Toplist

A toplist is a ranked collection of external website hyperlinks. The websites may be ranked in a number of different ways, but are typically ranked by some popularity measure, for example, the number of times that the toplist was used to connect to that external website. An external website owner registers a website with the toplist, and as websites achieve a higher toplist ranking, the websites generally receive more visitors from that toplist.

Overview

Typically, toplists gather and rank in one place other websites which deal with a similar topic, for example, [http://www.buzzcomix.net webcomic strips] or [http://anitopsites.top-site-list.com/ anime websites] . Typically, visitors to a toplist will see toplist member websites in a charted and ranked format. The higher-ranked member websites which are shown on the top of the toplist page have a higher chance to gain visitors as toplist visitors typically click onto the higher-ranked websites first. Alternatively, a toplist visitor may scroll down the toplist to sample member websites which are less popular, but which may appeal to that visitor.

In general, the owner of an external website can register that website free in a toplist. In return, the member website owners reciprocally agree to include a link on their website back to the toplist. In this manner, visitors to a member website may navigate from that website to a toplist, which will contain additional related websites on the same or similar topic.

Toplist owners typically sell advertising space adjacent to the toplist itself. This advertising can either be sold directly by the toplist owner to advertisers (for example, to websites contained on the toplist itself), or may sell independent advertising space, such as through Google Ads.

Toplists are in most cases database-driven, most commonly through use of a PHP database. Depending on the toplist hosting environment, number of visitor visits, registered members, and other factors, toplists can be very server resource-straining.