What goes into the Quality Score
Each signal is turned into a number between 0 and 1, then weighted. These are the weights in use right now:
| Votes20% | Votes from signed-in members, weighted by voter trust and fading with a 48-hour half-life. The weight of votes is capped so a vote campaign cannot buy the top spot. |
|---|
| Premium18% | Plus counts half and Pro counts in full. This signal can never be more than 20% of the ranking weight, so a clearly better free server still ranks higher. |
|---|
| Activity17% | Human messages per active member per day over 7 days, log-scaled so big servers do not win by size alone. Our bot counts messages without reading them, ignores bots and webhooks, and caps how many messages one person can add per minute. |
|---|
| Retention13% | Joins compared with leaves over 30 days. Servers that keep the people they attract score higher. |
|---|
| Online ratio10% | The share of members online, averaged over 7 days and adjusted for size: small servers are pulled towards a typical ratio until they have enough members, so 8 of 10 online cannot outrank a large, busy server. Discord’s own presence counts are used, polled hourly. |
|---|
| Reviews6% | Verified member reviews (the bot confirms the reviewer is in the server), as a Bayesian average so one five-star review does not outrank fifty four-star ones. A listing with no reviews starts at 50%, so a good review raises the score and a bad one lowers it. |
|---|
| Staff rating6% | A 0–5 rating from the reviewer who checked the server. Unrated servers count as neutral. |
|---|
| Bumps5% | Bumps from inside the server with diminishing returns: the second bump in a window counts half, the third a third, and so on. Capped. |
|---|
| Freshness5% | Recently updated listings and upcoming scheduled events. |
|---|
Votes can never be more than 20% of the score and bumps no more than 8%, whatever the settings say.
Page views and clicks are not counted. Anyone can produce them for free, so they would reward whoever fakes the most traffic. The score uses only what our bot measures inside a server, votes from verified accounts, and reviews from real members.
How Discord bots are ranked
A bot is not a community, so activity, online ratio, retention and bumps do not apply to it and are left out of its score. Their weight goes to user reviews, freshness and the staff rating. Votes and Premium weigh the same for a bot as for a server.
| Reviews21.9% | Reviews written on the bot’s page by signed-in users with an established Discord account, as a Bayesian average so one five-star review does not outrank fifty four-star ones. |
|---|
| Staff rating21.9% | A 0–5 rating from the reviewer who checked the bot. Unrated bots count as neutral. |
|---|
| Votes20% | Votes from signed-in members, weighted by voter trust and fading with a 48-hour half-life. The weight of votes is capped so a vote campaign cannot buy the top spot. |
|---|
| Freshness18.2% | How recently the listing was updated. |
|---|
| Premium18% | Plus counts half and Pro counts in full. This signal can never be more than 20% of the ranking weight, so a clearly better free server still ranks higher. |
|---|
A bot’s server count is not part of its score. Each bot reports that number itself, so it could be inflated. It is shown on the listing and can be used to sort, but it never moves a bot up the default ranking. Clicks on Invite are not counted either, because a click costs nothing to fake.
Penalties
- Upheld reports reduce the score (down to 30% of it at most).
- Hours with a broken invite in the last 30 days.
- Confirmed manipulation halves the score for 30 days.
Fair voting
You need a Discord account at least 30 days old and a quick verification check. Each account and each network can vote for one server every 24 hours and one bot every 12 hours, on any listing. We store a salted hash of your network, never your IP address. VPN and hosting networks may be blocked.
No sponsored listings
DiscoListing has no sponsors. We do not sell sponsored listings, banner ads, featured slots or auctioned top positions, and no listing can pay to skip review. Every server and bot is ranked by the same published Quality Score, so a small community has the same chance to climb as a large one. Staff pins are editorial picks, always labelled “Pinned”, and are never sold. The one paid factor is Premium, explained below with its exact weight.
Premium and priority tags
Premium is a capped signal in the Quality Score. Plus counts half of it and Pro counts all of it, and it can never be more than 20% of the ranking weight (currently 18.0%). Directory pages sort by exactly the score shown on each card. Premium cards carry a visible PLUS or PRO badge, and premium lets owners choose more priority tags: 2 on the free plan, 3 on Plus and 4 on Pro. On the page of a priority tag, a listing’s sort score is its Quality Score × 1.15 (+15%), and the placement is marked “Priority”. See Premium.
Questions
Does DiscoListing have sponsored listings or ads?
No. DiscoListing does not sell sponsored listings, banner ads, featured slots or auctioned top positions, so every server and bot gets a fair chance to rank higher. All listings are ordered by the same published Quality Score. The only paid factor is Premium, a disclosed signal capped at 20% of ranking weight and marked with a visible badge. Staff pins are editorial picks labelled "Pinned" and are never sold.
Can I pay to rank higher on DiscoListing?
Premium is one disclosed signal in the Quality Score: Plus counts half and Pro counts in full, and it can never be more than 20% of the ranking weight. The directory sorts by exactly the score shown on each card, so a much better free listing still ranks higher. Premium also adds a PLUS or PRO card finish and badge, and more priority tags.
Why did my score drop?
Scores follow the last 7 to 30 days of activity, so quiet weeks lower them. Upheld reports, a broken invite and confirmed manipulation also apply penalties.
What happens with sudden vote spikes?
Unusual spikes in votes, messages or joins are flagged for staff review; the score is not paused automatically, so new servers are not punished by false alarms. Confirmed manipulation is penalised and the spike votes are removed.