Web Directories in 2026: What They Are and Which Still Work
Web directories sort other websites into categories, with each entry picked, described and filed by a person rather than gathered by a crawler. The big general web directories of the 2000s have closed: the Yahoo! Directory at the end of 2014 and DMOZ in March 2017. Most of the ones still working in 2026 list products, and on 23 October 2026 our catalog held 50 places to submit rated DR 60 or higher: 25 launch platforms, 17 software catalogs, seven AI tool directories and one search index.
Below: what a website directory is and how it differs from a search engine, what Google's spam policy says about directory links, which kinds still work, the strongest examples with their kind, link type and badge rule, the free web directories among them and how submitting to web directories works. One note on scope: this is about directories for websites and online products, not local business citations or the folder listing a web server shows when directory browsing is left switched on.
A web directory is a hand-sorted list of websites. The big general ones lost their job to search engines, and Yahoo!'s and DMOZ's had closed by 2017; the ones that still matter list products, as launch platforms, software catalogs and AI tool directories. Our catalog lists 50 places to submit at DR 60+, and 15 of them ask for a badge or offer one, which we place and keep live. Show My Sites, one of them, charges $10 for its Premium listing. Submitator is $29 for 30 directories you pick, with that fee included whenever Show My Sites is one of them. The choice runs across the 160+ on our where-to-submit page.
What is a website directory?
A website directory, which Wikipedia files under web directory or link directory, is "an online list or catalog of websites", sorted into categories and subcategories. An entry is usually a whole site rather than one page of it: a name, a link, a line or two of description and the category it sits in. A board of new startups, a list of AI tools and the old Yahoo! Directory are the same object at different sizes.
How do web directories work?
Someone submits a site and an editor or a moderation queue accepts or turns it down. An accepted entry gets a place in a category, often with a page of its own. What changes from one directory to the next is the price of entry. Wikipedia sorts the models into free submission, paid submission, featured listings that buy a better position and reciprocal listings that want a link back from your site. The product directories of 2026 mix them, often on a single pricing page: free with a badge, paid without one, featured for more.
Web directories vs search engines
The difference is who does the collecting. In Wikipedia's words, "Unlike search engines, which base results on a database of entries gathered automatically by web crawler, most web directories are built manually by human editors." A search engine finds your site whether you ask or not and ranks pages against a query. A directory lists you once you submit and an editor agrees, and people browse it by category as much as they search it.
Active Search Results (DR 74) sits on the search side of that line. It describes itself as "an independent Internet Search Engine", and submitting there puts your site into its index rather than onto a listing page of its own, so the table below marks it a search index.
A short history of web directories
The first was the World Wide Web Virtual Library, created by Tim Berners-Lee and described by Wikipedia as the oldest web directory; it ran from 1991 to 2005. The Yahoo! Directory began in January 1994 as Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web, the first thing Yahoo! ever offered. In October 2002 Yahoo! switched its main results to crawler-based listings and the directory's weight dropped. By its last years the free Standard route had been dropped: a site paid a non-refundable $299 to be reviewed, and the same again every year it stayed listed. Yahoo! shut the directory at the end of 2014.
DMOZ took the other road: open content, built by volunteer editors. It went live on 5 June 1998 as GnuHoo, became the Open Directory Project once Netscape bought it that October and passed to AOL along with Netscape. In April 2013 it listed 5,169,995 sites in over 1,017,500 categories, the work of 97,584 contributing editors. AOL stopped supporting it and DMOZ closed in March 2017.
Human-edited web directories after DMOZ
Human-edited web directories did not end there. DMOZ has continued as Curlie since August 2018, built on the old hierarchy, and Curlie's home page counted 3,005,056 sites in 1,031,697 categories, 92,267 editors and 92 languages on 27 October 2026, under the tag "#HumansDoItBetter". What faded is the job. A general directory used to be how people found websites; search engines took that over, and the sites still sorting the web by hand mostly serve a niche now: one kind of product, one audience.
