Directory Submission Statistics: What Happened to 8,467 Submissions
Directory submission statistics from our own pipeline: of the 8,467 submissions Submitator started for paid orders to the directories we submit to between 1 July and 9 November 2026, 85.3% landed, 4.8% were closed without a listing and the median one landed 27 minutes after it entered the queue. We read the record on 10 November 2026.
The directory statistics in Google's top ten for this search count directories: how many exist, their Domain Rating, how many give a followed link. This post counts what happened to submissions. Below: the directory submission approval rate, how long directory submission takes, the results month by month, by DR band and by kind of directory, what the numbers mean before you file and a short set of link building statistics from two studies, each read at its source.
85.3% of 8,467 submissions landed and fewer than one in 20 was closed without a listing; by default each of those adds a directory to your selection to choose in its place. 58.4% of the landed ones landed within the hour, 83.9% within 48 hours. The strictest band is the top one: at DR 70 and above about one in eight was closed without a listing. Startup Inspire's Growth plan is €19 for “Featured badge and highlight” at one directory; Submitator's $29, paid once, files 30 directories you choose out of the 189 in our catalog.
Directory submission approval rate: 85.3% landed
Every submission ends in one of a few states, and the table gives the share of each on 10 November 2026. Landed means the directory's form took the submission. Live is the part of that where the listing URL is on record, 72.7% of all submissions; the other 12.5% were taken by the form without a listing URL on record yet.
Directory submission results: 8,467 submissions by outcome
| Outcome | What it means | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Live | Landed, and the listing URL is on record | 72.7% |
| Submitted | Landed: the directory's form took it, no listing URL on record yet | 12.5% |
| Landed in all | Live plus submitted | 85.3% |
| Not accepted | Closed without a listing; by default +1 directory to choose in its place | 4.8% |
| In review | Waiting on a check or a decision | 8.1% |
| In flight | Queued, running or waiting on a badge check | 1.8% |
Base: every submission our pipeline started from 1 July to 9 November 2026 for a project with a completed, unrefunded payment to one of the directories we submit to, 8,467 in all, each in the state it held on 10 November 2026. Shares of the whole; they may not add to 100% after rounding. The outcome names are the ones a customer's report uses. Not accepted covers a directory's decline, a listing the directory removed after publishing and a submission we closed out of review.
Read as an approval rate, the 85.3% counts submissions still waiting as not approved. Take the ones with an outcome, landed or closed without a listing, and 94.7% landed against 5.3%. More submissions sit in review, 8.1%, than were closed without a listing, and in flight is the smallest part at 1.8%.
At 114 of the 169 directories we submit to that had a submission in the window, not one submission was closed without a listing: each landed or is still open. The ones that were closed sit mostly at the top of the rating scale, as the Domain Rating table further down shows.
How long does directory submission take?
The median landed submission took 27 minutes from our queue to the directory's form. 58.4% landed within the hour, 76.2% within a day, 83.9% within 48 hours and 94.1% within a week. The typical submission is fast at most directories too: at 109 of 168, the median one landed within the hour.
How long directory submission takes: the share landed within each time
| Time to land | Share of landed | In practice |
|---|---|---|
| Within 1 hour | 58.4% | The form took it in the same sitting |
| Within 24 hours | 76.2% | The same day or overnight |
| Within 48 hours | 83.9% | By the end of the second day |
| Within 7 days | 94.1% | Inside the first week |
Base: the landed submissions with a recorded time, 99.3% of the landed ones. Each row counts every submission that landed within its time, the rows above it included. The clock runs from the moment a submission entered our queue to the moment the directory's form took it; publication after that is the directory's own step. Median 27 minutes; three in four within 22 hours; nine in ten within four days. Directory medians: 168 of the 169 directories in the band tables; one sits under two records in our system and has no single median.
Directory approval time is the directory's
Landing is our half. Directory approval time, the wait between a form taking a submission and the listing going public, is the directory's half, and our terms say so plainly: “Many directories run their own review queues and approval times, which we do not control and are not responsible for.” By 10 November 2026, more than four in five landed submissions already had a live listing URL on record. The directories that publish with no queue at all are in our list of instant approval directories.
At some directories the wait has a price. Startup Inspire's free plan says “every submission is reviewed manually before it is published (usually 3 to 7 business days)”; its paid plans list “Instant Approval” from the €5 Starter up, and €19 on Growth adds “Featured badge and highlight” and “Home page visibility and traffic”.
Our own clock is the delivery commitment: most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, and every directory in your package within 21 days at most, longer if you set a daily limit in your project.
Startup Inspire's €19 Growth: “Featured badge and highlight” at one directory. Submitator's $29: 30 directories.
Startup Inspire is one of the 189 we submit to: pick it and 29 more; we write each description, fill each form and keep every badge live. 60 for $49, 100 for $79, paid once.
Month by month, July to November
The share closed without a listing stayed between 3.3% and 5.2% in every month. What moves is the share still open: 1.2% of July's submissions were still open on 10 November 2026, and the younger the month, the larger that share, because open submissions get settled over the weeks that follow. 73.4% of everything still open was created in October and November.
