Great "What is {my core keyword}" article from Planetscale

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How to write a "What is {MY CORE KEYWORD}" article that gets to the top of HackerNews? ๐Ÿ‘‡

First of all, almost no one succeeds at that as you write those articles for SEO distribution, not HN distribution.

To get an SEO-first article on HN your content quality bar needs to be super high.

But you can do it.

PlanetScale managed to get their "What is database sharding and how does it work?" on the orange page (kudos to Justin Gage!).

Here is what was interesting about that article:

๐—ฆ๐˜‚๐—ฝ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ ๐˜๐—ผ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜ ๐—ถ๐—ป๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ผ.

โ€ข โŒ No "In today's fast-paced data-driven world enterprises work with data" stuff.
โ€ข โœ… Just  "Learn what database sharding is, how sharding works, and some common sharding frameworks and tools."

๐—›๐—ถ๐˜๐˜๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ธ๐—ฒ๐˜†๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ๐˜€ ๐˜„๐—ต๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฒ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ฟ๐—ฎ๐—ฝ๐—ฝ๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐˜ ๐˜„๐—ถ๐˜๐—ต ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐˜ƒ ๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ.

๐Ÿ’š Speaking peer to peer, not authority-student:

โ€ข "Youโ€™ve probably seen this table before, about how scaling out helps you take this users table, all stored on a single server:"
โ€ข "And turn it into this users table, stored across 2 (or 1,000) servers:"
โ€ข "But thatโ€™s only one type of sharding (row level, or horizontal). "

๐—จ๐˜€๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐—ท๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ด๐—ผ๐—ป ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ ๐˜‚๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฎ๐˜‚๐—ฑ๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐—ฐ๐—ฒ

Things like:

โ€ข "Partitioning has existed โ€“ especially in OLAP setups"
โ€ข "Sifting through HDFS partitions to find the missing snapshot "

๐—”๐—ฐ๐˜๐˜‚๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—ฒ๐˜…๐—ฝ๐—น๐—ฎ๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐—ต๐—ป๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—น๐—น๐˜† ๐—ต๐—ผ๐˜„ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ถ๐—ป๐—ด๐˜€ ๐˜„๐—ผ๐—ฟ๐—ธ

๐Ÿ”ฅ Look at the section "How database sharding works under the hood" with subsections:

โ€ข Sharding schemes and algorithms
โ€ข Deciding on what servers to use
โ€ข Routing your sharded queries to the right databases
โ€ข Planning and executing your migration to a sharded solution

๐ŸŽ ๐—•๐—ผ๐—ป๐˜‚๐˜€: ๐—ฝ๐—น๐˜‚๐—ด ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐˜†๐—ผ๐˜‚๐—ฟ ๐—ฝ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐˜‚๐—ฐ๐˜ ๐—ด๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜๐—น๐˜†

Section "Sharding frameworks and tools" shares open-source tools (every dev, but HN devs in particular like OS projects).

And there as an info box, you have the info that Planetscale comes with one of those OS projects deployed.

Just a beautifully executed piece of content marketing.

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