How to add your server

Listing is free and takes about two minutes. You need an account, and the server needs to be running at the moment you submit it.

Before you start

The public address players use, and the port if it is not the default. Use the hostname you advertise rather than the raw IP behind it — if you ever change host, the listing keeps working.
The edition. Java and Bedrock are pinged completely differently, and getting this wrong is the most common reason a healthy server sits there showing offline.
A one-line tagline, up to 160 characters. This is what appears in every listing, in search results and in the ranked list, so it does more work than anything else on the form. Say what the server is, not that it is the best.
Up to five gamemode tags. Pick the ones that genuinely describe the server. Tagging everything actively hurts you: somebody filtering for survival who lands on a minigame lobby leaves immediately and does not come back.
Optionally a banner (cropped to 960×340) and an icon (cropped to 128×128). Both are optional. A listing without them ranks exactly the same, it just looks plainer.

The ping check

When you press submit we open a connection to the address and ask the server for its status, exactly as the in-game server list does. If it does not answer, the submission is refused and the error is shown to you rather than swallowed.

This is the single biggest reason a submission fails. In rough order of frequency the cause is a typo in the address, the wrong edition, a host that filters status queries from outside, a Bedrock address submitted without its port, or a server that simply is not running yet. Why a server shows as offline goes through each of them.

Review

Accepted submissions go into a queue as pending. A moderator reads the listing, usually within a day, and either publishes it or writes back explaining what needs changing. The things that come back are almost always the same: a tagline that is a wall of keywords, tags that do not match the server, a banner using artwork that is not yours, or a duplicate of a listing that already exists. You can see the status and edit anything at your servers while you wait.

After it goes live

The address is pinged on a short cycle from then on. Player counts, version, MOTD and the online indicator all update by themselves, so there is nothing to keep in sync by hand and no reason to resubmit. The listing's vote link is generated for you — put it behind /vote in-game and wire up Votifier if you want to hand out rewards. How voting works explains the mechanics and the rules.

Getting the listing to climb

Ask your existing players to vote. The default ranking is votes this month, so a server with thirty committed players can outrank one with three hundred indifferent ones.
Keep the tagline current. A listing advertising last season's map converts badly.
Fix the tags when the server changes. If you dropped factions and added towny, change it.
Encourage honest reviews and answer the critical ones in public. A server that responds well to a two-star review reads better than one with nothing but five-star reviews.
Do not buy votes or run them through proxies. We remove the votes when we find them and the listing after that; the terms spell it out.

If you have not built the server yet

Running your own server covers the software, the hardware, the settings that matter and the plugins worth having on day one. Come back here once it is answering on a public address.

Ready? Add your server.