General web directories: when they opened and closed
| Directory | Opened | Closed | How it was run |
|---|---|---|---|
| World Wide Web Virtual Library | 1991 | 2005 | Volunteer-edited, started by Tim Berners-Lee |
| Yahoo! Directory | 1994 | 2014 | Human-edited; later a $299 yearly review fee |
| DMOZ (Open Directory Project) | 1998 | 2017 | Volunteer-edited, open content |
| Zeal | 1999 | 2006 | Volunteer-built, owned by LookSmart from 2000 |
| Google Directory | n/a | 2011 | A copy of DMOZ, sorted by PageRank |
| Curlie | 2018 | Open | Human-edited successor to DMOZ |
From Wikipedia's articles Web directory, Yahoo Directory, DMOZ and List of web directories, read on 27 October 2026. The Web directory article dates DMOZ's closure to 14 March 2017 and the DMOZ article to 17 March 2017, so the text gives the month. Google Directory's opening year is not given there; it closed in July 2011. Curlie's figures in the text are from its home page, read on 27 October 2026.
Web directories and SEO: what Google's link spam policy says
Directory links carried a reputation long before 2026, and Google's spam policies still say why. They define link spam as "the practice of creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings", and among the examples sits one line about directories: "Low-quality directory or bookmark site links".
The line names a kind of directory, not every directory. Read with the definition above it, the target is a directory that exists to hand out links: no editors, no visitors, pages nobody links to. A directory people browse for products is the other kind, and four questions about your own listing tell them apart. Does Google get a followed link to your domain? Is the page in its index? Do real sites link to the directory? Will the listing still be there in a year? We go through them with examples in the four tests a directory link has to pass, and our post on nofollow, ugc and sponsored covers the first in detail.
Domain Rating sums up the third question, and referring domains are the count it is built from, which is why the big table below prints both: 46 of its 50 directories have more than 1,000 sites linking to them by Ahrefs' count. What that many links does on your side of the listing is in how many referring domains page-one results actually have.
Are web directories still relevant in 2026?
As a way to find websites, the general web directory lost to search two decades ago. As an SEO tactic, the old kind (thousands of categories, any site listed for a fee or a link back) is exactly what Google's policy line describes. If that is the question, the answer is no.
Directories built around one kind of product are a different story. Founders use them to launch, buyers use them to compare and many of them review what gets submitted, which is why their listings can answer yes to all four questions above. That is what is left of the web directory in 2026, and it is what our catalog holds. Counted by kind, here are the ones rated DR 60 and above.
Web directories rated DR 60 and up in 2026, by kind
| Kind | Directories | Dofollow in our records | Badge asked or optional |
|---|---|---|---|
| Launch platforms | 25 | 13 | 7 |
| Software catalogs | 17 | 11 | 5 |
| AI tool directories | 7 | 6 | 3 |
| Search indexes | 1 | 0 | 0 |
The 50 directories in our catalog rated DR 60 or higher, from the export of 23 October 2026, counted by kind; the table further down lists each one. Dofollow counts the link type our admin records; the badge column counts directories whose badge is required or optional.
Examples of web directories that still work
Here is what each kind looks like in practice, with one or two directories of each from our catalog.
Launch platforms
A launch platform gives a product a dated launch and a page of its own. Startup Fame (DR 84), a dofollow launch platform in our records, asks for its badge on your homepage in return for the free listing. Show My Sites (DR 71), filed with the launch platforms in our catalog, is the closest thing it holds to a classic web directory: fifteen categories, from SaaS and AI Tool to Blog, Personal Website and Forum, each listing on a page of its own set to index, follow. Its free route follows your link once your homepage links back to it; Premium drops that condition for $10, paid once.
Software catalogs
A software catalog files a product by what it does and what it replaces, with no launch day attached. SideProjectors (DR 71) lists side projects for sale and as showcases; fill in the project homepage and your page links it twice, with no rel attribute on either link. SaaSGrow (DR 62) gives each product a page with a timeline and a changelog, and 821 of its 836 listing pages carried a followed Visit link on 11 October 2026; its free route asks for its badge on your site. More of the kind are on our SaaS directories page.
