Advertising policy · Last updated August 24, 2026

Advertising policy

ServerSift may show paid placements to keep the site running. This page explains the rules those placements live under. The most important one: paying ServerSift never changes where a server ranks organically.

Two kinds of placement

• Featured server — a listed, approved server pays for a labelled slot (homepage “Featured servers”, a sponsored search result, a tag page, or a slot on another server’s page).
• Sponsored creative — an advertiser’s own headline, image and link in the same slots.

Always labelled

Every paid placement carries a visible “Sponsored” or “Featured” label next to the content, is visually separated from organic results, and uses rel="sponsored" on outbound links. If you ever see paid content without a label, that is a bug — please report it.

Organic ranking is untouchable

Search results, trending, most active, hidden gems, growing fast, similar servers and category or tag pages are ordered by ServerSift’s own signals. Sponsored placement is rendered beside those lists by a separate system; it cannot add points to a trending score, an activity score or a rating, and it does not count as a successful bump.

Contextual only

Placements are targeted by page context — a category or tag — never by who is looking. We do not build interest profiles of visitors or Discord users and we do not share visitor data with advertisers. Advertisers receive aggregate impression and click counts only.

What can be advertised

Advertised servers and creatives must meet the community guidelines: safe for work, honest, no scams, no malware, no hate. Creative imagery goes through the same moderation as listing imagery and does not run until it is approved. Featured servers must be approved listings in good standing; a suspended listing’s campaigns pause automatically.

Not accepted

• Anything not allowed as a listing.
• Gambling, get-rich-quick schemes, account or token trading, cheats or exploits.
• Political campaigning or issue advocacy.
• Creatives that imitate ServerSift interface elements or organic results.

Independence

ServerSift does not carry default or house advertisements for any other product, and no advertiser has a permanent or privileged position. Any business that wants to advertise here — including businesses related to the people who run ServerSift — is subject to exactly the rules on this page.

Frequency and caps

Campaigns can be capped by impressions, clicks, daily volume and per-session frequency so paid content stays a small part of the experience. At most one paid slot appears in a search result page.