> Getting a #1 ranking is INCREDIBLY difficult and generates millions of views.
I might just have lucked out, but my random framework made it to #1 (based on http://hnrankings.info/26722051/, didn't know about that site until dang linked it now). HN does not generate millions of visitors/views, even including all the random bots that start scraping your site. I base that on log analysis without any CDN or similar, so pretty sure I'm not underestimating. There might be a large secondary effect based on things shared on other social networks that posts like mine do not get, but just getting to #1 on HN is not millions of views in my experience.
Yeah I had this feeling as well. I've also gotten a #1 ranking on HN, and held the top 5 most of the day. Friends were messaging me about it, and it did result in decent traffic but hardly MILLIONS.
I might just have lucked out, but my random framework made it to #1 (based on http://hnrankings.info/26722051/, didn't know about that site until dang linked it now). HN does not generate millions of visitors/views, even including all the random bots that start scraping your site. I base that on log analysis without any CDN or similar, so pretty sure I'm not underestimating. There might be a large secondary effect based on things shared on other social networks that posts like mine do not get, but just getting to #1 on HN is not millions of views in my experience.