The Hacker Noon audience prides itself on its tech-savviness. They love Hacker Noon because each of our articles adds to their knowledge. The Hacker Noon Editorial Team, on its part, weeds out stories from the publication pipeline that fall into one or more of the following categories
Hate
Technology doesn’t discriminate, neither should you. Valid criticisms and rebuttals are as far as the rope goes. See our Code of Conduct here.
Paid Promotion
Our writers regularly get approached by companies looking to get featured in Hacker Noon. The best response is to point them to sponsor.hackernoon.com. But, if you’re looking to sharpen your journalistic credentials and decide to publish on their behalf, keep in mind the following guidelines
- Disclose vested interest via
Story setting - No logo in Featured Image
- No Hyperlinks in Title, Subtitle
- No Hyperlinks to the company website
- Equal space to be provided to at least 2 competitors
- At least one quote from a Founder (with link to their LinkedIn profile)
- Clear disclosure of your vested interest in italics at the bottom
If you’re the Founder/co-Founder/C-level officer of the company and it is clearly stated in your bio with a link to your website, your articles promoting your product/service shall not be considered as paid promotions.
Not the whole story
Hacker Noon only publishes full stories. However, you are free to publish multi-part series and indicate so in your stories
Poor grammar or structure. Basically, low quality.
It sucks when readers get turned off for things that aren’t content related. Through our partnership with Grammarly, you can fix most of these. Generally, we tolerate certain level of grammar mistakes but not a lot.
Contrary to what our school teachers taught us, the first paragraph should not be the introduction. The first paragraph is where you provide the gist of your entire article. Think of it as an Abstract/Executive Summary of a research report.
Break the key talking points into several paragraphs to enhance readability. In blogging and SEO, shorter paragraphs and lists get preference over 12 inch thick paragraphs. Learn more about best SEO practice here.
Follow these guidelines to improve your story quality :
- Proofread for Grammar
- If quoting a person, use block quotes
- If quoting a source, link back to the actual source. For example, do not link to hackernoon.com but link to the relevant stories published on hackernoon.com
- Do not use UTM links
- Link back to at least 4 stories on Hackernoon (Internal Linking)
- Link to at least 3 stories on other High-Authority websites such as Forbes, NYTimes, TechCrunch, coindesk, etc
- Add a meta description 120-140 characters long
Plagiarized Content
If you must copy-paste content blocks from other writers’ published/unpublished works, do the right thing and hyperlink the original source. For images, add the source name in the caption area. Our Editors perform deep checks for plagiarism on every submitted article and implement the following 3-strike policy:
- First Infraction -- Article will be deleted and notification sent to the violator
- Second Infraction -- Article will be deleted and the violating account will be suspended until the writer gives a written undertaking to never repeat it
- Third Infraction -- Violating Account will be permanently deleted and Blacklisted
Not at all tech-related
With a few exceptions (such as stories about covid), we require stories to be at least tangentially related to tech. Since tech infiltrates every single aspect of life, we do require you to connect the main thesis of your story back to tech somehow.
Backlinks Misuse
We are very stringent on backlinks. Use them sparinglingly. Read our Guide on Backlinks here.
Low-Quality Blockchain-related Bounty Articles
While Hacker Noon supports decentralization and the innovations it attempts to create, we also understand the flurry of sub-standard articles that the industry generates in the name of bounty campaigns. To give bounty hunters a fair chance, we have the following guidelines for such articles:
- No Backlinks Allowed unless pointing to the rationale behind an assertion made in the article
- Article length should be at least 1000 words after editorial review
- No mention of Project in the Headline
- Mention in an italicized Disclaimer at the end that you expect to profit from the success of the project
If you’re a team member of the company and it is clearly stated in your bio with a link to your website, your articles promoting your product shall not be considered as bounty articles.
“How to hire a developer in another country / for your business” articles, and Top X Software Development/Mobile App Development Companies in X Country” articles
We understand that Google algorithms give much love to Top X articles. However, the race for better SEO, almost always, comes at a cost of content quality. If you’re going to create a top X article, please make sure that it abides by the following guidelines:
- Provide the metrics used to create the ranking
- Provide at least 2 examples of their past work (with links)
Unattributed Previously Published Content
If you’re re-publishing your previously published work, do add the URL to the First Seen At field in Story Setting. Without this, the unattributed previously published content will be treated as plagiarized content and be acted upon as described above.
See our Republishing Guideline here.
Questionable Headlines
As the most visible segment of your article, the headline must be worded in a way to make it eye-catching. According to SEO experts, adding a number in the title tag gives it a big boost in the search rankings. This is the reason why '10 Killer Reasons to Move to Silicon Valley' or 'Why I Moved to Silicon Valley in 2010' rank higher than other competing articles. Following these guidelines for headline:
- Do not put links in the Headline
- Do not make the Headline misleading
- Do not plagiarize an existing Headline
- Keep the Headline length within 60-100 characters (16-18 words) for optimum visibility
You can also read David's guide The art of headline writing for more instruction.
No images at all
If a story has excellent text and needs no images, we obviously won't reject it. However, that is rare. They say that a picture is worth a thousand words and the adage stands true in the world of blogging. It has been seen that blogs with a lot of relevant pictures get more clicks than the ones without. Imagine if you're looking for a tutorial, which one would you find more helpful, the one with screenshots or the one without? Following these guidelines for images:
- Always add a high-quality relevant image right below the Headline to act as the Featured Image
- Always provide the source of the image used in the following format - (Source: Name)
- Apply alt-texts that help searchability instead of adding links
- Do not use the image as a backlink source to other websites
Learn how to upload images here.
No conclusion or weak conclusion
As the interest of the reader waxes and wanes during the course of the article, a crisp conclusion delivered in 4-5 lines helps to leave a lasting impression on the reader. Provide your insights and a clear Call To Action. If the value provided to the reader is great, the likelihood of them engaging with your CTA improves a thousandfold.
Follow these guidelines to write effective conclusions:
- Do not provide a bio at the end
- Do not add a company profile/bio/logo at the end
- Do add a link to your Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media channels. You already have your social links under your profile to do that.
Clearly a brand as author story and not story by an individual
A lot of Hackernoon writers choose to publish as brands instead of as individuals. Since brands have business-oriented goals and are prone to creating content that includes sales pitches, Hackernoon has an additional set of guidelines for brands-as-author.
For articles authored by brands-as-an-author, all of the above guidelines must be adhered to and the following brand specific guidelines must be followed as well :
- The profile, marked as brand, will be that of a company and not of an individual
- Brand profile bio must have brand website mentioned
- Verify brand domain email
- All links to the brand website and social media shall be provided at the bottom, below the conclusion
- Featured Image should not have brand depictions
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