AI tool directories
Directories for a single technology are the plainest case of a niche web directory. DeepLaunch (DR 72) gives each listed tool a followed link on a product page open to indexing. AI Toolz Dir (DR 69) gives each product two buttons, and all 692 links on its 346 listing pages were followed on 11 October 2026; its free listing asks for a link back on your site. The rest are on our AI tool directories page.
The strongest web directories in our catalog
If you came for the best web directories for SEO, this is the shortlist we would start from: the directories in our catalog rated DR 60 or higher, strongest first, with its kind, the referring domains behind the rating, the link type in our records and what it asks of your site. 15 of the 50 ask for a badge or offer one as an option, and placing it is our job. Names with a guide link to it.
| Directory | DR | Kind | Referring domains | Link type | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| G2 | 91 | Software catalog | 78,823 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Hacker News | 91 | Launch platform | 83,952 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Product Hunt | 91 | Launch platform | 89,272 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Startup Fame | 84 | Launch platform | 9,100 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| Twelve Tools | 83 | AI tool directory | 6,731 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| DangAI | 82 | AI tool directory | 5,344 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Findly.tools | 82 | Software catalog | 5,269 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| Indie Hackers | 82 | Launch platform | 20,227 | Nofollow | Not needed |
| AlternativeTo | 81 | Software catalog | 21,972 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Index by Dodo Payments | 81 | Software catalog | 87 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Turbo0 | 81 | AI tool directory | 5,301 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| SaaSHub | 80 | Software catalog | 11,023 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| StackShare | 79 | Software catalog | 13,800 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| PeerList | 77 | Launch platform | 7,233 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Alternative.me | 76 | Software catalog | 9,834 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Nick Launches | 76 | Launch platform | 2,989 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| Uneed | 76 | Launch platform | 4,612 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Active Search Results | 74 | Search index | 2,884 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Neeed Directory | 74 | Software catalog | 2,201 | Dofollow | Optional, we handle it |
| TinyLaunch | 74 | Launch platform | 2,483 | Nofollow | Not needed |
| Aura++ | 73 | Launch platform | 2,806 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Post Your Startup | 73 | Launch platform | 1,070 | Nofollow | Optional, we handle it |
| DeepLaunch | 72 | AI tool directory | 1,695 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| OpenHunts | 72 | Launch platform | 2,494 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| PeerPush | 72 | Launch platform | 1,795 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Tiny Startups | 72 | Launch platform | 2,445 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Show My Sites | 71 | Launch platform | 2,275 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| SideProjectors | 71 | Software catalog | 7,317 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| What Launched Today | 71 | Launch platform | 979 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Future Tools | 70 | AI tool directory | 6,093 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| AI Toolz Dir | 69 | AI tool directory | 2,126 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| Huzzler | 69 | Software catalog | 1,021 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Yo.directory | 69 | Software catalog | n/a | Nofollow | Required, we handle it |
| PitchWall | 68 | Launch platform | 5,048 | Nofollow | Not needed |
| AI Tools Inc | 67 | AI tool directory | 3,583 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| Partnero List | 66 | Software catalog | 2,227 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Startup Stash | 66 | Software catalog | 5,456 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| MicroLaunch | 64 | Launch platform | 1,935 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| DailyPings | 63 | Launch platform | 1,763 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| SaaS Hunt Best | 63 | Launch platform | 1,195 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| Super Launch | 63 | Launch platform | 1,151 | Dofollow | Not needed |
| SaaSGrow | 62 | Software catalog | 1,273 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| SiteLike | 62 | Software catalog | 10,854 | Nofollow | Not needed |
| Startup Ranking | 62 | Launch platform | 5,914 | Not recorded | Not needed |
| EasyDoFollow | 61 | Software catalog | 1,224 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| EasyLaunch | 61 | Launch platform | 1,408 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| Launch Vault | 61 | Launch platform | 1,471 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| Launchtory | 61 | Launch platform | n/a | Nofollow | Not needed |
| Startup Benchmarks | 60 | Launch platform | 1,487 | Dofollow | Required, we handle it |
| WebCatalog | 60 | Software catalog | 10,499 | Nofollow | Not needed |
The directories in our catalog rated DR 60 or higher, from our production database's export of 23 October 2026; archived directories are listed like active ones. DR, link type and badge are the catalog's fields, and link type is the one our admin records for each directory: where a guide on this site counted a directory's live listings, the guide carries that count. Kind follows the grouping of our category hubs; Active Search Results, which the hubs leave ungrouped, is marked a search index after its own home page, read on 27 October 2026. Left out of the band: Similar Labs and NextBigWhat, directories we do not submit to; Verified DR, a link-exchange service rather than a directory. Referring domains: Ahrefs' live count per host, read on 22 October 2026; n/a marks Yo.directory and Launchtory, which have no reading from that day.
