Perhaps.
How much SEO happens here on HN? How much do they spend to tell everyone about it? I'm guessing: Not much; maybe zero.
But people come here, anyway.
(That doesn't mean that it's capable of independently sustaining itself, but people do show up.)
> How much do they spend to tell everyone about it?
You could see every YCombinator investment as a kind of sidelong marketing for HN.