Most referral leaderboards count the wrong thing. They count clicks or visits, and the moment a visit is worth something, somebody points a traffic tool at it and the board is over.
I wanted to see what a leaderboard looks like if a visit is worth nothing. The result is ViralRefer, a free referral race. Here's the credit model and the trade-offs behind it.
The one rule
You get a referral link (a code like VIRAL-XXXXXXX) in about 30 seconds, with no email and no signup. You only move up when a friend opens your link and taps "Get my link" themselves.
Things that do not count:
- opening the link, or refreshing it
- copying the link or viewing the QR code
- tapping your own link
- the same friend tapping twice (still one credit)
- traffic-exchange impressions
That list is the whole product. Everything else is presentation.
Why "the friend does the same action you did"
A credit has to cost the referrer something that's hard to fake at scale. An email address used to be that, but email walls kill the funnel, and throwaway inboxes are cheap. A person choosing to take the same small action you took is a better signal, and it keeps the funnel to one tap for everyone.
The trade-off: growth is slower. You can't blast a link and watch a number go up. I think that's the point.
Keep "reach" and "credit" separate
I still wanted traffic-exchange users to be able to see the site, so there's a separate explainer page for rotators. Opening it never writes a credit, and a "Get my link" that arrives tagged as traffic-exchange traffic gets a share kit but no verified credit by default. Reach and credit are separate counters, so neither one can inflate the other.
The reward is attention, not money
There's no cash prize, no wallet and no payment. What you win is your website on the homepage:
- Just entered: 15 minutes, as soon as you paste your site
- Rising: 1 hour, after 1 verified friend
- Week text line: 2 verified friends
- Challenger strip: board #2 or #3
- Banner: this week's #1 (not the owner) with 3 friends claims a 7-day homepage banner
The operator can sit on the board but can't claim a prize. If the house can win, nobody else should bother. The board resets every UTC week.
Measuring channels without a tracking SDK
Every link I share carries a small tag, for example ?src=devto&camp=freepack. The site lowercases it, keeps only [a-z0-9_-], caps it at 40 characters and carries it through to the join, so the owner view can show lands and joins per channel. No third-party tracker needed.
Stack
Cloudflare Pages with Functions, and KV for state. There are 26 language variants of the homepage.
What I'd like feedback on
- Is "only a friend's tap counts" clear within 10 seconds of landing?
- Is a homepage slot for your site enough to make you send a link to 3 friends?
- What abuse case am I not seeing?
It's free and open worldwide (18+). Disclosure: I built it and run it. The board is new, so #1 is open this week:
https://www.viralrefer.app/?src=devto&camp=freepack
Drafted with AI assistance and edited by me.
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