how do you get people to join your gmod server

As a 6 year old server owner of 32/40 Players:

1. Make sure you have enough money
2. Never quit, you need the time to show people off what you got.
3. Never force people to stay.
4. Take your time, and do whatever it takes to keep the players happy.

make sure you got popular content, and a reason for players to come back. pluss try to just stay afk along with some friends on the server so people can see its playable when they scrolling through the server list

Try not to make your server boring and generic. Use a theme, stick to it, and get good staff.

Make sure you don't have a server with a long DL time. Do this by only having necessary addons that you really need to make your server what you want it to be. Alternatively, you can delete some content from addons that you're not using

Literally just sit and wait, maybe get some friends and staff on to populate it and improve its ranking, after that its easy.

Like some of the others said it's important to have good staff, and friendly, and then just have a custom server

make a good server, have friends, devote yourself to the server, advertise to the world.

What if my server isnt a darkrp server? I am starting a Santos Community as well as a Darkrp but how would i get players?

Promote your server in other Discords, send your server to your friends.