Sweep cadence change: how often statuses refresh now
Statuses on this list are only as good as the sweep behind them. This week the sweep got a new schedule, and the details are worth knowing - because they explain what a badge can and cannot promise.
The new rotation
The checker runs continuously, working through the list in rotation. Every address is guaranteed a fresh probe at least once every 30 minutes, with popular entries naturally getting more attention because the rotation prioritizes stale results first. The header strip shows the last completed sweep time. If it reads "12 min ago", every badge you see reflects a probe no older than that. Why not check everything every minute?
Because hammering a small hidden service every 60 seconds is rude, wasteful, and - worse - useless: tor latency variance means rapid probing mostly measures circuit luck, not site health. A 30-minute floor with retries on failure produces more honest badges than frantic polling ever did. The faq covers the edge cases: what happens during network congestion, and how fresh entries enter the rotation.