A Solo Developer's Directory Submission Experiment: 45 Directories, 90% Indexing Rate, DR Rose by 8 Points

I’m not an SEO expert. I’m a coder. But in 3 weeks, using directory submissions, I raised my site’s DR from 9 to 17 and organic traffic from 3 visits per day to 40 per day. Here’s my complete process, with no omissions.

📅 Sep 24, 2026 · ⏱️ ~8 minute read · 📂 Solo Development · SEO · Hands‑on Record

First, clarify the background.

I’m an independent developer who built a small tool – an automatic invoicing solution for freelancers. Launched in March 2026, it’s now about five months old.

In the first month after launch I did almost no SEO. Organic traffic was about 3 visits per day – two of them were my own.

In April I decided to take this seriously. But I’m a coder, not an SEO specialist. I didn’t have a paid Ahrefs subscription, no SEO team, and I wasn’t even sure what “DR” meant.

All I had was time – specifically, two hours each night after my child fell asleep.

After 3 weeks, my site’s DR went from 9 to 17, and organic traffic grew from 3 to 40 visits per day.

It wasn’t a viral explosion, but for me it was the leap from “nobody can find me” to “at least someone can search me up.”

Step 1: Understand What a Backlink Is (took 1 hour)

I knew backlinks were important but didn’t know why. So I spent an hour learning the basics.

What I learned:

• Google uses backlinks to decide whether a site is “trustworthy.”
• Each backlink is like a “recommendation vote” from someone else.
• Votes from high‑DR (Domain Rating) sites are more valuable than votes from low‑DR sites.
• Directory submission is the simplest way to get backlinks – you just submit your site’s information.

My reaction: Oh, it’s the internet version of “registering in the Yellow Pages.” So I just went for it.

Step 2: Find Directories to Submit To (took 2 hours)

My initial approach was the same as most people – Google “directory submission sites list,” opened the first five articles, and started submitting one by one.

After submitting to 10 directories, something felt off. Some directories looked like 2010‑era sites, gave no feedback after form submission, and took 8 seconds to load.

I stopped and changed tactics.

I did three things:

1. Check competitors’ backlinks. Using Ahrefs’ free Webmaster Tools (no payment required), I examined the backlink sources of my three competitors. They were listed on Crunchbase, G2, SaaSHub, AlternativeTo, etc. Those are the places I needed to target.

2. Validate with Google search. For each directory, I searched site:directory.com to see if any new pages had been indexed recently. If there were no new indexed pages in the past three months, the directory was likely no longer crawled by Google, so I skipped it.

3. Manually glance at the homepage. I spent 10 seconds scanning the directory’s homepage. If the design looked like 2008, the content was junk, or it loaded extremely slowly – I skipped it.

Result: From over 200 directories found online, I filtered down to 45. Among them:

• DR 50+ : 12
• DR 30‑49 : 18
• DR 20‑29 : 15 (these are industry‑vertical directories – lower DR but highly relevant)

Step 3: Prepare Materials (took 2 hours)

I created a “resource pack” that I could copy‑paste for each submission, tweaking slightly each time.

My resource pack includes:

Product Name: [My Product Name]

One‑line description (≤ 50 chars):
[Product Name] helps freelancers create and send professional invoices 
in under 60 seconds. No templates. No manual entry. Just connect 
your project and go.

Short description (≈ 150 chars):
[Product Name] is an invoicing tool built for freelancers who hate 
invoicing. Connect your project management tool, and [Product Name] 
auto‑generates invoices based on your tracked hours and milestones. 
Send via email, get paid via Stripe. Used by 2,000+ freelancers 
across 40 countries.

Standard description (≈ 300 chars):
[Feature list, user data, pricing info]

Founder bio (≈ 100 chars):
[My background, why I built this product]

Screenshots: 5 (desktop + mobile + feature demo)
Logo: PNG with transparent background
Social links: Twitter, LinkedIn, GitHub

Key detail: I prepared four versions of the short description. The core information is the same, but the wording varies. This way, even when submitting to multiple directories, each description is not identical – Google won’t treat it as bulk spam.

Step 4: Start Submitting (took 8 hours over 3 weeks)

I didn’t submit everything in one day. I set a rhythm: 5‑8 submissions per day, Monday‑Friday, weekends off.

