MCRank Early 2026 Release Notes: Discovery, Reputation & Global Reach 🌍

The first two months of 2026 have been massive for MCRank — 131 commits spanning new discovery tools, a full reputation system, internationalization across 7 languages, and dozens of quality-of-life improvements. Whether you're a player looking for your next server or a server owner growing your community, there's something here for you.

🏆 Player Reputation System

MCRank now tracks your contributions across the platform and rewards you with a visible rank.

How It Works

Earn reputation points by voting for servers (5 pts), having your server listed (50 pts), and unlocking achievements (variable pts)
Climb 6 rank tiers: Wood → Stone → Iron → Gold → Diamond → Netherite
Your rank badge is displayed on your dashboard, public profile, and in the player directory

Why It Matters

Active members of the community now get recognition for their contributions. Your reputation follows you across MCRank and is visible to server owners and other players alike.

🔍 SuperSearch

Finding servers just got a whole lot faster. The new SuperSearch bar lives in the site header and lets you instantly search across all listed servers.

Instant results as you type — no need to navigate to the directory first
Server rank badges displayed in search results so you can see how popular a server is at a glance
Featured badges for featured servers appear directly in search results
Accessible from every page on the site

🗳️ Voting Experience Upgrades

We've completely rethought the voting experience with new features before, during, and after you cast your vote.

Vote Leaderboard

A new Vote Leaderboard component shows the top voters for each server, giving recognition to a server's most loyal supporters. The leaderboard is displayed directly on the vote page.

Geyser/Bedrock Voting Support

Bedrock players can now vote! A new Geyser toggle lets you enter your Bedrock username when voting for servers that support Geyser
Toggle Bedrock mode on or off per vote — useful if you play on both Java and Bedrock
A Geyser badge appears on the vote card so server owners can see Bedrock voter activity

Post-Vote Engagement

After voting, instead of staring at a countdown timer, you'll now see helpful "While You Wait" CTAs:

Leave a Review — rate the server you just voted for
Upload Photos — share screenshots to the server's gallery
Back to Server — return to the server page

Vote Reminder Emails

Servers can now send vote reminder emails to players who have previously voted. The email links directly to the server's vote page so you can vote again with one click.

Login Modal for Voting

Instead of redirecting you to a login page, MCRank now shows a login modal right on the vote page — keeping your place so you can vote immediately after signing in.

🌍 Tag & Country Directory Pages

Discover servers in a whole new way with dedicated directory pages for tags and countries.

Browse by Tag

Every server tag (Survival, SkyBlock, Factions, etc.) now has its own page.

And many more!

Browse by Country

Find servers near you with dedicated country pages.

Directory Page Improvements

The main server directory now includes a "Browse by Category" section with popular tags and a "Browse by Country" section for quick navigation.

🌐 Internationalization (i18n) — 7 Languages

MCRank is going global! The platform is now fully translated into 7 languages:

🇺🇸 English
🇪🇸 Spanish (Español)
🇩🇪 German (Deutsch)
🇫🇷 French (Français)
🇧🇷 Portuguese (Português)
🇷🇺 Russian (Русский)
🇨🇳 Chinese (中文)

What's Translated

All page titles, descriptions, and navigation
Server directory, player profiles, and dashboard
Achievement labels and voting interface

Language Preferences

A new language selector on your profile page lets you set your preferred language
Translations load lazily for better performance — only the language you need is downloaded

🏠 Homepage Redesign

The MCRank homepage has been redesigned from the ground up to better communicate what the platform offers.

New feature sections highlighting tools for both players and server owners
Trust badges showing platform stats and credibility
"What Makes Us Different" section explaining MCRank's unique value
Improved call-to-action buttons and visual hierarchy
Hosting CTA banner with "Coming Soon" badge for the upcoming hosting service
Better statistics display and section organization

📍 Country Flag Badges on Server Cards

Server cards throughout the site now display a country flag badge based on the server's geolocation.

Flags are clickable — click to filter the directory by that country
Uses emoji flags rendered from ISO country codes
Smart Tooltip component replaces native browser tooltips with styled, auto-positioning tooltips across the site

🎮 Discovery Pages — Rising Stars, Hidden Gems & New Servers

Three brand-new dedicated pages make it easier to discover servers beyond the top rankings:

Rising Stars — servers showing the most growth activity
Hidden Gems — quality servers that haven't been discovered yet
New & Growing — freshly listed servers looking for their first players

😴 Hibernation Support for On-Demand Servers

Servers hosted on platforms like Aternos and Minehut that go to sleep when no players are online are now handled gracefully.

