Our lessons learned regarding the Producthunt algorithm

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9563458

by Mengue • 11 years ago

1 1 11 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Hi there,

On May 6, our platform StartupCVs was surprisingly featured on Product. At the end of the day, we had roughly ~380 upvotes and were ranked 2nd that day by number of upvotes. However, we obviously made many mistakes - and I want to share our learnings. The day started off very well - we were at the top of the list and gathered great traction - but during the day, our ranking (not by number of upvotes, but placing in the list) slipped and we could not regain the first place. Obviously, being listed at the top during (PST) daytime would have had a positive impact.

Our main takeaways:

1) No direct-links! Do not post direct-links - ideally refrain from sharing We shared the link with our family and friends/networks (as probably all do) - and we and supposedly some of our friends shared the direct-link. Apparently, when you do that, the ranking algorithm "punishes" you and your ranking slips (while you may still gather many upvotes). Now we know that Producthunt prefers and incentivizes "organic traffic and decision-making". Fair enough! Also fyi: please do not overestimate your own impact. Producthunt reaches an incredible audience. In our case, we used Productfriends.com to engage with our upvoters - we quickly realized that we barely knew any of our upvoters. Regarding Productfriends: this webapp helps you understand who and how influential your upvoters are.

Mengue• 11 years ago

2) Time-zone differences: recent posts slightly preferred Producthunt tries to be just and account for the time-zone differences. So, when later in the (German) day many US companies were listed, their delay in listing was compensated by the algorithm. Recently ranked companies were ranked higher - especially those which - during the same time periods - had a higher "traction" (measured in "more upvotes per last xyz minutes", we guess). To "account" for this: if you still want to share the link with your family and friends/network, do it later in the day, if you are Germany-based (again: a) not recommended, b) impact likely overestimated).

3) Community engagement: reply to comments and provide benefits to users We suggest that your engagement with the community (see comment fields) also plays a role. But not everyone is allowed to contribute/reply. When featured however, please ask the admin/OP to provide access. Also: provide "goodies" to producthunt-generated leads (especially if you know up-front that you will be featured and have enough time to prepare).

4) As soon as you are featured, make sure that you write a FIRST comment, telling more about your product/service. The comments are chronological, so if someone else writes a comment before you, people won't notice your makers comment that easily. My advice: Either ask Producthunt immediately for a makers account and write the comment OR ask someone who can contribute to write the comment instead. Definitely make sure that the first comment is yours introducing the product.

5) Additionally to the goodies mentioned in 3), you can also generate a separate landing page for all producthunters. This will help you track the traffic much more efficiently -> you have no loss in data by viewthrough conversions for example. This point is however not much in your control, as often other hunters submit your product (as it was in our case).

6.) If you do not want other hunters to submit you, you can add a sticker or note to your homepage that says: Please do not hunt. Most producthunters respect this.

Hope this post helps anyone who is featured off-guard as well ;)

Disclaimer: we do not(!) claim to have a true knowledge or understanding on how the algorithm works - or on how strong each of the mentioned factors are weighted. Please feel free to correct or amend the information in our comments or write me a message via LinkedIn, we´re willing to learn from your experience as well.