Number 2 in my search after "thehackernews.com" The exact url of the result is ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html‎

SafeSearch off.

Here is the complete url of the search: https://www.google.com/search?q=hacker+news&oq=hacker+new

I would expect to see news.ycombinator.com in the result.

It shows at #2 for me. I think it might not do as well as TheHackerNews because (a) PG doesn't worry about SEO and (b) not much in the way of backlinks.

BTW -- No one is buying ads on that link either. Might be fun to just do a minimal buy.

I noticed this about a week ago. I don't keep bookmarks on my work computer and I always (unfortunately) use Google to find Hacker News. Since about a week or so back, it's not the first search result.

Typing news.ycombinator.com is too hard? Or you just prefer to keep google updated about your daily browsing habits?

It's number 6 on Google UK - the result is https://news.ycombinator.com/ask

See: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5955043