We've been working hard to make MCRank the best Minecraft server listing platform, and this release brings our biggest collection of improvements yet. From brand new features to under-the-hood optimizations, here's everything that's changed.
📝 Blog System & Content Platform
We're excited to introduce the MCRank Blog — a full-featured content platform built directly into our site. Server owners and our team can now share news, tutorials, and announcements with the community.
What's Included:
- Rich Markdown Editor with live preview and split-view modes
- Featured images to make blog posts pop on the platform
- Categories including Release Notes, Minecraft Tips, Server Spotlights, and Promotions
- Tag support for better content organization
- View tracking with both total and unique visitor counts
- Social sharing buttons for X, Facebook, and LinkedIn
- Related posts suggestions based on category and tags
- Full SSR support for instant loading and perfect SEO
- Dynamic sitemaps that automatically include blog posts
Blog posts are fully integrated into our search engine optimization strategy, so your content gets discovered by players searching for Minecraft servers and tips.
👤 Player Tracking System
One of the most requested features is finally here: Player Tracking. MCRank now automatically discovers and tracks players across all listed servers.
Player Directory
- Browse all discovered players with search and filtering
- Sort by recently active, newest, most sightings, or most servers visited
- See player avatars pulled directly from the Mojang API
Player Profiles
Each player now has their own profile page showing:
- Minecraft avatar and skin (3D render)
- Server history — see which servers they've played on
- Activity timeline with first seen, last seen, and sighting count
- Verification status via Mojang API to confirm real accounts
For Server Owners
- Players are displayed on your server page showing who's currently online
- Fake/advertisement player names are automatically filtered out
- Only verified Minecraft accounts are tracked
📊 Server Analytics & Charts
Understanding your server's performance has never been easier. Every server page now includes powerful analytics visualizations.
Player History Chart
- 5-day historical view of player counts
- Time-series visualization showing activity patterns
- Peak hours and days clearly visible
- Perfect for understanding when your server is most active
Popular Times Chart
- Google Maps-style "busy times" visualization
- Hourly breakdown showing average player counts
- Day-of-week selector to compare patterns
- Real-time indicator showing current activity vs average
Both charts are lazy-loaded and only appear when you scroll to them, keeping page loads fast.
🎨 Server Branding System
Make your server stand out with our comprehensive Server Branding tools.
Theme Presets
Choose from pre-built themes that match Minecraft aesthetics:
- Default — Classic emerald green
- Nether — Fiery redstone red
- End — Mystical purple
- Ocean — Aquatic blue
- Desert — Sandy gold
- Custom — Pick your own accent color
Visual Customization
- Custom banner images with drag-and-drop upload
- Server logo support
- Background images for your profile page
- Promo video embedding (YouTube/Twitch)
Social Links & Staff
- Add links to YouTube, Twitch, Twitter/X, TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and your store
- Display your staff team with roles and Minecraft usernames
- Staff members show with their avatar if they have a verified Minecraft account
⭐ Server Reviews
Players can now leave reviews and ratings for servers they've played on.
Review Features
- 5-star rating system with distribution breakdown
- Written reviews with moderation support
- Review replies from server owners
- Review editing and deletion
- Community guidelines with automatic moderation reminders
Rating Stats
- Average rating prominently displayed
- Visual rating distribution bars
- Total review count
🏷️ Server Tags
Better server discovery with our new tagging system:
- Add up to 10 tags to categorize your server
- Tags are searchable in the server directory
- Autocomplete suggestions for popular tags
- Filter servers by tag in the directory
📧 Email Notification System
Stay informed with our new Minecraft-themed email notifications:
Notification Types
- Server Offline Alerts — Get notified when your server has been offline for 24+ hours
- New Review Notifications — Know when someone reviews your server
- Vote Milestones — Celebrate reaching 100, 500, 1000+ votes
- System Announcements — Important platform updates
- Marketing Tips — Optional server promotion tips and community highlights
Customization
- Full control over which notifications you receive
- Easy unsubscribe from any email
- Beautiful HTML emails with Minecraft-style design
- Email-client compatible table-based layouts
🔍 SEO & Performance
Major improvements to search engine visibility and loading speed.
Server-Side Rendering (SSR)
- Full React SSR for public pages
- Instant content display on first load
- No more white flashes while JavaScript loads
- Perfect for search engine crawling
JSON-LD Structured Data
- Game schema markup for server pages
- FAQPage schema for homepage
- Article schema for blog posts
- Rich snippets in Google search results
Performance Optimizations
- Migrated from Moment.js to Luxon — ~280KB bundle size reduction
- Code splitting with dynamic imports for all pages
- Lazy-loaded charts — analytics only load when scrolled into view
- Optimized SSR — skips unnecessary routes
📱 UI/UX Improvements
Live Vote Feed
- Real-time vote feed with player avatars
- Shows votes across all servers or filtered to a specific server
- Animated entrance for new votes
- Compact and full-card display modes
Loading Skeletons
- Smooth skeleton animations while content loads
- No more layout shifts or content jumping
- Consistent experience across slow connections
Error Handling
- Minecraft-themed error boundary with creeper explosions 💥
- Graceful error recovery with retry buttons
- Developer-friendly debug info in development mode
Accessibility
- Improved color contrast for light and dark modes
- Typography plugin integration
- Uniform button sizing in headers
- Screen reader improvements
Theme Improvements
- Fixed theme flash on page load
- Better dark mode support throughout
- Consistent styling in modals and dialogs
🔒 Security Enhancements
XSS Protection
- DOMPurify sanitization for all user-generated content
- Server descriptions safely rendered as markdown
- Removed dangerous HTML rendering
Rate Limiting
- Enhanced API rate limiting
- Protection against abuse on sensitive endpoints
Admin Bootstrap
- Secure production admin setup process
- No hardcoded admin accounts
🧪 Testing Infrastructure
Playwright E2E Tests
New automated testing suite covering:
- Navigation flows
- Server directory functionality
- Server detail pages
- Authentication flows
- Static pages
- Visual regression snapshots
Visual Regression Testing
- Homepage snapshots (light & dark mode)
- Mobile responsive snapshots
- Server list snapshots
- Automatic CI integration
🔧 Technical Improvements
Bundle Optimizations
- Rspack configuration improvements
- Better tree shaking
- Dynamic imports for all page components
API Migrations
- Discord OAuth migrated to native fetch API
- Puppeteer migrated to vanilla (removed puppeteer-extra)
- Updated SSL handling for prerendering
Database
- New collections for player tracking, blog posts, email logs, and analytics
- Optimized indexes for common queries
- Schema validation with SimpleSchema
📋 File Drop Zone Component
A new reusable FileDropZone component for consistent file uploads:
- Drag-and-drop support
- Upload progress indicator
- Image preview
- Error and success states
- Configurable file types and sizes
🗺️ Dynamic Sitemaps
SEO just got better with automatic sitemap generation:
- Server pages automatically included
- Blog posts added as they're published
- Proper lastmod dates
- Fast XML generation
Coming Soon
We're already working on the next wave of features:
- Advanced analytics dashboard for server owners
- Server comparison tools
- Player statistics leaderboards
- Mobile app (maybe?)
Thank you to everyone who's been using MCRank and providing feedback. These features were built based on your suggestions, and we couldn't do it without you.
Have questions or suggestions? Join our Discord community and let us know!
Happy crafting! ⛏️
— The MCRank Team