As we know, a question with an attached bounty will most of the time get a visibility boost, mainly for two reasons:

1. Users will be attracted by the potential reputation gain and will check the question to see if they are able to provide an answer,
2. Questions with an active bounty get their own tab - so anyone can quickly access them and see what is available at the moment

But is this "all"? Let me explain a little better. Here on Meta Stack Exchange, we get a ton of feature-request and bug questions, and it is not rare at all for those questions to not get an official staff answer (especially for feature requests). Often, someone offer a bounty on one of those questions to increase its visibility.

This made me wonder. I admit that I almost ignore the "featured question" tab here on this site, because I know that some questions may only get an actual answer from a staff member. Thinking about this, I was asking myself if giving a bounty has any other effect on top of getting a question "featured". For example, do bounties have any weight on the likelihood of a question to get in the "hot network questions" list? Is there some other hidden feature that will make the question more visible?

PS: notice - I am not suggesting any change in the current way bounties work, I just want to know if there is something I am missing to see in the current rules.

As we know, a question with an attached bounty will most of the time get a visibility boost, mainly for two reasons:

1. Users will be attracted by the potential reputation gain and will check the question to see if they are able to provide an answer,
2. Questions with an active bounty get their own tab - so anyone can quickly access them and see what is available at the moment

But is this "all"? Let me explain a little better. 
Here on Meta Stack Exchange, we get a ton of feature-request and bug questions, and it is not rare at all for those questions to not get an official staff answer (especially for feature requests). Often, someone offer a bounty on one of those questions to increase its visibility.

This made me wonder. I admit that I almost ignore the "featured question" tab here on this site, because I know that some questions may only get an actual answer from a staff member. Thinking about this, I was asking myself if giving a bounty has any other effect on top of getting a question "featured". For example, do bounties have any weight on the likelihood of a question to get in the "hot network questions" list? Is there some other hidden feature that will make the question more visible?

PS: notice - I am not suggesting any change in the current way bounties work, I just want to know if there is something I am missing to see in the current rules.

As we know, a question with an attached bounty will most of the time get a visibility boost, mainly for two reasons:

1. users will be attracted by the potential reputation gain and will check the question to see if they are able to provide an answer,
2. Questions with an active bounty get their own page - so anyone can quickly access them and see what is available at the moment

But is this "all"? Let' me explain a little better. Here on SE meta we get a ton of feature-request and bug question, and it is not rare at all for those questions to not get an official staff answer (especially for feature requests). Often, someone offer a bounty on one of those questions to increase its visibility.

This made me wondering. I admit that I almost ignore the "featured question" tab here on this site, because I know that some questions may only get an actual answer from a staff member. Thinking about this, I was asking myself if giving a bounty has any other effect on top of getting a question "featured". For example, do bounties have any weight on the likelihood of a question to get in the "hot network questions" list? Is there some other hidden feature that will make the question more visible?

PS: notice - I am not suggesting any change in the current way bounties work, I just want to know if there is something I am missing to see in the current rules.

As we know, a question with an attached bounty will most of the time get a visibility boost, mainly for two reasons:

1. Users will be attracted by the potential reputation gain and will check the question to see if they are able to provide an answer,
2. Questions with an active bounty get their own tab - so anyone can quickly access them and see what is available at the moment

But is this "all"? Let me explain a little better. Here on Meta Stack Exchange, we get a ton of feature-request and bug questions, and it is not rare at all for those questions to not get an official staff answer (especially for feature requests). Often, someone offer a bounty on one of those questions to increase its visibility.

This made me wonder. I admit that I almost ignore the "featured question" tab here on this site, because I know that some questions may only get an actual answer from a staff member. Thinking about this, I was asking myself if giving a bounty has any other effect on top of getting a question "featured". For example, do bounties have any weight on the likelihood of a question to get in the "hot network questions" list? Is there some other hidden feature that will make the question more visible?

PS: notice - I am not suggesting any change in the current way bounties work, I just want to know if there is something I am missing to see in the current rules.