What 160 directory submissions actually did for our B2B SaaS (numbers inside)
I run marketing at ShieldLabs (fraud detection for web apps). Over the last two months we submitted the product to roughly 160 directories, launch sites and profile platforms. Here is what the data says so far, including the parts that did not work.
The listing count
- 89 listings are live, 77 are still waiting for review.
- I checked every live page by hand for the actual link. Only 47 give a clean dofollow link. 6 are mixed, 17 are nofollow, and 15 have no direct link at all (redirects through their own domain, JavaScript buttons, or the domain written as plain text).
- Lesson: "dofollow backlink" on a pricing page is a promise, not a guarantee. Check the HTML after it goes live.
Traffic
- Since July, directories sent 171 sessions out of about 3,300 total.
- One site, BetaList, sent more than half of that (94 sessions). The next best sent 15.
- Most launch-style sites send a small spike on launch day and then close to nothing.
Signups
- Only 2 signups are attributed to a directory in analytics.
- That number is wrong, and it is our fault: most signups show up as "direct" because the source gets lost when a visitor moves from the marketing site to the app. If you run a separate app subdomain, pass the referrer or UTM through before you start submitting anywhere.
Domain authority
- Our Ahrefs DR is 12. Link indexes lag by weeks, so most of these links are not counted yet.
- The bigger issue: directories give you breadth, not weight. Editorial mentions in real articles move DR much more than another listing page.
What I would do differently
- Build the pages the links should point to first. We still send most directory links to the homepage because we do not have competitor comparison pages yet.
- Fix attribution before submitting, not after.
- Write a different description per directory type. Pasting the same long text everywhere is easy and pointless.
- Spend the time saved on reviews and editorial outreach instead of the long tail of low-traffic lists.
Next up: comparison pages, a proper review ask to our first users, and a Product Hunt launch on October 13.
Happy to share the full list of which directories sent real visitors if that is useful to anyone here.
This is useful because it separates three things people usually blur together: backlink value, traffic, and buyer intent.
My read is that directories may still be worth doing, but only if they are treated as infrastructure, not acquisition. They help you exist in more places, maybe support SEO over time, and give people something to find when they search around your brand. But the traffic itself looks mostly browse-mode unless the visitor already has the problem.
The comparison pages sound like the right next move. If a directory visitor is curious but shallow, sending them to a page that matches their question — “ShieldLabs vs X” or “fraud detection for Y use case” — probably gives you a much better chance than dropping everyone on the homepage.
Would be interesting to see the same report after the attribution fix and comparison pages are live.
171 sessions from 160 submissions is a useful ceiling. Have the few directory-sourced users behaved differently from users coming through editorial or other channels?
A little, yes, though the sample is small enough that I'd treat it as a hint rather than a finding.
From GA4 since July 1:
So directory visitors do engage, but they go shallow. They behave like people browsing a list of new launches, not people with a problem to solve today. Visitors from search and AI assistants arrive with a question and read a lot more.
On signups the numbers are too low to compare honestly: 2 accounts we can tie to a directory (both PeerPush), and many signups show up as direct because the referrer gets lost between the site and the app. Fixing that attribution comes before I'd claim anything about conversion quality.
The channel-quality difference is useful, especially the deeper behavior from search and AI traffic. If you’re open to it, what’s the best email to reach you on?
Sure, growth@shieldlabs.ai works.
Thanks! I’ve just sent it over.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts whenever you have a chance.
This is one of the more useful directory writeups because it separates listings from actual traffic and attribution. The 47 clean dofollow links versus 15 with no direct link is a great reminder to verify the rendered page after approval. For the comparison pages, I’d give each directory a unique UTM and capture the first-touch referrer across the app subdomain, then score sources on activated users rather than sessions. I’m also curious whether the 94-session source produced any signups or mostly top-of-funnel volume.
Thanks, good call on scoring sources by activated users instead of sessions. That is exactly the switch we are making once the referrer survives the jump to the app.
On BetaList: mostly top-of-funnel so far. The 94 sessions came from 73 new visitors, 61 of them engaged, with an average session of a bit over two minutes. That turned into 5 clicks on the free signup button and 5 on the demo, but no signup we can attribute with confidence, partly because of the tracking gap I mentioned. So decent interest, weak intent, and I would not call it a conversion channel yet.
Per-directory UTMs is the next fix. The catch is that many directories only accept a bare domain and strip parameters, so for those we will rely on the first-touch referrer instead.