Directory submission results by month, July to November 2026
| Month | Submissions | Landed | Not accepted | Still open |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| July 2026 | 911 | 95.5% | 3.3% | 1.2% |
| August 2026 | 2,008 | 91.5% | 4.5% | 4.0% |
| September 2026 | 2,301 | 89.1% | 5.1% | 5.8% |
| October 2026 | 2,544 | 78.0% | 5.2% | 16.8% |
| November 2026, 1 to 9 | 703 | 67.9% | 5.1% | 27.0% |
Each submission counts in the month it was created; November runs to 9 November, so it is a partial month. Still open: in review, in flight or waiting on a badge check on 10 November 2026. Shares of each month's submissions.
Directory submission results by Domain Rating
Most of the submissions closed without a listing went to the top of the rating scale: 66.3% of them to directories at DR 70 and above, which drew 26.9% of all submissions. Those directories landed 69.8% of their submissions and closed 11.8% without one, about one in eight; they also held the most in review. Below DR 30 the directories landed 94.4% and closed 0.9%, about one in 100. How to read a rating itself is in our post on what a good Domain Rating is, and our Domain Rating checker returns Ahrefs' figure for any domain.
Directory submission approval rate by Domain Rating
| Domain Rating | Directories | Submissions | Landed | Not accepted | In review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| DR 0 to 29 | 55 | 1,800 | 94.4% | 0.9% | 3.9% |
| DR 30 to 49 | 52 | 2,426 | 89.7% | 3.1% | 6.4% |
| DR 50 to 69 | 33 | 1,967 | 89.3% | 2.3% | 7.5% |
| DR 70 and above | 29 | 2,274 | 69.8% | 11.8% | 13.8% |
Base: the same 8,467 submissions, at the 169 directories we submit to that had one in the window, each placed by its Domain Rating and group in our 3 November 2026 catalog export; rows the export marks archived stay in, as the hub table keeps them. Shares of each row's submissions; in flight is left out of the columns, so a row adds up to less than 100%. DR is each directory's in the catalog export. Domain Rating by Ahrefs
That is the case for filing widely at the top. A strong directory closes more of what it is sent without a listing, and by default each of those comes back to you as a directory to choose in its place, so it costs a pick rather than the plan.
Results by kind of directory: launch, SaaS and AI
The directories we submit to sort into three groups, the same ones as our hubs. AI tool directories landed the most, 91.2%, and closed the fewest without a listing, 1.9%. SaaS and software directories closed the most at 7.0%. Launch platforms and startup directories held the most in review, 13.7% of their submissions, more than three times the share they closed, so a submission to a launch platform is the likeliest to be waiting on a check.
Directory submission results by kind of directory
| Kind of directory | Directories | Submissions | Landed | Not accepted | In review |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Launch platforms and startup directories | 62 | 3,724 | 80.5% | 4.2% | 13.7% |
| SaaS and software directories | 56 | 3,075 | 87.8% | 7.0% | 3.6% |
| AI tool directories | 51 | 1,668 | 91.2% | 1.9% | 3.9% |
Base: the same 8,467 submissions, at the 169 directories we submit to that had one in the window, each placed by its Domain Rating and group in our 3 November 2026 catalog export; rows the export marks archived stay in, as the hub table keeps them. Shares of each row's submissions; in flight is left out of the columns, so a row adds up to less than 100%.
What the numbers mean before you file
Do directory submissions still work?
The filing works: more than four in five of our submissions landed, most of them within the hour. What a landed listing is worth comes down to its link, whether the page gets indexed and the directory's own strength, and our four tests for a directory backlink walk through each. Google's own line on directory links is quoted and answered in our post on web directories.
Expect a few to close without a listing
Fewer than one submission in 20 was closed without a listing, more at the strong end. What happens next is in our terms: “by default we credit rejections back: whenever a submission is rejected, we add +1 directory to your selection so you can choose a different one.” All Directories already covers the whole catalog, so there the rejection is recorded in your report with the reason given. A refund can be requested within 30 days of purchase, on the conditions in our terms.
The wait is the queue, not the form
Three in four landed submissions landed within 22 hours. The slow part sits after that, in a directory's own review before it publishes, and that review runs on the directory's calendar. Everything to have ready for the forms is in our directory submission checklist, and what the three ways of paying for it come to is in our post on directory submission cost.
Link building statistics: ours first, then two studies
Our part of the link building statistics is above: 85.3% of 8,467 directory submissions landed, 4.8% were closed without a listing, the median landed in 27 minutes and the closed share rises to about one in eight at DR 70 and above. The figures below are other people's, each read on its own page on 10 November 2026.
Backlink statistics from Ahrefs and Backlinko
Ahrefs studied about 14 billion pages in its index and wrote, in December 2023: “96.55% of all pages in our index get zero traffic from Google, and 1.94% get between one and ten monthly visits.” Among the roughly 20 million pages it counted with no referring domains, the ones drawing more than a thousand search visits a month came to “roughly 1 in every 6,671 pages with no backlinks”. The same page is careful about what that shows: “correlation does not imply causation”.