MCRank detects hibernating servers and shows them as "Hibernating" instead of "Offline"
This prevents these servers from being unfairly marked as offline or unreliable
Uptime tracking is adjusted to account for hibernation periods

🖼️ Gallery Improvements

Bulk upload — upload multiple screenshots at once with Turnstile protection
Caption editing — add or edit captions for gallery images after uploading
Gallery link in sidebar — server owners can now access gallery management from the server edit sidebar
Pending approval notifications — server owners are notified when new gallery uploads need review
Hash scrolling — the #gallery anchor now smoothly scrolls to the gallery section on the server page

🏅 Achievements Dashboard

A new Achievements page has been added to the user dashboard.

View all your earned achievements in one place
Accessible from the dashboard sidebar and the user avatar dropdown menu
Achievement notification deep-links now correctly navigate to this page (previously resulted in a 404)

👤 Profile & Privacy Improvements

Privacy by Default

New accounts now have private profiles by default. A welcome wizard guides new users through their profile setup and privacy options.

Public Profile Links

Your public profile is now accessible from the user menu dropdown — click "Public Profile" to see what others see when they visit your profile page.

Minecraft Username Linking

Your validated Minecraft username is now saved to your profile when you vote
Your MCRank account is linked to your Minecraft identity in online player lists
Player usernames now use a clean sequential naming scheme instead of timestamp-based names

📊 Server Owner Tools

Traffic Insights Panel

A new Traffic Insights panel gives server owners visibility into where their traffic is coming from:

Campaign/UTM parameter filtering
Referrer tracking
Auto-refresh that preserves your scroll position

Hide Detailed Location

A new privacy toggle lets server owners hide the city-level location from their server page. When enabled, only the region and country are shown (e.g., "Arizona, United States" instead of the full city).

Centralized Tag Management

Tags are now managed through a centralized system with admin moderation, ensuring consistency and quality across server listings.

Review Prompt Notifications

After a server reaches 10+ votes, the owner receives a notification prompting voters to leave reviews — helping build social proof for popular servers.

🎨 UI/UX Improvements

Native confirm/alert dialogs replaced with styled ConfirmModal across the entire site — consistent, themed UI for all confirmation actions
Featured server glow effect refined with a polished outer glow animation
Online servers shown by default in the directory and top servers page — offline servers can still be viewed by toggling the filter
Minecraft-themed CTA in server lists with enhanced design
Separate Java/Bedrock player counts displayed accurately on server pages
Max players no longer flashes to zero during page hydration
Server avatars fixed — custom uploaded logos now correctly display across all list feeds (Latest, Rising, Hidden Gems, etc.). Previously only Java ping icons were shown
Server icon no longer flashes in the Latest Servers feed after page load
Improved header button hover states on green backgrounds
Login CTA on Add Server page now correctly appears when logged in
Uptime badge counts fixed — badge and modal now show consistent outage numbers

🐛 Bug Fixes

Fixed Google OAuth signup failing with findOne error for returning users
Fixed Google login not finding users by email when Google ID changed
Fixed duplicate welcome emails during OAuth signup race conditions
Fixed vote analytics showing 0 — votes use timestamp not createdAt
Fixed server rankings being assigned in wrong order due to incorrect sort syntax
Fixed Turnstile CAPTCHA failing on votes — action parameter now uses underscores
Fixed server status query after database migration
Fixed player session duration tracking and display
Fixed language filter bugs — URL sync, server display, and info page
Fixed real-time reactivity in the live vote feed
Fixed hideDetailedLocation setting not applying for owner view of their own server page

🚀 Performance & Infrastructure

Notification system — in-app notifications for hosting interest and other platform events
Deployment monitoring — release script now includes health checks to verify deployment is live
SSR hydration fixes across multiple feeds to prevent content shifting on page load

🙏 Thank You!

Thank you to everyone who's been using MCRank, voting for servers, uploading screenshots, and providing feedback. Every feature in this release was shaped by the community.

Have questions or suggestions? Join our Discord community and let us know!

Happy crafting! ⛏️

— The MCRank Team