Methodology

What we list

Galleries and communities where enthusiasts upload, share and publicly display aviation photos. News media, personal blogs, flight trackers and aircraft registry sites are not listed at this stage.

Dimensions and weights

These are the current configured weights. Active weights exclude visitor votes until the participation threshold is reached; the remaining weights are then normalized to 100%.

How scores are calculated

1. Each dimension is converted to a percentile from 0 to 100 among listed websites with data for that dimension. Higher values are better, except for the Tranco rank number, where lower is better. Tied values share their average percentile; a single measured positive value receives 100. Measured zero content, community, activity, reliability or votes always receives 0, including single-sample and all-zero cases.
2. The base score is the weighted sum of dimension scores divided by the full active weight. Missing dimensions earn no credit but keep their weight in the denominator, so withholding a low value cannot raise the score.
3. The base score is multiplied by 0.5 + 0.5 × completeness. Completeness is the share of active weight for which the website has data.
4. If the website has a score in the previous available weekly snapshot calculated with the same scoring version, rules and dimension weights, the final score is 0.7 × current discounted score + 0.3 × previous score. New entries and the first calculation after a scoring-configuration change use their current discounted score directly. Older snapshots remain available as historical records.
5. Final scores are rounded to one decimal place.

For example, with 100 active weight units, available dimensions covering 60 units and averaging 80 contribute 48 points. At 60% completeness, the discounted score is 38.4. With a previous score of 60 from the same scoring version, the final score is 44.9 after rounding.

Traffic, content, community, activity and votes pass through logarithmic transforms before percentiles. These transforms preserve ordering, so numerical size gaps do not directly determine the percentile gaps. A score of 80 is a relative score, not an assessment that a website is 80% perfect.

Longevity and reliability

Before conversion to a percentile, this dimension combines age (60.0%), availability (30.0%) and HTTPS (10.0%). Age increases up to a cap of 25 years. We use the domain registration date, or the founding year when that date is unavailable. If neither is known, age earns no credit. Missing availability or HTTPS also earns no credit; these component weights are not redistributed. Unknown age earns no assumed age credit. If none of these data is known, the entire dimension is missing.

Availability is the proportion of successful homepage checks in the last 90 days. Anti-bot challenges are treated as online. HTTPS is based on the final homepage response URL.

Missing data

Missing values remain marked as N/A in the data. For scoring they earn no credit, stay in the active-weight denominator, and reduce completeness. A verified zero remains distinct from missing data. When a Tranco lookup succeeds but the website has no rank, it uses a fallback rank of 10,000,000 rather than being treated as missing. A failed lookup without earlier data remains missing.

How to improve your ranking

• Keep your data complete and verifiable. Claim your listing and submit accurate photo counts, member and follower counts, recent uploads, and a founding year with supporting sources. Approved data replaces missing values. Holding other inputs and the comparison set fixed, withholding an observed value cannot improve the calculated score.
• Grow real readership. Improve discoverability and give aviation enthusiasts a reason to return. Traffic scoring follows Tranco popularity rankings rather than self-reported page views.
• Publish consistently. Build a substantial public photo collection and keep adding new photos. Total photos and recent uploads are separate dimensions.
• Build an active community. Attract registered members and followers to your official social channels.
• Keep the website reliable. Maintain an available homepage and HTTPS. Domain age grows over time and stops contributing additional age credit after 25 years.
• Invite genuine visitors to vote. Valid votes help only when the vote dimension is active. Irregular votes may be voided.

Verification itself gives no bonus, and there is no paid placement. Because percentiles compare websites, improving a metric does not guarantee a higher rank if other websites improve too. Changes take effect when scores are recalculated, with historical smoothing limiting sudden movements.

Visitor votes

• Each visitor can vote once per website per week (ISO weeks, UTC), and may support several websites.
• At most 3 votes per network per website per week, and 30 per network in a rolling 24-hour window, are counted. Voting requires a Cloudflare Turnstile human check.
• Scores use valid votes from the last 28 days. Irregular votes are voided.
• Until all listed websites together receive 50 valid votes within 28 days, the vote dimension is left out and does not affect completeness.

Owner verification and data updates

Owners prove control of their domain with a DNS record, homepage meta tag or verification file, then submit figures such as photo and member counts. Every submission is reviewed before use, and sources are shown on the listing. Please submit descriptions and source notes in English.

Submissions

Anyone can recommend a website. Websites that fit the listing criteria are added after review and scored with the same method as all others.

Update schedule

Full data collection starts every Sunday at 18:00 UTC. Scores are recalculated once the collection batch finishes. Snapshots use the UTC ISO week at calculation time. Homepage availability is checked daily. Approved data changes and new listings can also trigger score updates within the week.

Our crawler identifies itself as AviaRankBot. Routine collection requests homepages and ranking or registration services; it does not download photo collections. Ownership verification may also check DNS records or a verification file.

Countries and regions

Websites are assigned to the country or region of their operator or main audience. Country rankings show listings from that country or region using the same calculated scores.

Data sources

• Tranco: website popularity rankings.
• RDAP: domain registration dates.
• Public website statistics and verified owner submissions, reviewed before use.
• Homepage availability checks and valid visitor votes.