Date: April 6, 2026
Method: Steel browser session (logged in as nibzard with "showdead" enabled), JS-based DOM extraction
Scope: 23 pages of /newest (~690 stories), 100 domains investigated via /from?site=
Posts marked [dead] have been killed by HN moderators or the anti-spam algorithm. They are invisible to logged-out users and to users who haven't enabled "showdead" in their profile. They are NOT the same as HTTP 404s — the linked URLs may still work fine. It's a content moderation signal.
| Metric | Count |
|---|---|
| Dead posts collected from /newest | 194 |
| Unique dead submitters | 185 |
| Unique dead domains | 137 |
| Domains investigated via snowball | 100 |
| Total posts across investigated domains | 1,013 |
| Dead posts across investigated domains | 385 |
| Dead rate across investigated domains | 38% |
| Dead post density on /newest | ~8 per 30 posts (27%) |
Every single submission from these domains was killed by HN mods. These are SEO spam farms or banned domains.
One account responsible for all posts. Username often embedded in domain.
| Domain | Posts | User |
|---|---|---|
| nickakre.github.io | 30 | nickakre |
| samuelgabrielsg.substack.com | 30 | samuelgabrielsg |
| boldsign.com | 30 | Vijay_Amalan98 |
| socialrails.com | 30 | henk2 |
| mindfulpresenter.com | 30 | mauricedecastro |
| fallingdowncat.com | 4 | FallingDownCat |
| darkvps.pro | 2 | darkvps |
| freefincalc.net | 2 | mumu04 |
| kvch.me | 1 | kvch_ |
| queryflux.dev | 1 | jonisar13 |
| centrake.biz | 1 | CentRake |
Pattern: User creates domain, submits 1–30 posts, all get killed. Account-name-to-domain correlation makes ban evasion harder — these users create accounts specifically for the domain.
| Domain | Posts | Users | Pattern |
|---|---|---|---|
| openclaw.ai | 30 | 30 | 30 unique users, 1 post each. Possible astroturf — each account posts once. |
| roborhythms.com | 21 | 2 | 2 accounts (German-Monk: 15, AIOperator2026: 6). SEO content farm. |
| coderlegion.com | 17 | 7 | 7 users, matheusricardo leads with 5 posts. |
openclaw.ai note: 30 users with 30 posts — each account posts exactly once. This could be organic enthusiasm (users genuinely excited about a product) or coordinated astroturfing. The username diversity (some with numbers, some without) doesn't clearly indicate either way.
roborhythms.com note: Classic SEO content farm. Two accounts posting AI-related clickbait articles from Nov 2023 to present. All 1 point, all dead.
These have both dead and alive submissions. The dead posts are typically from spam accounts, while legitimate content survives.
| Domain | Dead | Alive | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| linkedin.com | 29 | 1 | 97% dead — nearly all LinkedIn submissions are spam |
| dev.to | 29 | 1 | 97% dead — dev.to's low barrier attracts spam content |
| apps.apple.com | 19 | 11 | Self-promotion of app store listings |
| repuai.live | 13 | 4 | bioneisme: 13 dead posts (single-user spam) |
| kubegraf.io | 8 | 3 | Prajol: 7 dead posts (self-promotion) |
| djr.ai | 4 | 3 | discoinferno: 4 dead posts |
| braingem.ai | 3 | 1 | braingemai: 3 dead posts |
| firebaseio.com | 2 | 1 | Test/gibberish posts |
Legitimate domains where a few posts were killed — typically single bad submissions from otherwise okay users. Includes: zenstack.dev, indiehackers.com, youtube.com, cryptopolitan.com, etc.
These domains appeared in the /newest dead list but when checked via /from?site=, showed no dead posts on the first page. This means the specific post was killed, but the domain itself is not flagged. Includes: reddit.com, wikipedia.org, amazon.com, archive.is, etc.
| Theme | Estimated % | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| AI/LLM products & news | ~40% | "Anthropic Just Dropped $400M", "ZenLLM – AI Cost Observability" |
| Tutorial/How-to spam | ~23% | "AOL email not working today on iPhone", "How AI changed the way I review code" |
| Self-promotion (Show HN) | ~15% | "Show HN: SocialRails", "Show HN: Free AI Business Name Generator" |
| Test/Gibberish | ~5% | "Hello", "Hackers Acting Nowadays" |
| Listicle/Comparison | ~5% | "AI roleplay generators vs. chat companions" |
| Other | ~12% | Various off-topic or low-quality submissions |
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Self-promotion is the #1 dead-post pattern. 11 of 14 completely-dead domains are single-user operations submitting their own content repeatedly.
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LinkedIn and dev.to are spam magnets. 97% of submissions to these platforms are killed. Their low barrier to publishing makes them attractive for SEO-driven content.
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Username-domain correlation reveals intent. When the account name matches the domain (nickakre → nickakre.github.io, braingemai → braingem.ai), it's almost always self-promotion spam.
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~27% of /newest is dead. Roughly 8 out of every 30 posts on the newest page are already killed. This suggests active and effective moderation of incoming submissions.
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Coordinated campaigns exist but are rare. Only 3 domains show multi-account coordination patterns. The most suspicious is openclaw.ai with 30 unique accounts each posting once.
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AI/LLM topics dominate spam. ~40% of dead posts are AI-related, reflecting both the popularity of the topic and the incentive for SEO spammers to target high-demand keywords.
/tmp/hn_newest_dead.json— 194 dead posts from /newest/tmp/hn_domain_snowball.json— Full domain investigation results (100 domains)