content of an article on this site is, it will automatically be dead because of an overly-zealous filter.

Is there anything that can be done about that?

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