Does the size of the score difference count towards rank?
Does resigning vs. score affect rank (as opposed to score only)?
Thanks.
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I’m not an expert on the algorithm but the only thing that counts is winning or losing and the difference in ranks of the players (at the end of the game).
I.e. it doesn’t matter if you win by 0.5 or 180 or resignation or timeout (except that if someone times out in more than one correspondence game in a row then all the games after the first do not count for ranking)
And if you win against a weaker opponent it affects your rank much less than a win against a stronger opponent. But the size or manner of winning doesn’t matter.
(Unless I’ve completely misunderstood how it works!)
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Not entirely sure, but I think there’s also a rule that a game isn’t ranked if resigned in the first move.
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All ranked 9x9, 13x13, or 19x19 games of any time setting count equally towards rank. Method of game-ending (resign/score/timeout) is not considered, only win or lose.
The only exception is if a game is annulled. Reasons a game can be annulled are if it ends in the first 6 moves, if it is part of a serial timeout chain of correspondence games, or if manually annulled by a moderator.
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This is not the case and it’s not only here.
A win by 0.5 is the same as a win by 120.
A very few cases did that like a german tournament, and some go variant in Korea. In that case you will be very clearly notify as it is so unusual.
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Besides what people said, handicap is also used to even the difference between ranks. So that if you play someone with auto handicap it counts as an even game no matter the difference between ranks.
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That might not be completely true for correspondence games though. I think in correspondence the assessment for rank change is made between the players’ ranks at the end of the game whereas the handicap will use their ranks at the beginning of the game. So it might start out as an even game but not be even by the time it’s finished.
(Edit: got my beginning and end muddled…)
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I guess it’s the same as in live games, it’s just that you usually don’t change ranks by winning/losing other games during live/blitz games.
But yes. Handicap is computed in the beginning ranks are recomputed according to ranks in the end.
I’d just like to add that the ranking system is very complicated maths-wise but you don’t really need to understand it. You can play the kinds of games that you want to play and it will do a good job in the background. You can even turn it off in settings so you don’t see it. 
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Because the score don’t modify the result, it’s better to not take risks when possible and keep your lead if you are winning. (And learn to assess the position)
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