The post mentions disappointment in viewer conversion. I think it's fairly obvious that this kind of referral is awful for conversion. Viewers are loyal to Hack

The post mentions disappointment in viewer conversion. I think it's fairly obvious that this kind of referral is awful for conversion. Viewers are loyal to Hacker News, not to the site referred. If the post showed a promise for more interesting content in the future, then you may gain some subscribers. But when it's merely a link to something else cool found on the internet, there's little incentive to subscribe. FWIW, I had a #1 HN story that generated maybe 100 new subscribers out of 100,000 pageviews. I was impressed, however, by how many checked out the homepage to see other posts. PS: I find putting ads on a personal blog to be a bad idea. Unless you blog for a living, the tiny revenue you might make from it is not worth the unprofessional appearance of displaying ads.