That is the top of a longer list. The rest of the 160+, down to the newest additions, share one table on our where-to-submit page: the full catalog, each row with its own DR, link type and badge.
Free web directories among the strongest
Free web directories are easy to find; free ones with a followed link usually ask for something on your site instead of money. Among the rows above, the guides on this site confirm a free listing on eight that want a badge or a link back in return: Startup Fame, Twelve Tools, Show My Sites, AI Toolz Dir, DailyPings, SaaSGrow, EasyLaunch and Launch Vault. On those, the badge is what the free link costs you, and installing it and keeping it live is our side of the work. Others are free with nothing asked of your site: Product Hunt, Uneed, SideProjectors, PitchWall, SiteLike and WebCatalog. Uneed's free line shuts when the queue fills, as it did from 17 August to 11 September 2026; through us you can always launch there.
A search for free online web directories fills much of page one with local business listing sites, a different market. For websites and online products, what free costs on each kind of directory is the long answer. For a list of free web directories across the whole catalog, and for free web directory submission at that scale, start from our whole list, grouped by link type and badge rule. If you want free web directories with no reciprocal link at all, read what a badge or a link back actually trades before you rule the badge ones out.
$10 buys one directory. $29 buys 30.
Show My Sites charges $10 for Premium on its own site. Pick it among your 30 and the fee is included; 60 for $49, 100 for $79, one-time.
Submitting to web directories
Submitting to web directories takes the same kit every time and a different form every time. In order:
- Settle one set of facts: name, URL, a one-line tagline, a short and a long description, category, logo and two or three screenshots. Several directories build the card from your own page, so run your home page through our link preview checker first.
- Pick by kind first and DR second. A launch platform suits a product with a launch date, a software catalog a product people compare, a niche directory its niche. Our free DR checker reads the rating of any directory you are unsure of.
- Write each directory its own description to its own limits. The step-by-step submission guide lists the field limits of several.
- Place every badge or link back a directory asks for, then keep it there: on several of them the free link, or the listing itself, goes when the badge goes.
- Open each listing once it is live and read the link and the page: followed, pointing at your domain, not noindexed.
Who does the web directory submission
By hand, each of the web directory submission sites in the table above means its own form and description, usually an account and sometimes a badge, repeated for every directory you pick. That is the part a service takes off you; how the services that submit for you compare is on our tools page, and this is how we do it.
30 directories for $29, Show My Sites Premium included
With Submitator you pick the directories yourself, in the dashboard, with each one's Domain Rating on screen, from a catalog of 160+. We write a unique description for every directory you pick and fill in its form. Badges and link backs go on your site through one component, installed once, and we keep every one of them live, with no commit per directory. Pick Show My Sites and its $10 Premium is included in the plan.
Most directories are delivered in 24 to 48 hours, every directory within 21 days at most. By default a rejection is credited back: we add one more directory to your selection and you choose a different one. A refund can be requested within 30 days of purchase, on the conditions in our terms. Every plan also comes with free indexing by IndexMachine ($25 value).