Week 1: Core platforms (12 directories)
First, I tackled the most important – the 12 platforms with DR 50+.

All 12 were indexed. Because these platforms are actively crawled by Google, indexing was fast.

Week 2: SaaS vertical directories (18 directories)
I worked on DR 30‑49 industry directories. Their review times are longer; some took 1‑2 weeks.

For the rejected one, I rewrote a more detailed description, resubmitted, and it was approved after 3 days.

Week 3: Supplemental submissions + tracking (15 directories)
I tackled the remaining 15 and started tracking the results from weeks 1 and 2.

Step 5: Tracking and Optimization (ongoing)

I kept a Google Sheet to record each directory’s status:

| Directory | DR | Submission Date | Link Type | Indexing Status | Indexing Date | Notes |
| -------- | --- |  | -------- | -------------- | --------------- | ----- |
| Crunchbase | 91 | 4/15 | nofollow | ✅ Indexed | 4/18 | — |
| G2 | 88 | 4/16 | nofollow | ✅ Indexed | 4/21 | Needs user review |
| Some Directory | 35 | 4/18 | dofollow | ❌ Not indexed | — | Resubmit 4/25 |

Two weeks later I performed the first review:

• Out of 45 directories, 38 were indexed (84 %)
• 5 were under review
• 2 gave no response

For the two not indexed, I resubmitted with a different description version. One more indexed after a week.

Final numbers: 45 submissions, 41 indexed, 91 % indexing rate.

Results After 3 Weeks

DR rose by 8 points. For a new site, moving from DR 9 to DR 17 is a significant jump. Many SEO pros say “DR 10‑20 is the hardest range” because you go from “almost zero” to “basically trustworthy.”

Organic traffic grew from 3 to 40. It may not sound huge, but it’s the shift from “almost no visitors” to “dozens of people finding you via search each day.” And this traffic is free, ongoing, and requires no daily maintenance.

Most importantly: ranking keywords grew from 5 to 38. This means Google now sees your site as relevant to many more queries, forming the foundation for future growth.

5 Things I Learned

1. Directories with DR 50+ index almost 100 % – My 12 DR 50+ platforms were all indexed within 10 days. Google crawls them frequently, so your listing gets discovered quickly.

2. Industry relevance matters a lot. Some lower‑DR (25‑35) vertical directories gave a bigger ranking boost than certain high‑DR generic directories. Google increasingly values semantic relevance.

3. Unique descriptions aren’t a waste of time. I prepared four description versions and tweaked each for a directory. Compared to past “copy‑paste same text” attempts, the indexing rate was noticeably higher – about 20 % better.

4. Batch submissions are better than one‑off mass submissions. I didn’t submit all 45 in a single day. Spreading them over 3 weeks, 5‑8 per day, made the backlink growth look natural and avoided triggering Google’s spam signals.

5. Tracking is essential. Without tracking I would never have noticed the two directories that weren’t indexed and wouldn’t have resubmitted them. Tracking takes very little time (≈ 15 minutes per week) but can push your indexing rate from 80 % to over 90 %.

If You Want to Try It Too

You don’t need to be an SEO expert. You don’t need paid tools. You don’t need a big budget.

What you need:

• 3 days (2‑3 hours each day)
• A Google Sheet (for tracking)
• Ahrefs free tier (to check competitors’ backlinks)
• Patience (batch submissions, no rush)

If you’re a coder like me and dislike manually submitting one by one, BackLinkSubmit can help. I later used it to add 20 more directories I hadn’t found, and the indexing rate was still above 85 %.

If you want to see which directories are worth submitting to first, AI Backlink Ranking lists over 1,900 platforms with DR, traffic, and link‑type data – far more efficient than manual searching.

Closing

I’m not an SEO specialist. I’m just a coder who spent 3 weeks on the “basic but important” task of directory submission.

Result: DR rose by 8 points, traffic grew 12‑fold, ranking keywords grew 7‑fold.

This isn’t a growth hack. It’s foundational work.

Just as you wouldn’t think “registering a domain” is cool, but without a domain you have no website, the same goes for directory submissions – they’re not glamorous, but without those backlinks Google doesn’t know who you are.

Spend 3 days submitting 15‑20 high‑quality directories.

Then go back to coding.

Leave the rest to time.

The author is an independent developer, not an SEO professional. The data comes from a personal project; results will vary by industry and competition.

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