Why the Global 100 freezes and does not change afterwards
There is a submission cutoff one hour before publication, and a result that stays on file
It helps to separate three moments that usually get collapsed into one. The measured week runs Monday to Sunday and closes on Sunday at 23:59. Its ranking is published a few days later, on the day and time configured on the site. And the submission cutoff for charts is one hour before that publication.
Two rules surround that cutoff, and they explain almost every question about the ranking.
The cutoff is one hour before publication
The charts that enter the count are the ones published up to one hour before publication time. A chart published half an hour before the Global 100 comes out does not make it in. Note that this falls after the end of the measured week: you can publish a chart for a week that has already closed and it still counts, as long as it arrives before the cutoff.
That hour exists so the calculation runs over a set that does not change midway. Adding up points while new charts keep arriving would produce different results depending on when the page was opened.
If you missed the cutoff, your chart stays published and visible on your profile, counting towards its aggregates. What does not happen is its points entering that week's Global 100.
Once published, the result stays on file
When the Global 100 is published, that week's result is stored as it stands. The page does not recalculate the ranking on every visit, it reads what was stored.
The consequence is that the past does not move. If an old chart is edited or deleted today, the rankings already published stay the same.
That is what makes peaks and weeks on top mean something. If the ranking were always recalculated, a song's peak could change months later because of an edit nobody saw, and no historical number would be trustworthy.
Before the cutoff, you see the previous week
Between the end of a week and publication time, the site still shows the week before.
This is not a delay, it is the same cutoff seen from the other side: the week that just closed only appears once its calculation runs. That is why the global chart turns over on the configured day and hour, and not at the moment the week ends on Sunday night.
Airplay and Albums freeze on their own schedule
Global Airplay and Global Albums use the same week of data, but each has its own freezing time.
You can find a week's Airplay already published while the same week's Global 100 has not come out, or the other way round. The three charts are independent at the moment of closing.
Nothing before 2026 counts
The Global 100 has a starting point: the first week of 2026. Charts from earlier weeks exist, stay on the profile of whoever published them and do not add points to the global ranking.
It is a deliberate era cutoff, chosen so the ranking has a clear start instead of dragging along a partial history from when few people were publishing.
Frequently asked questions
- I published after the cutoff. Did I lose the week?
- In that week's Global 100, yes. The chart stays published, appears on your profile and counts towards your chart's aggregates.
- Can the publication time change?
- It can, because it is configurable. The chart page always shows the week and the date range it is displaying.
- I edited an old chart. Does that week's ranking change?
- No. The published result stays as it was at the moment of calculation.
