How it works
A world map. Every country can be claimed. A claimed country shows its claimant's name, link, and message in the claimant's color, until someone takes it.
Every payment is also listed in the directory, and stays listed after the country changes hands.
Claiming a country
Every country has a listed price, set by its size. Claiming an unclaimed country costs that price or any larger whole number of US dollars. The amount paid becomes the country's total.
Taking a claimed country
A claimed country can be taken by paying at least 1.5 times its current total, rounded up to a whole dollar. The country then shows the new claimant, and the amount paid becomes its new total.
The previous claimant is not refunded. They lose the country on the map and keep their entry in the directory.
Reinforcing a country
Anyone can add any whole number of dollars, from $1, to a claimed country's total without changing what it shows. A larger total makes the country cost more to take.
Reinforcing does not change the claim, whoever pays for it.
A reinforcement still buys a directory entry, listed under the address of whoever paid it. That entry never appears on the map.
Who can claim a country
Anyone can claim any country, take any claimed country, or reinforce any country. This site does not check whether a payer controls the address shown on a claim.
Submit only a site or a profile that you own, or that you are authorised to represent. Paying confirms that you have that right.
A claim is not a statement that the owner of the address placed it, agreed to it, or has any connection to this site.
If a claim uses your site, your profile, or your name without your permission, write to the contact address on the terms page and ask us to remove it.
What a payment buys
Every completed payment buys an entry in the directory, which stays for as long as this site operates. A payment to claim or take a country also puts that claim on the map, for as long as no larger payment lands on the same country.
Nothing is held or reserved before payment. The map can change while a payment is in progress. What a payment does is worked out when it confirms, from the country's total at that moment:
- A payment to claim or take a country puts the claim on the map if it is larger than the total the country holds when the payment confirms. If it is not — because another payment landed first — the payment buys the directory entry and not the place on the map. It is not refunded.
- A payment to reinforce a country is added to whatever claim holds the country when the payment confirms, even if the country changed hands after the payment was placed.
A claim is a place on a live map, not a slot held for a period of time. Any country can be taken at any time.
The directory
The directory lists every payment ever made, newest first: claims, takes that did not land, and reinforcements alike. Each entry shows the link, the country, the amount, the date, and the name and message where the payment carries them. The entry stays after the country is taken by someone else.
The directory is less visible than the map. That is the difference between holding a country and being listed.
Links
Each claimed country links to the address on its claim.
Links pass through this site, which counts the visit before sending it on. A visit is counted for the entry it came from, so a directory entry keeps counting after it loses the country. Counts are not published.
Query strings on submitted addresses are removed, so affiliate, referral, and tracking parameters do not work. This site adds its own campaign parameters to the outgoing link, so that the count shown can be matched against a claimant's own analytics.
What is accepted
Claims are for product and company websites, and for X profiles. An X profile has one identity however its address is written.
Not accepted: chat and messaging invitations, adult content, and addresses that redirect somewhere other than the site described.
A claim that does not meet these rules can be removed from the map. Its payments are not refunded. A country whose claim is removed can still be taken at the price its total sets.
Payments
Payments are not refundable.
Losing a country to a later payment, or a payment that confirms too late to take a country, is not a refund reason.
If a payment is refunded anyway, everything it bought is removed. The entry leaves the directory, its link stops working, and a country it holds goes to the largest payment that remains, or to nobody.
What this is not
Position is decided by payment and by nothing else. There is no review, no rating, no ranking by quality, no editorial judgment. Nothing on the map is a recommendation. The map shows who paid.