FAQ
Questions people actually ask
Is BuildDock free?
Yes — joining and getting your fair share of exposure costs nothing.
Do I need to keep the bar up forever?
No, but the network only works because members keep their bar installed — the more you show others, the more you get shown.
What counts as a click?
A real, deduplicated visitor click on the bar — bots and repeat clicks from the same session are filtered out.
How is the leaderboard ranked?
Purely by total real clicks, then impressions as a tiebreaker. There's no way to pay for a higher spot.
What happens if I remove the script tag?
Your bar disappears immediately and you stop being recommended to other members — nothing else to cancel, no account to close.
How do I apply to join BuildDock?
Head to the Apply page and submit your project's name, a short tagline, its URL, and an email we can reach you at — no password, no account setup.
How long does review take?
Every application is reviewed by a person, not an algorithm — there's no instant auto-approval and no fixed queue time to give you a number for, but expect a real human to actually look at your project before it's admitted.
What happens if my project is rejected?
You'll get an email explaining why. If it's something fixable — like missing HTTPS or a broken page — you can fix it and resubmit. If your project's category simply isn't allowed on BuildDock, it won't be admitted, but a rejection doesn't follow you anywhere else.
Can I submit multiple projects?
Yes, as long as each one is a real, separately-run project — but each project needs its own approved domain and its own widget install. Spinning up placeholder or duplicate projects just to game exposure isn't allowed and will get them removed.
What kinds of projects are allowed?
Real, working projects with genuine content — apps, tools, sites, and products that are actually live and that we'd feel comfortable recommending to someone else's visitors.
What kinds of projects aren't allowed?
Malware, phishing, scams, gambling, adult content, deceptive redirects, SEO farms, and empty placeholder pages are all turned away — along with anything else that wouldn't be fair to send another member's visitors to.
Is traffic guaranteed?
No. BuildDock distributes exposure fairly based on real network activity, but nobody is promised a fixed number of clicks or visitors — how much traffic you get depends on how the whole network is behaving, not a contract.
What is Boost?
Boost is a fairness mechanic, not something you buy — it's meant to give meaningfully underrepresented projects a temporary lift so a healthy small project isn't drowned out by a much bigger one. You can't request it or pay for it; it kicks in automatically when the network decides it's needed.
Can I pay for a better spot or more exposure?
No — there's no pay-to-rank on BuildDock, full stop. A separate, clearly-labeled "Sponsored" placement is on the roadmap for later, isolated from organic ranking and manually approved — but it doesn't exist yet, and it will never let anyone buy a higher organic spot.
How do I leave the network or remove my project?
Remove the widget script from your site and your project stops being recommended and drops out of rotation immediately. There's no cancellation flow or account to close — email us if you'd like your project's data removed entirely.
How does BuildDock actually decide which project to show me?
It's not a strict lineup and it's not a coin flip either. Each time your bar loads, BuildDock looks at how many times every eligible project has already been shown recently (over roughly the last couple of days) and leans the odds toward the ones that have been shown less — so an underexposed project is more likely to come up next, while one that's been shown a lot recently sees its odds go down for a while. It's a weighted draw, not a fixed queue, so the exact order isn't predictable, and a project's recent history doesn't count against it forever — it ages out and its odds recover as time passes. We also avoid showing the same site's visitors the exact same project twice in a row.
Is the full fair-rotation system (synced slots, cooldowns, Boost) live yet?
Not yet. What's live today is the weighted, less-shown-is-more-likely mechanism described above — a real first version running on actual impression data, not a placeholder. The fuller design we're building toward — synchronized rotation slots shown to every site at the same moment, a cooldown period that blocks a project from repeating too soon, and a contribution-weighted Boost pool that gives meaningfully underrepresented projects a temporary lift — is planned but not built yet. We'll update this page the moment it ships.
Ready when you are.
Submit your project and a real person will review it — no algorithm, no fixed queue.
Apply now →