I think it's not just that "10% of the Top Million Sites are Dead" is a really good title, but that "Fun with DuckDB, curl, and the Majestic Million" is a really awful title. If they had gone with "Checking the top million sites with DuckDB and curl", they probably would have gotten at least some traction here on HN.
Breaking down the original title, I'd read it like:
- "Fun with...": just another on the pile of blog posts exploring some tech but not arriving at any interesting point
- "DuckDB": I've heard of it, not personally used it, there's a million and one DBs out there now so I'm not going to stop and look at everyone without a particular reason
- "curl": curl is boring, everyone knows curl (in the HN crowd at least)
- "and the Majestic Million": no recognition on first read, had to google it
So it's not surprising to me nobody initially clicked on what reads at first glance as "Boring blog about boring and boring", which is really a diservice to the post they actually wrote.
This is a prime example of "marketing" - the title should inform the reader what they'll expect when they read it (even clickbait titles do this!) The "fun with" title doesn't inform anything except parts of the ingredients, which means unless you know what those things are, you're unlikely to read it.
Comments
I think it's not just that "10% of the Top Million Sites are Dead" is a really good title, but that "Fun with DuckDB, curl, and the Majestic Million" is a really awful title. If they had gone with "Checking the top million sites with DuckDB and curl", they probably would have gotten at least some traction here on HN.
Breaking down the original title, I'd read it like:
- "Fun with...": just another on the pile of blog posts exploring some tech but not arriving at any interesting point
- "DuckDB": I've heard of it, not personally used it, there's a million and one DBs out there now so I'm not going to stop and look at everyone without a particular reason
- "curl": curl is boring, everyone knows curl (in the HN crowd at least)
- "and the Majestic Million": no recognition on first read, had to google it
So it's not surprising to me nobody initially clicked on what reads at first glance as "Boring blog about boring and boring", which is really a diservice to the post they actually wrote.
This is a prime example of "marketing" - the title should inform the reader what they'll expect when they read it (even clickbait titles do this!) The "fun with" title doesn't inform anything except parts of the ingredients, which means unless you know what those things are, you're unlikely to read it.
"I call it: 'Billy and the Cloneasaurus...!'"