Backlinko analysed 11.8 million Google search results (last updated in April 2025) and found that “the #1 result in Google has an average of 3.8x more backlinks than positions #2-#10”, and that “approximately 95% of all pages have zero backlinks”. Both are correlations across many sites, and neither promises anything for one site; nothing on this page does either. For SEO statistics in general the same habit pays: take a figure from its study's own page, with the date it carries.
Directory submissions, filed for you
The record above is made of submissions Submitator files. You pick the directories in your dashboard, each one shown with its Domain Rating, out of the 189 directories we submit to; a directory is added to that catalog once a submission to it has run from start to finish. For each pick we write a description of its own and fill the form, and CAPTCHAs are handled on our side, so none reach you.
A directory that wants its badge on your site gets it through one component that carries every badge you need, and keeping each badge up from then on is our job: no commit per directory. We also run your new listing pages through IndexMachine on every order, the free indexing ($25 value) that comes with Starter, Growth and Scale, with nothing for you to connect; whether Google indexes a page is Google's call.
Starter is $29 for 30 directories, Growth $49 for 60 and Scale $79 for 100, each paid once; All Directories is $149 for the entire catalog and every directory added to it later. Startup Inspire's €19 Growth plan buys “Featured badge and highlight” and “Home page visibility and traffic” at one directory. Our $29 files 30 directories of your choosing, under a dollar each, and Startup Inspire is one you can tick.
Notes on the text. Every figure of ours comes from our submission records as they stood on 10 November 2026: submissions started from 1 July to 9 November 2026 for projects with a completed, unrefunded payment, to the 169 directories of our three category groups that received one, matched to the 3 November 2026 catalog export. Across the whole pipeline the window held 9,157 submissions; the other 690 went to article platforms and to sites outside the catalog and are not counted here. Figures are shares, medians and submission totals: no project, order or customer count, and no directory named beside its outcomes. Landed: the directory's form accepted the submission. Live: the listing URL is on record. Not accepted: closed without a listing. Time to land starts when a submission enters our queue. Startup Inspire's plan cards and the review note on its free plan come from startupinspire.com/pricing, read in euros on 10 November 2026; Startup Inspire is a directory in our catalog, and this page does not say our plan buys its Growth plan. Ahrefs and Backlinko are quoted from their own pages, read that day. Our founder is the source for how an order is handled: one description per directory, CAPTCHAs on our side, a single badge component whose badges we keep live, a directory entering the catalog after a full end-to-end submission and the IndexMachine push on each order. Prices and the indexing bonus are on our pricing page; delivery, the +1 directory on a rejection and refunds are in our terms.
FAQ
What is the approval rate for directory submissions?
On our record, 85.3% of the 8,467 submissions started for paid orders to the directories we submit to from 1 July to 9 November 2026 landed, meaning the directory's form took them, and 4.8% were closed without a listing. Of the submissions with an outcome, 94.7% landed. The rest were in review or still in flight on 10 November 2026. The closed share is highest at the top of the rating scale: about one in eight at DR 70 and above, against about one in 100 below DR 30.
How long does directory submission take?
The median submission in our record landed 27 minutes after it entered our queue; 76.2% of the landed ones landed within 24 hours and 83.9% within 48 hours. When the listing is published after that is the directory's decision. Our commitment: most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, every directory within 21 days at most, longer if you set a daily limit.
Do directory submissions still work in 2026?
The filing does: from 1 July to 9 November 2026, 85.3% of our 8,467 submissions landed, and by 10 November 2026, 72.7% of all of them already had a live listing URL on record. What a listing is worth to your site depends on its link (followed or not), whether the page is indexed and the directory's own strength, and our catalog table prints the Domain Rating and link type of every directory in it.
Is directory submission good for SEO?
A listing on a directory that reviews what it publishes gives your site a page about your product and a link from another domain, and a followed one passes equity. Nobody can promise what a link does to your rankings; what we can show is the record: 85.3% of 8,467 submissions landed, 27 minutes after queueing at the median.
Are high DR directories harder to get listed on?
On our record, yes. Directories at DR 70 and above landed 69.8% of their submissions and closed 11.8% without a listing, about one in eight; directories under DR 30 landed 94.4% and closed 0.9%. The strong ones also hold more submissions in review, 13.8% against 3.9%.
What happens when a directory rejects a submission?
Our terms say that by default we credit rejections back: whenever a submission is rejected, we add +1 directory to your selection so you can choose a different one. All Directories already covers the whole catalog, so there is nothing to swap in: a rejection is recorded in your report with the reason given. In our record 4.8% of submissions were closed without a listing, a directory's decline among the causes, and more of them at the strong end of the catalog.
Keep reading
€19 for a featured spot at one directory, or 30 directories for $29
Startup Inspire's Growth plan is €19 once for "Featured badge and highlight" and "Home page visibility and traffic" on its own site. Submitator is $29 for 30 directories you choose and $79 for 100, paid once, a description written for each one and every badge kept live.