No, as fun as I'm sure that glib comment was to write, he's not making that up. HN does keep a low Google footprint. I don't know how much it has to do with keeping the community small, but I appreciate that comments I write here don't immediately get nailed to the front of a Google SERP.

Here's Paul Graham, briefly, on the subject:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5808982#up_5808990

thanks for providing the link. couldn't find it myself, but this was the statement I had in the back of my mind.