How the WOW-TOPS.SU rating works

WOW-TOPS.SU is a World of Warcraft server rating where the online counter is measured, not copied. Here is exactly how it works.

1. Position in the list

Servers are ordered by votes collected over the last month. One vote per server every 12 hours, per account or guest. While a server has no votes yet, the list falls back to our own online measurement and then to import order.

2. Where the online number comes from

• Owner module — the server installs our wowtops-status.php, which reports the real number from its own character database. This is the most accurate source.
• Server API — we poll the JSON endpoint the server already exposes.
• Website counter — we read the number published on the server site (including numbers rendered by JavaScript: a headless browser finds the endpoint once, and afterwards we poll it cheaply).
• Game port — a TCP check that tells whether the realm is reachable at all (no number).

Numbers marked with “≈” come from an external top list and are shown as an estimate only, until the owner connects monitoring.

3. Anti-fraud

Every vote is checked against IP subnet, cookie, browser fingerprint, request origin and rate limits. Suspicious traffic is discarded automatically and repeated abuse results in a temporary subnet block.

4. Server owners

An owner can claim a server by proving ownership (DNS TXT record, a file on the website, or a meta tag). After verification the card, realms, banner and monitoring settings become editable, and the server gets a green “Verified” mark.