How Toplist Voting Works
Every game server toplist runs on the same three rules: how often a player may vote, how long a vote counts for, and when the board is wiped. Knowing those three things for the lists your server is on tells you exactly what a promotion campaign has to look like.
The vote window: how often a player can vote
A toplist counts one vote per player per window. The window is usually 12 hours, sometimes 6, occasionally a full day. It is the reason a server with 600 regulars beats a server with 60 regardless of which one is better: the bigger community simply has more windows to fill.
It also sets the ceiling on what your own community can do for you. Once every one of your players has voted for the day, the only way the count rises is more players — or a campaign.
The reset: when the board is wiped
Most of the large lists reset on the first of the month. That single detail decides when a campaign is worth the most: a position built in the first week is one your competitors spend the rest of the month chasing, while votes bought on the 28th are gone three days later.
Lists that rank on a rolling window behave differently. There is no fresh start, so consistency matters more than timing: stop for a week and your older votes quietly fall out of the window while everyone else keeps adding.
What the lists themselves publish
These are the rules each toplist states on its own pages, checked in September 2026. Where a list does not publish its vote window, we have left it out rather than guess.
| Toplist | Vote window | Reset |
|---|---|---|
| XtremeTop100 | Not published | Vote counts reset at the start of every month, so each month is a fresh race for the front page. |
| TopG | Each player can vote for your server every 6 hours. | Votes and views reset on the first day of every month. |
| Arena-Top100 | Each player can vote twice a day, once every 12 hours. | All votes reset on the 1st of the month, which Arena-Top100 does to keep the list competitive. |
| RSPS-List | Each player can vote twice a day, once every 12 hours. | Rolling window |
| Rulocus | Each player can vote for a server once every 12 hours. | Rolling window |
| GameTop | Not published | The charts are rebuilt every month, so a lead built in the first week is what the rest of the month is spent defending. |
Why the top ten takes almost everything
Players do not read a toplist the way an owner does. They open it, scan the first few entries, click one or two and sign up. Everything below that gets a fraction of the attention, and the gap between position three and position thirty is far wider than the difference in their vote counts suggests.
That is the whole argument for promoting a server at all: not to inflate a number, but to be in the part of the page where players are actually looking when they decide where to spend their evening.
Frequently asked questions
How often can a player vote for a server?
It is set by each toplist, not by the server. TopG allows a vote every 6 hours; Arena-Top100, RSPS-List and Rulocus allow one every 12 hours, which is twice a day. A list that allows more votes per player rewards an active community more heavily.
When do toplist votes reset?
Most of the big lists reset at the start of the month — XtremeTop100, TopG and Arena-Top100 all do, and GameTop rebuilds its charts monthly. Some lists rank on a rolling window instead, where your position reflects roughly the last week rather than the calendar month.
Why does the first page matter so much?
Because players behave the same way on every list: they open it, look at the first handful of servers, click one or two and register. A listing on page two is not competing for those players at all, whatever its content looks like.
Why do my votes go up and my rank stay still?
Rank is relative. If the servers above you are collecting votes every day and you collect them in bursts, your total rises while your position does not. Steady daily delivery is what moves a position, which is why campaigns are paced rather than dumped.
Do votes carry over after a reset?
On a list that resets monthly, no: everyone starts level, which is the best moment for a smaller server to take a position it could not take mid-cycle. On a rolling list, old votes fall out of the window as new ones come in.