# How ranking works

> Votes decide. Money doesn't.

## Launch weeks

Launches happen in weeks, Monday 00:00 to Sunday 23:59 UTC. Every listing belongs to exactly one week and competes only within it.

After its week, a startup stays in the directory for good, in its categories and in search.

## When you go live

Free listings go live on the first Monday after you submit. There's no queue and no limit per week.

A Boost puts your listing live as soon as you pay, and it joins the current week. It doesn't give you more votes or a higher rank, and a late-week Boost has fewer days of voting left.

## Ranking

Ranking is the number of upvotes, nothing else. Ties go to whoever submitted first.

Anyone with an account can vote once per startup while its week is live. You can't vote for your own startup. Votes close when the week ends, so final rankings don't change.

Buying or trading votes is against the rules. We remove votes and listings that break them.

## Links

The top 3 of each week get a followed link from their listing.

Paid listings get a link marked rel="sponsored". Google requires paid links to be labelled, so this keeps your site and ours on the right side of its rules.

All other links are nofollow. You don't need to install a badge on your site to be listed.

## Review

Every submission is checked automatically: only the name, tagline and description are read. It catches spam, scams and anything against the listing rules.

If your listing is rejected and you think it shouldn't be, reply to the email and a person will look at it.

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