Facts about individual directories come from our guides to them: Show My Sites (categories and its 72 newest listings, 23 October 2026), SideProjectors (23 October 2026), SaaSGrow (all 836 listing pages, 11 October 2026), DeepLaunch (80 of its 1,379 product pages, 4 September 2026), AI Toolz Dir (11 October 2026), Active Search Results (13 August 2026) and Uneed (18 October 2026). Free listings, and the followed links of the directories named in the answer on the best web directories for SEO, are as each directory's guide describes them; the guides not dated above are Startup Fame (June 2026), Twelve Tools (July 2026), Turbo0 (June 2026), DailyPings (2 September 2026), EasyLaunch (28 September 2026), Launch Vault and PitchWall (11 October 2026), Product Hunt (18 October 2026), SiteLike (30 September 2026) and WebCatalog (22 September 2026). Show My Sites' Premium price comes from its pricing page, read on 27 October 2026: "$10" and "once". Google's wording is from its spam policies page (last updated 28 August 2026) and the Wikipedia quotes from its Web directory article, both read on 27 October 2026, as were Active Search Results' home page and the St. Louis Community College library guide titled Internet Directories. The search for free online web directories is Google US, page one, 25 October 2026.
Web directory questions
What are web directories also known as?
Link directories (the other name Wikipedia gives them) and internet directories (the term St. Louis Community College's library research guide uses). Website directory means the same thing. Launch platforms, software catalogs and AI tool directories are web directories too, each one limited to a single kind of product.
How do web directories differ from search engines?
In what they hold and how it gets in. A search engine holds individual pages that its crawler collected on its own, ranked fresh for every query. A web directory holds whole sites, most of them added on request and filed under a category, so its order is set by editors and categories rather than by the words you type. And because an entry is a page on someone else's site with a link to yours, a directory listing can be a backlink, which a search result never is.
What is a human-edited web directory?
One where people, not software, decide what gets in and where it is filed, under the directory's own rules. DMOZ was the largest, with 97,584 contributing editors by April 2013, and Curlie, its successor, showed 92,267 editors on its home page on 27 October 2026. Many product directories still work the same way: a submission waits in a review queue before it goes live.
When did DMOZ and the Yahoo! Directory close?
Yahoo! announced on 26 September 2014 that its directory would close, and it shut at the end of that year, twenty years after it started in 1994. DMOZ, also called the Open Directory Project, went live in June 1998 and closed in March 2017, when AOL no longer wished to support it. It has continued as Curlie since August 2018.
What is a niche web directory?
A directory limited to one subject, region, language or kind of site, where a general web directory tries to cover everything. AI tool directories, SaaS catalogs and launch platforms for startups are niche web directories. Most active web directories in 2026 are of this kind, and they make up nearly all of our catalog.
Which free web directories are worth submitting to?
Many strong ones, usually on a condition. Among the DR 60+ directories in our catalog, the guides on this site confirm a free listing on Startup Fame, Twelve Tools, Show My Sites, AI Toolz Dir and DailyPings in return for a badge or a link back, and on Product Hunt, Uneed and SideProjectors with nothing asked of your site. A free listing tied to a badge typically keeps its followed link for as long as the badge stays up, and no longer.
What are the best web directories for SEO?
The strongest ones whose listing link is followed. In our catalog that means Startup Fame (DR 84), Twelve Tools (DR 83), Turbo0 (DR 81), DeepLaunch (DR 72) and AI Toolz Dir (DR 69): each rated DR 60 or more and dofollow in our records. A rating alone settles nothing, since a nofollow or noindexed listing passes no equity whatever the directory's DR, so the table on this page prints the link type beside the rating. Once your listing is live, open it and read the link yourself.
Keep reading
$10 for one directory, or 30 for $29
Show My Sites' Premium is $10 once, on one directory. Submitator is $29 for 30 directories you pick from 160+ and $79 for 100, with that fee included and every badge placed and kept live, one-time.