This tracker has called a dead server alive and a live server dead, both in public, both corrected visibly. What follows is the method those errors paid for, written for players rather than trackers.
1. A live counter proves a widget is running
ArgusWoW showed 2,752 players online for years after shutting down in May 2022. Those were another server's figures on a page nobody turned off.
A counter tells you a number is being served. It does not tell you what the number counts, when it was last true, or whether the realm it names still exists. If the count never moves between visits, treat it as decoration.
2. A 404 proves a route is missing
Warmane's register and armory pages return Not Found. Warmane itself has a forum post from an hour before we looked.
Routes are not servers. A missing page says something about the site's link structure and nothing about realm status. Conversely, a maintenance page says an operator configured it, which is weak evidence someone is home, weaker still if it is the host's stock template rather than the project's words.
3. Read the news dates, all of them
Sunwell.pl's newest post is five years old. Elysium Project's homepage runs on a 2021 Twitter archive. A server whose own news feed stopped years ago may still run, but nobody is steering, and you should know which one you are joining.
Check the whole feed, not the top item. A single recent post atop years of silence is often a template test or a migrated archive.
4. Check who owns the domain name
Eternyum's obvious address is a domain-for-sale page. Atlantiss lost two addresses in five months. GryffinWow's domain invites purchase offers.
Search the exact name plus "domain for sale" before creating an account anywhere. If the name resolves to a sales page, the project either moved without telling you or is gone, and neither is a good sign for your character's future.
5. Discord exists on a different axis
A dead website with a live Discord is a project that moved house. A live website with a dead Discord is a project on autopilot. Neither alone settles anything, and trackers that treat Discord counts as player counts are converting one metric into another.
Ask in the Discord whether the realm is up. It is the only check on this list that involves a human, and it is the most reliable one.
6. Cross-check a second source, then stop
One tracker, one toplist, one Reddit thread from this year. Two independent sources agreeing is enough for a game account. Five is research paralysis, and the realm will still be the same either way.
What we do with all this
Every entry on our tracker carries the date it was last checked and the basis for its rating. Where we cannot verify, the entry says so instead of carrying a number. That policy cost us population bands on a dozen entries and it is the reason any of them are trustworthy.
SOURCES: our own correction archive, September 29 to October 8 2026, with each incident linked from our tracker entries. No new first-party reads were needed for this guide; it synthesizes published corrections. Related: the ArgusWoW correction, the Warmane self-correction, and the grading scale.