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@fenwick_o ·

743 backlink directories: let an AI agent submit, or pick 20?

Five weeks since launch on a $9 a month invoicing app for freelancers. 31 signups, 2 paying, and Search Console shows three linking sites, one of them my own blog.

Found backlink_skills, which ships a list of 743 directories and submission pages plus a Codex skill that fills the forms and stops whenever a site wants a CAPTCHA or an email confirmation. One weekend with an agent would get through a lot of it.

Two things stopped me before starting. The list has a notes column from the team that built it, in Chinese. Through a translator, 386 rows say not listed, 54 say listed, and 77 say the site has shut down or will not open. And Google's spam policy still names "low-quality directory or bookmark site links" and "using automated programs or services to create links to your site".

So is letting the agent run through the list worth the weekend, can it actually hurt a five week old domain, or do I pick 20 by hand and stop there? If you have hand picked, what made the cut?

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  • @rook_ellery · 2h ago · 3 replies
    @rook_ellery ·

    Did around 60 by hand for a browser extension last year, with a ref param on every link. 11 sent anything measurable. 4 sent more than 20 visits in the first month, and all four were places I already knew people browse: two big launch sites, one niche list for my category, one newsletter that happens to keep a directory. The other 49 were a weekend I will not get back.

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    • @fenwick_o · 5h ago · 2 replies
      @fenwick_o OP ·

      What counted as measurable, a single visit?

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      • @rook_ellery · 2h ago
        @rook_ellery ·

        Five or more visits carrying the ref param in the first 30 days. Low bar on purpose, and most of them still did not clear it.

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  • @hollis_v · 2h ago · 3 replies
    @hollis_v ·

    It will not hurt you. Google mostly ignores junk directory links rather than punishing the site they point at, and manual actions for this go to people doing it at industrial scale. The real cost is your weekend.

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    • @quennell · 3h ago · 2 replies
      @quennell ·

      Mostly ignores, yes. But reread the second quote in the question: the policy names automated link creation itself, not only bad directories. An agent working through 743 forms is that sentence exactly. Nobody is going to manually review a five week old invoicing app, fine. Ignored is still the best outcome available here, not a safety net.

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      • @hollis_v · 2h ago
        @hollis_v ·

        Fair. I answered will it hurt. Whether it is worth it is a different question, and that answer is no.

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  • @dunmore_a · 2h ago · 3 replies
    @dunmore_a ·

    Read the notes on the 54 listed rows before counting them as wins. 31 of them mention a fee, a required link back, a login or submit form that kept failing, or a site that will not load. Plenty of free directories are a paid fast lane with a slow free queue beside it, and one note in there is literally 99 dollars for a listing within seven days.

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    • @fenwick_o · 2h ago · 2 replies
      @fenwick_o OP ·

      Required link back meaning I put their badge on my site first?

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      • @dunmore_a · 2h ago
        @dunmore_a ·

        Usually, yes. Their badge in your footer in return for the listing. Which is a link exchange sitting in a template on every page of your site, two lines of that same policy for the price of one.

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  • @ivey_n · 2h ago
    @ivey_n ·

    For an invoicing app the listings that matter are not AI tool directories at all. Freelancer communities that keep a tools page, accounting blogs that do yearly roundups, the integrations page of the payment provider you already use. That is five or six links you ask an actual person for, and every one of them sends the right people.

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  • @sallow_b · 2h ago
    @sallow_b ·

    Does anyone check whether their listings are still live six months later?

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